bikergo gal
So I finally landed my dream job.
Yep, after a year of searching, a job found me–at Burning Man no less.
And now I am poised to become the bikergo gal!
Really!
So if yo’re curious about my journey getting here, go ahead, read about my application for the Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent gig and previous to that, my pursuit of the job as Island Caretaker on the Great Barrier Reef.
from JULY 2009:
I’m going for the job as Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent.
Why am I going for a “Goode” job? Why do I think I’ve got what it takes to convey the Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle to a broad audience using social media?
This is what I wrote when I uploaded my video:
Poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge defines the aesthetic as that which engages the whole soul.
In life, I seek and find “that which engages the soul.” Then I write and speak about these aesthetic experiences for print, television, radio, and now through social media outlets such as WordPress blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
My eclectic subjects range from literary, visual, musical, and dramatic arts to culinary arts like food and wine, from encouraging my readers to be engaged with their worlds by attending festivals like Burning Man and Coachella to environmental activism such as participating in group bike rides like the First Friday ArtRides I organize or joining a Grow Food Party Crew.
I moved to the Bay Area from Ventura, California as a poet, dancer, and performer at the Renaissance Faire. My enthusiasm for coffee led me as a 20 community college student to train with Mr. Peet of Peet’s Coffee and to work for him at the Menlo Park store. My ability to convey that enthusiasm plus my love of wine (developed by visiting the tasting rooms of Napa and Sonoma) led to an invitation from the owners of Ridge to work for them in their tasting room.
I loved working at Ridge—I loved the wine, I loved the people, I loved being up there on the Ridge, driving the windy road and through the vineyards, setting out the wines on the picnic table, talking about wine with other enthusiasts. I loved the sense of family and community between the owners, winemaker Paul Draper, and all the people who worked together to put the wine on that picnic table for me to pour. I also loved taking unfinished bottles home, tasting them as the week and the wine progressed.
I worked at Ridge for a year or so, helping in the tasting room and at special events, leaving to hike the 1700 mile length of California on the Pacific Crest Trail, and then on to UC Santa Cruz for a double major in Environmental Studies and Literature/Creative Writing. Before I left, I bought as much wine as my budget could allow, storing it in my grandfather’s wine cellar back home in Ventura, California. The last bottle of that wine collection was a 1980 Montebello Cabernet Sauvignon that we opened on New Year’s Eve 2001 at the Ahwanhee Hotel in Yosemite Valley National Park.
Yes, special wine makes an occasion even more memorable.
As a grad student in education, I loved teaching my undergraduate writing and environmental studies classes so much that I realized my calling was to teach adults; my masters is in English from the University of Nevada Reno. Immediately following grad school, I moved to Art City Stone Sculpture Studios in Ventura, where I taught yoga, created and showed paintings and multimedia art, wrote poetry, and helped clients like artists and the City of Ventura to write grants and press releases. I also had a newspaper column “Art Predator” where I covered food, wine, art, and anything else that caught my fancy and I was a regular guest on a local radio program.
In addition to working in college and university classrooms full and part-time, I wrote marketing materials and hosted promotional events for a program I developed using multi-year grants I helped write. These materials included creating a website, a promotional video, brochures, newsletters and many other tools.
After many years of teaching college and working in academia, I started a blog in November 2007 to see if I wanted to use it as a teaching strategy. I found I LOVE BLOGGING, I am fascinated by social media, and I love learning about using these new tools for marketing!
Some of the events where I have, in essence, “live blogged” include:
August 2008 WordPress WordCamp SF CA
October 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference, Santa Rosa CA
January 2009 MacWorld, SF CA (press pass)
January 2009 California Cultural Tourism Symposium (press pass)
Mar/April 2009 Yosemite Nat’l Park region
June 2009 WordPress WordCamp , SF CA
June 2009 Ojai Music Festival, Ojai CA (press pass)
One thing has led to another and, to make a long story short, I am on a new career path: using social media as a writer, content provider, and social media specialist for the wine industry—as the new Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent for Murphy-Goode!
! Here’s the link to watch my video and where you can vote to
Put a poet to work in a vineyard!
http://www.areallygoodejob.com/video-view.aspx?vid=MEPRrfj1uHU
KEY DATES
June 19, 2009 — Application Closes–Video up!
Please Vote ASAP! You can only vote once per email address as far as I can tell. So if you have more than one email address…vote away! Tell your friends! Please forward!
http://www.areallygoodejob.com/video-view.aspx?vid=MEPRrfj1uHU
June 26, 2009 — Top 50 Candidates Announced–
and then you’ll need to vote again when I make the Top 50! I may even have a new URL.
July 7, 2009 — Top 10 Candidates Announced
July 17 — July 21, 2009 — Final Interviews
July 21, 2009 — Candidate Selection Announcement
The voting shows how popular someone is and whether people like the video and the persona presented. The person with the highest won’t necessarily get the job. An HR firm has been hired to select the Top 50. As I understand it, Murphy-Goode will choose the Top 10 and then the winner.
But votes will help me get noticed–whereas having only a few votes could hurt. Right now for every two people who watches the video, one votes for me, which is great.
And right now only 100 people have more than 200 votes! So all it will take is for each of you to vote and I will be in the top 100! So yes, your vote can make a huge difference in helping me make the Top 50 cut. Remember to vote for me with each of your emails.
http://www.areallygoodejob.com/video-view.aspx?vid=MEPRrfj1uHU
There’s lots of info about the contest and wine in general on my blog. Here are some posts:
Put a poet to work in a vineyard!
Father’s Day: An Excellent Excuse
Wine How To: Avoid Bad Corks and Bad Wine
Wine How To: Avoid Palate Fatigue
Thanks for voting for me! I look forward to seeing you in the wine country–if not before!
RESUME
Gwendolyn Alley, MA
Perceptive. Innovative. Collaborative. Productive. Energetic. Intuitive. Passionate.
gwendolynalley (at) yahoo DOT com
MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
ARTS/LIFESTYLE COLUMNIST, BLOGGER Created Art Predator newspaper column. Interviewed sources, researched, wrote arts and lifestyle articles and reviews 1995-1998. Featured on radio. Developed artpredator.wordpress.com blog November 2007 to present an eclectic range of arts, lifestyle, wine, food, and poetry posts. One year later, developed winepredator.wordpress.com to focus on wine.
GRANT WRITER Researched, wrote numerous grants for colleges, artists, community groups with a near 100% success rate (1994-2008). Awarded City of Ventura $5000 Literary Arts Fellowship 2004. Collaborated to write multi-million, multi-year academic program grants on service learning, learning communities, and literacy development. Awarded 5 Staff Innovation Grants from the Ventura College Foundation. Funded thousands of dollars of poetry programming with matching grants from Poets and Writers Inc.
MARKETER Publicized Moorpark College programs, conferences, events in collaboration and alone. Designed, edited, distributed program newsletters and websites in association with graphic artists and alone. Created, publicized staff development events. Promoted individual artists, gallery shows, Art City studios. Marketed yoga classes. PR for City of Ventura events. Promoted Spoken Word at Zoey’s Café in Ventura from 2001-2006. Started yahoo group.
LITERARY WRITER, VISUAL ARTIST Literary Fellow for the City of Ventura 2004. Produced three dozen broadsides of original poetry and art for ARTLIFE Limited Editions. Featured artist Nov. 2003 issue. Published essays in LA Times and VC Reporter. Co-edited and contributed five poems to the anthology between sleeps: the 3:15 experiment 1993-2005. Edited high school and college newspapers. Wrote, produced, anchored high school TV news broadcast. Contributed artwork and ideas for over 30 group shows, curated two group shows, and hung two solos shows. Featured readings at over 50 events. Currently creating audio, video, and podcasts.
EDUCATOR Over 20 years experience teaching: mountaineering, environmental studies, writing, education, literature, yoga, blogging, faculty development workshops. Worked with K-12, college and university (since 1988), community. Presented keynote address, delivered papers, hosted round table discussions, organized conferences. Taught community college developmental writing students to organize and publicize Earth Day activities and literature students to do broadsides to publicize National Poetry Month events.
ADVENTURER Backpacked 2800 miles Mexico to Canada. Led 14,000’ peak climbs in CA, CO. Cleaned climbs in WY, Utah, CA. Participated in Burning Man 10 times 1992-2007. Traveled over 100,000 miles in a VW van. Aided endangered species recovery.
EXPERIENCE
1997- present Ventura County Community College District, Ventura, CA
1997-2000, 2003-present, Ventura College, adjunct, English
• Fall 1999 Full time emergency hire, English
2000-2003, Moorpark College, Full time, grant facilitator
• Fall 2000, Spring 2001 adjunct faculty, English
• Fall 2001-Fall 2003, adjunct faculty, Education
1995-present Back Alley Productions, Ventura, CA
Owner, Writer, Editor, Instructor
• Created marketing and communication materials for Art City and artists
• Wrote grants for artists, Midtown Community Council, Artists Union
• Developed, marketed, taught yoga at various venues
2002-2003 California State University Northridge, Northridge, CA
• Adjunct, graduate education: philosophy, critical pedagogy, research
1995 City of Ventura Community Services, Ventura, CA
• Development Assistant: grant writing, fund raising
• Media Assistant: wrote media releases, generated stories
EDUCATION
1997 University of Nevada Reno NV Master of Arts, English
1991 University of California, Santa Cruz, CA Graduate Certificate, Education
1988 University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, Double Major
———Bachelor of Arts, Literature/Creative Writing,
———Bacjelor of Arts, Environmental Studies
KEYWORD SUMMARY
Perceptive. Innovative. Collaborative. Productive. Energetic. Intuitive. Passionate.
gwendolynalley AT yahoo DOT com
Key Dates:
June 19, 2009 — Application Closes
June 26, 2009 — Top 50 Candidates Announced
July 7, 2009 — Top 10 Candidates Announced
July 17 — July 21, 2009 — Final Interviews
July 21, 2009 — Candidate Selection Announcement
August 15, 2009 — Work Begins
Below is Island Reef Job info:
Above is the video on my Art Predator YouTube Channel. What do you think? I’m thrilled! Go here to read “The Making of My Backyard”
On this page, you’ll find some posts and pages helpful for evaluating my application for the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD: caretaker on Hamilton Island, one of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia! You can also see my profile here: http://islandreefjob.ning.com/
I’ve been blogging here as Art Predator since November 2007. My existing posts and pages offer lots of background information about me including:
about art predator
statement, cv
broadsides, videos
After years of teaching community college and university classes in environmental studies, writing, literature and education full and part-time, last summer I decided “to find a new path to the waterfall” to quote Ray Carver’s poem “Looking for Work” from his collection A New Path to the Waterfall. I wanted to explore other kinds of writing and teaching experiences, especially in the new and growing field of social media, and I wanted to be more engaged in environmental problem solving.
The job of caretaker on an Island of the Great Barrier Reef seemed not only like the Best Job in the World, but the perfect one–I’m a college educated writer, blogger, educator, journalist, photographer, environmentalist and outdoor adventurer with experience in print, radio, tv, blogging and YouTube.
Here’s my first post about the job from January 14, 2009: Help Art Predator Land the Best Job in the World–in AUSTRALIA!
Since then, I’ve been doing research on the position and the Reef, and working on script ideas. I used info from the article below, from BBC News:
A geography background, any experience of wildlife management, a role as a forest warden, some kind of outdoor role involved in monitoring and observing – that’s going to put you ahead of 75% of the other applicants 
Corrine Mills, HR adviser
Got that one down! I have a degree in environmental studies and graduate work in conservation biology, ecology, and geography, plus I’ve worked for the Peregrine Fund hack site attendant, for the US Forest Service as a wildlife biologist hooting for spotted owls, plus I’ve done a goshawk nesting survey as well as other volunteer ornithological projects. And they do have birds there, wonderful birds–not just fish!!
Google Ocean Shows Off Great Barrier Reef & more
There are a number of other posts on the site as well.
Google Ocean Shows Off Great Barrier Reef & more
There are a number of other posts on the site as well.
An article about the BEST JOB IN THE WORLD as caretaker I found here: Best job in the world
A short list of 50 Applicants was announced March 2. Unfortunately, I was not on the list.
