Help me to get to the US!!

Coming in July '09 is the Puppeteers of America's biennial festival, and I want to go! (Read more here)

Help me get there by donating to my NPF 09 Fund! In exchange, you'll get to read all about my trip in a special 'liveblog' experience, with details about the events and workshops, read reviews of shows, and see all the pictures I take as it happens; you'll also be able to read much of my notes from the workshops I go to. (I did something similar last year for the big puppetry festival in Perth) Luckily the venue, a college campus, has wireless internet available for attendees, which makes it ideal for liveblogging.

The five day festival is packed with events, for which I'm hoping to attend the following workshops

• Working with dialogue (puppetry scriptwriting)
• Costume puppet - design and performance
• Papier mache marionettes
• A forum with people who perform at the festival, and insight into their work
• Control mech's for rod and shadow puppets
• And a Wayang Golek (Indonesian shadow puppetry) intro

As with my Perth trip, I'm trying to create an itinerary that offers both the chance to extend my skills and learn something new; and undertake activities that I'm genuinely interested in (sadly a good class on toy theatre is to be missed due to my wish to attend a conflicting class). Additionally, there is

• A puppet store, where I could buy or sell puppets, as well as pick up books or materials not found in Australia (especially books, since I usually have to order them from overseas anyway). For those interested, I'm going to try and pick up some antron fleece
• An exhibition for which I'll be applying to showcase a couple of my shadow puppets
• Nightly performances from a range of American companies, as well as films
• Opportunities to take part in, or at least watch, late night short performances (even though I'm not a performer, I have regrets of not at least having a go when I went to a Sth Korean puppetry festival)
• A job fair (!)
• Plus a chance to do some sightseeing - I'll be an Aussie in Atlanta! I'm also doing a side trip to Washington DC, and there's even a chance to meet up with my distant American relatives whom I've never met

I want to fill up my trip with as many things to do and see as possible, so the more you donate, the more I can do! You can do this three ways:

1. You can simply donate, using the button at my site (at bottom of post)
2. You can become a member of my site, which costs $10.95, which will go straight into the fund (becoming a member also gets you a discount on my products, as well as access to members' only info on my site and posting priveleges in my forums)
3. You can purchase my products and profits of any sales will go towards my trip fund

Please help me get to the festival - it not only means more training for me, but also translates to better tutorials and patterns that I can add to my site, and help people learn about puppetry. Give a hoot; support puppetry!