Hey friends,
Hard to imagine it’s been almost a year since our last chat, and we’re already on the road to the next Desert Bus for Hope marathon. In fact, if you hadn’t heard already, we’re ready to roll on November 8th, at 3 PM PST. There’s a handy, yet terrifying countdown on this very site, ticking the seconds away.
We’re already posting amazing Craftalong submissions on our social media accounts, with more prize previews on the way. Plus, in the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing shift lineups–including a couple of entertainment volunteer shakeups, guest announcements, and this year’s spicy shirt reveal, so stay tuned!
What’s happened in the meanwhile? I’m glad you asked! Our friends at Child’s Play let us take over their PAX West Booth, so we had the brilliant idea to bring a chair and inflict Desert Bus on passersby.
We also had our first third ever panel at a convention! Thanks to Cory from Broadcast and the VideoStrikeTeam, you can watch the hour-long recounting of some behind-the-scenes stories (and some prize previews) here.
Folks who attended either of these events, or visited our very impromptu booth, were encouraged to sign the LoadingReadyRun bandland banner, which was lovingly converted into a Desert Bus for Hope banner with the help of our community. We’ll be giving this away as a prize during the run this year, so keep your eyes peeled for this very special and unique item.
All of these happenings were courtesy of the Desert Bus Live Events Working Group, which Andrew introduced in our previous blog post last year. Given the success of our PAXWest 2024 endeavors, we’re looking forward to even more opportunities to connect with our fans in person.
Speaking of Andrew though, you may have already noticed a change to the organizational structure this year via this very blog post! I (PJ) beat the heck out of him in rounds of Clayfighter 63 1/3, and I am now the Communications Captain (Director? Champion? Coordinator?). Actually, in all seriousness, I’ve been promoted from Deputy to join the leadership of the Desert Bus Working Group while Andrew has spun off of the Comms team to form a new team, which he continues to not have a good name for yet., They’re going to be focused on handling our relationships with external folks; our partnerships with other groups, our PR & media, and sponsorships. This department is also going to include managing our guests for the run, giving Kathleen a well-deserved break from the bus to work on some fun personal projects. You’ll see at least one new face this year on his new team, as well as a few other new volunteers on other teams as well!
It is astonishing to think that we’re about to embark on our 18th run this year, and so soon. We’ll be in contact again here before we kick off on November 8th. If you’re still using social media, keep up with us on Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, or (sigh) Twitter. In addition to those, plenty of fans and I hang out in the #desertbus channel on the LoadingReadyRun Discord server.