We would love to have your feedback to ensure that this committee accurately reflects the wants and needs of Can’t Stop the Serenity supporters.

You can read the proposal here, and post your feedback in our forum, as a comment here, or via email to Jen and Anne.

We would appreciate your feedback by 13 November 2009.

Can’t Stop the Serenity is now in it’s fourth year, and with the dedication of Browncoats across the globe, the event gets bigger and more successful each year. Take a look back to see just how far we’ve come!

2006 – $65,900.24 raised by 41 cities in 5 countries
2007 – $106,165.69 raised by 42 cities in 7 countries
2008 – $107,219.15 raised by 45 cities in 4 countries

And now, in 2009, together we have grown to 56 cities in 7 countries. And already we’ve confirmed donations of over $116,000 with more to come!!

Receipients of Can’t Stop the Serenity 2009 fundraising so far include Equality Now (who have received a staggering $104,764.02 with more to come), Kids Need to Read, The Greater Boston Food Bank, Al Wooten Jnr Heritage Centre, Donors Choose, Humane Society, PDX Browncoats Inc, BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre Foundation, Nashville Cares, MADCAP Cinema, Women’s Foundation of Southern Arizona, and The House of the Good Shepherd.

Our amazing volunteer organisers have outdone themselves this year, and the Browncoat community has come out in droves to support this year’s events. So, THANK YOU! You are all mighty!

We still have some cities who are finalising their donations, so this figure will continue to grow.

And in case you thought that this year was pretty much done and dusted… think again! We have an amazing season finale in the works, which we’ll be announcing very very soon.

We’ve had a fantastic year of Can’t Stop the Serenity events, and we’re on our way to reaching our goal of $150,000 for Equality Now.  Our upcoming Last Hurrah Charity Auction in November will be your last chance to contribute to our 2009 Global Donation, as well as an opportunity to win some fantastic prizes.

We are currently looking for more awesome prizes to add to the auction.  If you have any Whedonverse items that you’d like to donate, please contact Jen. Items will need to be received by 31 October 2009.

100% of the auction proceeds will be donated to Equality Now.

We’re reaching the end of Can’t Stop the Serenity 2009 with just one month of events left to go! Around half of our 55 participating cities have finalised their donations to Equality Now and local charities, and our Global Donation Tally is currently just over $85,000. Please help us all achieve our goal of raising $150,000 by supporting our October events.

UPCOMING EVENTS…

Salem, MA US – 16 October (Dr. Horrible) – Affiliate Event
Cinema Salem will be holding it’s last CSTS 2009 Affiliate Event screening of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Bring your evil laugh back to the heart of Salem for one last night of sing-along fun for a good cause!

Logan, UT US – 24 October 2009 (Serenity & Dr Horrible)
The Utah Browncoats will be hosting the first of two charity screenings of Serenity for Equality Now in Logan, Utah. Join us at Utah State University’s Eccles Science Learning Center (Emert Auditorium, Room 130) for a night of film and fun for a great and worthy cause. Come early. Stay late. The festivities will kick off at 3pm and end at 10pm. We will be showing Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog at 6:30 pm, followed by a screening of Joss Whedon’s Serenity at 7:30 pm. A fund-raising auction will follow, with some stunning prizes up for grabs. Tickets cost just $10 Adults / $8 Students. Plus, there will be freebies, raffles and some very special surprises! For more information, visit the Utah Browncoats.

Dublin, Ireland – 25 October 2009 (Dr Horrible) – Affiliate Event
GaelCon is hosting Dublin’s very first CSTS event, with a screening of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog. GaelCon, presented by the Irish Games Association, takes place at D4 Hotels, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, from 24-26 October. Contact GaelCon at info@gaelcon.com or phone (+353) 085 147 68 50 for more information.

Salt Lake City, UT US – 29 October 2009 (Serenity)
The Utah Browncoats will be hosting the second of two charity screenings of Serenity in Salt Lake City, Utah. Come along to Brewvies Cinema Pub (200 West and 700 South) on Thursday, October 29th from 6:30pm until 10:00pm. The fun will officially begin at 7:15pm, so you’ll have plenty of time to find the best seats in the house. This years event will be run as wild as a three ring circus, but in the good kind of way, not in the Marx Brothers or Three Stooges kind of way. More information about ticket prices, auctions, raffles and more will be posted soon on the Utah Browncoats website.

Auckland, New Zealand – Date to be announced (Dr Horrible) – Affiliate Event
The City of Auckland will be the host of this year’s New Zealand CSTS festivities. Details are still being finalised, but look forward to an announcement soon!

Memphis, TN US – Date to be announced (Dr Horrible) – Affiliate Event
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog will be coming to Memphis as part of this CSTS Affiliate event. Details are still being finalised, but look forward to an announcement soon!

We regret to advise that the planned events in Fresno, CA US, Honolulu, HI US and Potsdam, NY US will not take place. For a full listing of events, please click here.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

While screening events may end on 31 October, Can’t Stop the Serenity 2009 will be busy in November! We’ll be tallying up all of the donations from our amazing volunteer teams across the world, and gearing up to announce this year’s Global Donation to Equality Now. We anticipate an announcement on 1 December 2009.

To give our 2009 efforts one last extra push towards our goal of raising $150,000 for Equality Now and local charities, we will be holding a Last Hurrah Auction throughout November. More details will be announced soon, so keep an eye on our website for updates on some of the amazing prizes up for grabs.

And don’t forget that you can always make a donation via our Global Facebook Cause. All donations go directly to Equality Now, and will be added to this year’s Global Donation Tally (which will be announced on 1 December 2009).

We’re delighted to have seen our Twitter following grow to 835 supporters, and this has resulted in a donation of $84 to Equality Now.

You can also celebrate Serenity Day by donating to Equality Now via our Global Facebook Cause page.

We’ve raised $314 via our Facebook Cause so far.

Thank you to each and every one of you!!

Over 80 media outlets have been broadcasting the signal about Can’t Stop the Serenity and Equality Now, and we’d like to take a moment to say thank you.

We’ve received wonderful support from entertainment news outlets, regional newspapers, technology blogs, podcasts and a wide range of bloggers.  We’re also thankful to the radio stations who have given our volunteers airtime to share their excitement about our events.

To find out who was talking about your local event, head on over to our Can’t Stop the Serenity Press page.  And if you know of any media mentions we’ve missed, please let us know.

Thank you to each and every one of you who has helped us broadcast the signal and spread the word about Can’t Stop the Serenity.

We’re delighted to announce that we have donation confirmations from six more cities, which brings our total raised so far to $74,848.57 (as of September 16, 2009, from 22 cities). This fantastic total includes $66,750.59 donated to Equality Now and $8,097.98 to other charities. But we’re not done yet, so please continue to support CSTS events. We’re hoping to top last year’s Global Donation of $107,219.15!! We’ve got more cities on board than ever before, so let’s raise the roof for Equality Now!!

WHY WE ARE HERE

As we draw towards the end of the 2009 season of Can’t Stop the Serenity, it’s more important than ever to remember the importance of why we are here.

Imagine that you are a young girl of twelve years old. Twelve is a magical age, where life is poised to leave childhood behind while reaching out toward the mysteries of women. Dolls sit on shelves but remain dear friends and babysitting becomes something to strive for, to feed the blossoming feminine need to nurture as well as to earn money for little dreams. Yet for Fawziya Abdullah Youssef, a 12-year-old Yemeni girl who should have been a flower girl instead of a child-bride, life ended at this young age – awash in pain and blood. Fawziya bled to death after three days of hard labor, a child forced to become a mother before her time.

Child brides are commonplace in Yemen, particularly in areas where tradional conservative beliefs hold sway. More than half of Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18. “Child marriages violate the rights of children in the most deplorable way,” states Ann M. Veneman, executive director of the United Nations Children Fund. “The younger the girl is when she becomes pregnant, the greater the health risks for her and her baby. Girls who give birth before the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s.” The Yemeni government has been seeking to end this practice and to introduce a minimum age for marriage, but these efforts have been thwarted by conservative parliamentarians (click here for more).

Learn more about this outdated practice and how you can help end it in the latest edition of Why We Are Here (VII).

OUR MAIN CAUSE – EQUALITY NOW

Equality Now works across the globe for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women around the world. One area that they are currently working in is the issue of forced divorce in Saudi Arabia. This practice is on the increase, and Equality Now needs your help to fight it.

In 2003, a young woman named Fatima Bent Suleiman Al Azzaz married Mansour Ben Attieh El Timani with the consent of her father (her guardian) as required in Saudi Arabia. The couple was happily married and had two children, a girl Nuha, born in May 2004, and a boy Suleiman, born in November 2005. However, in 2004, after the death of her father, Fatima’s half brothers filed a petition in the General Court of Jof asking the judge to divorce her from Mansour on grounds of incompatibility, because Mansour was from an “inferior background” and the marriage “affected and ruined the family reputation.” The judge who applied his interpretation of Islamic law (shariah) agreed, stating that “if a woman is married to an incompatible person, the woman or guardians who are not happy with the marriage may have it invalidated.” The judge stated that all relatives of a woman have the right to have her divorced specifying that “such a choice belongs to distant relatives even if closer ones accept the marriage, and even if the wife is content with it, owing to the resulting sense of disgrace.” The judge decreed Fatima and Mansour’s divorce, even though this was against their will, and assigned one of Fatima’s half brothers as her legal guardian. On appeal, the Cassation Court, the highest court in Saudi Arabia, upheld this decision.

Fatima refused to recognize the decision of the court and, as a result, was sent to prison for nine months along with her infant son, despite the fact that she had not committed any crime under Saudi law and there was no legal basis for her imprisonment. After finally being released from prison in April 2007, Fatima and her son went to live in an orphanage run by the Ministry of Social Welfare, because she refused to be released into the custody of her new legal guardian, her half brother, and, as a woman, custom dictates that she cannot live by herself. Fatima is largely confined to the orphanage with her child and is unable to move around freely. Mansour also refused to sign the divorce papers and consequently has been “blacklisted” by the Saudi government. He has not been able to renew his passport, identity card or driver’s license or to update his bank account. He is constantly moving, along with his four year old daughter, because he is “wanted” by the Saudi government. As a result, he has not been able to keep his job at a computer company, and his ability to support himself and his family has been compromised. He depends on relatives and donations to support himself and his daughter.

The judgment of the Cassation Court can only be overturned by the King of Saudi Arabia. Fatima, now 35 years old, has stressed that she will not give up hope of being reunited with her daughter and husband. She believes that her inheritance from her father is one of the reasons her half-brothers petitioned for her divorce, allowing them through legal guardianship to retain control over her property.

Equality Now is fighting for Fatima’s rights as a woman, mother and wife. Read Equality Now’s Women’s Action to learn how you can add your voice to the global call for the rights of women to be upheld in Saudi Arabia. You can also sign a petition demanding that His Majesty, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud put an end to forced divorce in Saudi Arabia.

OTHER CAUSES

While the majority of profits from a screening go to Equality Now, organizers can choose to donate up to 25% to other charities of their choice. Many choose to give to local charities or other global charities that have special meaning to Browncoats. This week, we’d like to tell you about The House of the Good Shepherd, which is being supported by CSTS Chicago.

The House of the Good Shepherd is a shelter and recovery program for battered women and their children that works to end the cycle of domestic violence in the Chicagoland area. The women and children in the 3.5-month program receive intensive counseling, education, and help to heal, regain their dignity and become self-sufficient. Each family has a private apartment where they practice independent living skills and prepare themselves for lives as healthy families. The House also provides a learning center where the women work on their education and job goals, a child care center and an aftercare program that promotes long-term recovery. 91% of the women in the program leave their abusers and go on to make productive lives for themselves and their children, and 83% of all donated funds goes directly to the program.

THANK YOU!!

Once again, we want to take this opportunity to thank you. Yes, you. By supporting your local events, by encouraging your friends to attend, by Spreading the word and by giving generously, you are helping the hundreds of volunteers who form Can’t Stop the Serenity to raise much needed funds and awareness for Equality Now and other worthy charities.

And to all the dedicated volunteers who have given their time, energy, creativity and hearts to help create such wonderful events, and to all our amazing sponsors and supporters… Thank you!!

Twelve is a magical age, where life is poised to leave childhood behind while reaching out toward the mysteries of women. Dolls sit on shelves but remain dear friends and babysitting becomes something to strive for, to feed the blossoming feminine need to nurture as well as to earn money for little dreams. Yet on September 11th, for Fawziya Abdullah Youssef (a 12-year-old who should have been a flower girl instead of a child-bride) life ended – awash in pain and blood.

Fawziya bled to death after three days of hard labor, a child forced to become a mother before her time. For most WOMEN it is a traumatic experience (pain of any kind for anyone is debilitating) but to force a CHILD to suffer through it for THREE days is a devastating commentary of sadness and disbelief. Yet, Fawziya is not the first Yemeni child-bride, nor is she to be the last. Unless something is done now to educate and legislate changes to protect these girls from the same kind of horrors Fawziya suffered through, thousands more will follow in her bloody footsteps. Without a minimum statutory age, there is no way to even begin to punish those responsible for this sick slavery.

This is where the hard working efforts of organizations like Equality Now help to make a difference all over the world.

Recent reports find that anywhere between 25% to 50% of the females in Yemen are married off before the age of fifteen – giving them the ghastly earned sobriquet of “the brides of death.” Many like Fawziya (married at a mere 11 years of age) are traded off like cattle to cousins and/or for the promise of high dowries. Little girls and young women without a chance to pursue their own dreams. Do you remember when you were 11 or 12? Do you know of a girl now who is that age? Can you imagine the horrors of being forced into maternal servitude without a say, to anyone with enough collateral to buy you?

Can you imagine dying after three days of horrific pain, giving birth to a stillborn baby – alone and unprepared? Now imagine it if you went through it as a child.

Don’t stop there – use that anger and disbelief and turn that energy toward something positive. Use it to do something, anything because there is always hope when good folk get together. It only takes a minute (at the very least) to donate something to an organization for change, like Equality Now. If you want to do more, you can write letters, speak out in blogs, twitter or get the word out via other social networking sites. Go to one of the remaining CSTS events to not only have a great time, but to donate to Equality Now so they can do more to bring balance to this impoverished area of the world.

If 8-year-old Nojud Mohammed Ali can fight the system in Yemen, and win – just imagine what we can all do together. When her father married her off to a man 20 years older than her, she fought and was granted a divorce. Because of her courage, others are becoming aware of their own rights for childhood, education and the chance to become what they want to be. So it doesn’t matter how old you are, if you fight the good fight, you can make a difference and bring about change.

Join with me in supporting these girls and women and do something for the greater good of all of humanity. Donate your time, talents and pocket change to Equality Now – because that’s what us Browncoats do best. This is the best way I know of “aiming to misbehave.”

Warm Regards,
Anne

What if we tell you that there is a way you can help make a difference to raise money for Equality Now and all it would take is maybe a minute of your time?  Sound good?  Well here’s the scoop.

There’s a contest for your favorite charity at:

http://www.ilovechristiecookies.com/contest/form.asp

The link isn’t listed in the drop down menu yet, but with a few more votes it should be up there soon.  So where’s what you need to do.

1.  Click on the drop down menu (“Check to see if your favorite charity is already listed.”) to see if Equality Now is listed.  If it is, click on it and proceed to fill out your information and vote!  (Amanda Sullivan should be the Charity Contact Name)

2.  If it isn’t there, click on the 2nd drop down menu (“Don’t see your charity listed?  Click here add yours.”) and enter in Equality Now.  Fill in the information, use Amanda as the Charity Contact Name and send in your vote.

3.  Tell everyone you know about this and have them go and vote too!  There are 12 prizes in all ranging from first: $10,000, second: $5,000, and 10 prizes of $1,000 each.  There is only one vote per email address (so if you have multiple emails you can use them) The more we pass this on, the better chance we have to raise even more money for Equality Now.

Nominations must be submitted on or before October 15, 2009. The winning charities will be announced in November 2009.

SO let’s get out there and do our part to help Equality Now!  We can show them the big voices and hearts of gold, CSTS and Browncoats everywhere have to do good.

I have here, right here before me… that precious bit o’email from Amanda at Equality Now!

What email you ask?  Well for those of you who mighta missed our little missive earlier, it contains two very special names – the names belonging to the shiny winners in part one of the global prize draw…

Even I can’t stop the serenity – so now, without any further ado and/or and procrastination of the special shiny announcement – here we go.

✺❥✺ JOHNNY YARBROUGH ✺❥✺
of Chicago!❣

✶✳✸✷✵✹✺  CONGRATULATIONS❢  ✺✹✵✷✸✳✶

From all of us here at CSTS central, we say thanks for supporting our awesome sauce cause by supporting your local organizers and whoot for winning!  Be sure to keep checking back because we have more things to share and we’ll also be drawing for the rest of the festive prizes in a couple months.

Also, a very special thank you to Amanda Sullivan/Equality Now for agreeing to be our lovely random name/prize puller!  What a team we make and what a way to make a difference!

Have a fantabulous Labor Day Weekend!

Warm Regards,
Anne