In a (rare) email to their list, the Seattle LGBT Community Center insists that they're not only still around, but planning for several upcoming upcoming services and events, including a QueerFest at Volunteer Park on Pride weekend. (A volunteer request for "march monitors" suggests that they're also planning to host a Pride march on Broadway. That's not explicit, however.)

The year's theme is of this year's QueerFest is "Green with Pride". [And, hey, at least they deserve credit for avoiding what was surely a temptation to use the overdone word "Change" in the theme title.]

Our goal is to lower the environmental impact of a large-scale community celebration. The focus of this event is to bring our community together to celebrate our arts, talents, and lives.

"Think of it this way," the email says, "The Center is most assuredly NOT going away. The Center is growing up!"

Where the Center will finally end up is not yet clear. That's all part of their 18-month business plan to "restructure The Seattle LGBT Community Center." For now, though they have moved into a temporary location, sharing space with Equal Rights Washington at 209 Harvard E.

They say in the email

We are looking into options for either a centrally located Capitol Hill address to accommodate the needs of the expanded Center or a building site for the creation of the new Center.

The Center apparently has at least a partially-filled board of directors that has been, the email says, "working on our 2008-2011 business plan." One of the goals of that business plan, however, is to "Fill in the remaining board openings". 

They assure the mailing list that "we are now ready to start moving toward our realigned goals and expansion plans."

[And what's more appropriate for a group that's just gone through a spectacular flame-out than "expansion plans"?] 

These are the goals they've set out for themselves in an attempt to justify their continued existence:

• Expansion of Resource and Referral services which will provide increased hours of operation,
• Build a companion online network for easy access to service information and links to other organizations,
• Create the new Purple Pages
• Have funding banked to provide for 1 years operating budget
• Delivering a fully funded Queer Fest
• Continued support for Queer Art

The Center promises that "We will further be flushing out our revitalized mission, to include more services to the elder community, drop in facilities and more."

And, of course, they want some of your money so that can do at least some of this. They accept donations at www.seattlelgbt.org.

And -- then too -- they want volunteers to do all that stuff that the board has identified. Some of the tasks:

• Resource and Referral phone support
• Computer and technical support
• Special event  support (this is a category all by itself)

They're also hoping to get about 250 volunteer to make QueerFest happen. Here are the types of positions we need volunteers for:

• Production assistants
• Information booth attendants
• March monitors
• Crowd monitorsTraffic monitors
• Donation bucket monitors
• Recycling monitors