At some point in time, I will make The Alpha & Omega Society official as a registered foundation.
But in the meanwhile, I continue to plan for the establishment of a Retreat Community to be part of the A&O Soc..
My game plan has been to acquire between 25 & 100 acres of land and to set up an Artist/Spiritual Retreat. The slogan I have started to attach to the A&O Soc. is " supporting creative influx".
The goal is to create a living/working environment that combines some residential structures (to maintain the operation) and mostly temporary housing in the form of cabins, campsites, and RV hook-ups, these being connected to an assortment of studio spaces relative to the Arts & Crafts necessary to produce Film & Theatre. I have coined that "The Theatrical Development Centre"
I am currently interested in this facility being in upper Bucks County, because that location is close enough to the current location of IMS that we can use the shop to construct a number of things and it is less than an hour away. Originally, I had thought somewhere in central Pennsylvania might be good and I was looking for land in Sullivan County. That thinking was determined by locating the retreat in a remote location with access off of Route 80, central to major routes and somewhat equidistant to New York, Chicago and Washington. But further evaluation of those locations brought the conclusion that access to supplies and an increase in travel & heating costs (among other considerations) made that concept less practical. After a change in thinking, I began looking at the Poconos, which I still like. We looked at more than one campground already in existence and that remains a possibility. But my current thinking is to locate in Nockimixon Township, preferably within eyeshot of the lake.
I've always, since I was 20, wanted to build and run my own theatre. I've worked managing three separate movie theatres, two of which were multiplexes and and an assortment of live theatre stages during my career as a theatre artist/technician/Stage & House Manager/Technical Director/actor/writer/designer/filmmaker...
So, the idea of building a theatre up around Lake Nockimixon is feeling quite good to me. It's close enough to my shop that I don't need to pull up stakes to make that happen. That is the current thinking. With enough land to create a retreat environment that is attached to a theatre, The Theatrical Development Centre (TDC) can become a larger reality.
Initially, TDC was a concept that hinged on this concept of a Retreat Community, but since I have been setting up shop in Southampton, I have decided to make The Theatrical Development Center a sub-division of Image of the Mind Studios. Eventually, IMS may come under the purview of The Alpha & Omega Society, unless IMS becomes funded and converted to a major corporate studio operation.
As it stands now there is a business structure that involves four separate business operations, which is in the Business Plan that is attached to The Gnomes of New Hope. I'll discuss that on IMS Producing Partners (which for now is a members only site). Anyone who wants to see that plan can discuss it with me. Initiate a dialogue via email.
I will post more often regarding the Retreat Community. I'm beginning to reconstitute my thinking and my notes on this subject.
Years ago, I had a pocket sized notebook that was filled with notes and designs for this community that I wanted to build. Well, let me offer some advice; don't use a pocket notebook for important information. I say this because that notebook, filed with extensive details and designs, disintegrated in the washer machine when I left it in the pocket of my shirt! When that happened I felt like I got slammed in the head with a baseball bat and has taken me over fifteen years to recover from that shock. The designs are starting to come back into my mind and I am beginning to reconstitute them. I guess part of the reason for that is that; there needs to be some degree of reality surrounding a concept before any sense if viability can come about.
With the impending release if The Gnomes of New Hope; Zach and Zebby's Grand Adventure, there seems to be the possibility of sufficient resources to look again at these ideas as if they could in fact become a reality.
For my part, I need to begin to transfer my life's work and resources to someplace where they can be useful and remain intact, because, quite frankly, I could drop dead at any time and these thing need to be taken care of.
I welcome dialogue via email or Facebook.
