Volunteer and Win The Shirt Off My Back

Look, I  don't don't want to freak anybody out, least of all me, but Irish Fest opens in just 71 days. That's the average gestation period for a guinea pig.  71 days will be gone faster than your first pint on a Friday evening.

71 days. 1100 volunteers. That means–excuse me while I break out the abacus–assuming a base of let's say 200 existing volunteers (a number I got from the research department of the University Of Pulleditoutofmyarse) we need to pick up about 13 volunteers a day between now and the time the big green gates open. You may call me naive, you may call me starry-eyed, you may call me a dreamer (but I'm not the only one), but I think we can do it.

Here's what I'm going to do to grease the wheels a bit. This Saturday at the Browne's Irish Street Faire, we will have a tent set up where we'll be signing up volunteers. The 13th person that signs up that day will receive from my personal collection a genuine, fest-worn (but laundered), unavailable at any price, Kansas City Irish Fest board of directors shirt, size large.

This is not the t-shirt you'll get as a Fest volunteer, although those are awesome, too. This is not even the very coveted t-shirt the KCIF staff wear. This is a high quality embroidered polo shirt that will tell the world, completely inaccurately, that you at one time were a member of the most elite group of Irish Fest pros on earth: the Kansas City Irish Fest directors. Think of the the scene you'll cause wearing this shirt around. Men will cower, women will drool, or vice versa, depending.

Wow. If I didn't already have a closet full of the damn things, I'd try to win myself.

Now, one little detail. If you come up and ask how many people have signed up and then try to hover around to grab that 13th spot, we're on to you. We won't tell you how many signees we have until we hit that lucky 13th. But if you miss it, who knows, maybe if we hit 26 maybe we'll give something else away.

So let's go, volunteers! Join Irish Fest! We need you! And I need to clean out my closet!

Addendum: This just in from fellow bigwig Erin Kiekbusch:

"I will sweeten the pot! I will give the 17th person to sign up, an authentic female-cut board of directors polo shirt. (same description as uncle bloggys) I can't promise that mine will be clean though. ;)"