date: July 7, 2011

time: 7:30pm – 9:30pm

where: Chase Bank community room

address: 2112 15th Street at Sanchez St. in the Castro

date: Thursday, June 02, 2011
time: 07:30 PM to 10:00 PM
where: Chase Bank community room
address: 2112 15th Street at Sanchez St. in the Castro

This is our monthly business meeting, held the first Thursday of each month. It is open to all Leather girls– members and those who think they might want to join. Come check us out!

Please note that the bank will be closed, the community room is to the right of the main entrance. You are welcome to park in the lot for the duration of the meeting.

Thank you to Haven Wilde for running this story about the SFgoL in the April Society of Janus Growing Pains!

I am utterly astounded at how far the San Francisco girls of Leather (SFgoL) have come since our first meeting in June of 2010.

Let me back track a bit. In April of 2010 I was at International Ms Leather Weekend checking out the silent auction. I noticed a SFgoL shirt (from the previous incarnation of the club) as one of the items up for bidding. I was instantly intrigued. I asked around and got the names of a few of the original girls: Pilar, Sheryl D, and August Knight. I contacted them and asked if they would be willing to restart the group. “No,” they said, “but we would love for you to!”

Fast forward. We are now a member club of the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance. We have over 100 girls on our mailing list. We get between 20-30 girls at our monthly business meetings. In 9 months we’ve had more than 10 social events and have volunteered service at over 20 events. We have a huge club presence, so much so that when announcers say our club name they often pause for the excited screams they know are coming. We’ve been featured on Leatherati.com, the SF Bay Times, and the IMsL blog. To top it all off, we were recently named the Leather Alliance Best New Organization of 2010.

Before I continue the story, let me tell you more about us: we are a group of self-identified Leathergirls. Membership is not limited by race, creed, orientation or gender; however, an identification of Leathergirl is essential. Our solidarity and commonality is found in our understanding that the definition of Leathergirl involves who you are and not just how you play.

Our mission is twofold; we provide camaraderie, and a safe space to any individual who identifies as a Leathergirl. We also provide community service within and outside of the Bay Area Leather Community at large.

Sometimes I wonder how we came so far, so fast. The answer I always come to is that the girls involved in this club are incredible and the community surrounding us is amazingly supportive.

Many of our girls were deeply involved in the Leather community before coming to our club. We have quite a few party hosts from the Citadel, burlesque dancers, an Exiles’ Board member, BDSM educators, and so on. The newer girls are awesome in their own right, jumping in full force with such enthusiasm.

[The following paragraph was edited out due to size constraints in the print version.]

As far as community support, we have over 25 Supporting Members and 4 Supporting Organizations! Many hot people have purchased our “I heart SFgoL” merchandise and wear it with pride. The members of the previous SFgoL have been so encouraging and generous with their blessings. The San Francisco boys of Leather gave us all of their remaining assets after disbanding. Mr. S provided us with gorgeous Leather colors. The Big Pink House gave us a meeting space. August Knight has donated event space at the SF Citadel. DJ Mora and Daddy Vick helped us gather samples of other clubs’ bylaws when we were writing ours. The Leather Alliance has welcomed us with open arms. The community at large has donated an overwhelming amount of toiletries for our Casa de las Madres drive and brought 12 garbage bags of toys to the beer bust we co-hosted with the SF Leather Daddy’s boys for Mama’s Toys. The list just goes on and on.

Looking forward, watch out for us at IMsL- we are bronze sponsors and our Sergeant at Arms, Pink, is helping us coordinate that. We also have a May Day Fundraiser Extravaganza coming up at the SF Citadel on May 1st, coordinated by our VP, Kate. Last, we are bronze sponsors of Northwest Leather Celebration near the end of May with thanks to Angel.

I love SFgoL! We are going to have a lot to celebrate during our one year anniversary in June!

Yours in Leather,
Leland Carina
President SFgoL

date: Thursday, May 05, 2011
time: 07:30 PM to 10:00 PM
where: Chase Bank community room
address: 2112 15th Street at Sanchez St. in the Castro

This is our monthly business meeting. It is open to all Leather girls– members and those who think they might want to join. Come check us out!

Please note that the bank will be closed, the community room is to the right of the main entrance. You are welcome to park in the lot for the duration of the meeting.

Just when I think I can’t be any more proud of our girls… another month passes and they surpass my expectations once again!

This month’s most exciting news is that we were given the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance award for Best New Organization! Our member Alotta Boutte’ was named Entertainer of the Year! Sailor co-hosts a Citadel party called Transmission which was named Best New Event! I received the Rookie of the Year award. I am also happy to report that with two full tables, the SFgoL had a quite visible club presence at the dinner! So proud. The evening didn’t stop there– we did super hot play demos at Eclipse and had a sleepover at the Citadel afterward!

We have four new Full Members! Welcome to Victoria, Vivian, Keri, and Jil. We also have an amazing amount of new Supporting Members! Thanks to Cat, Ajax, Jim Remer, Miss Bee, Rio, DivineMsM, Trinity, Zap, and Daddy Raven. We voted to add the previous members of SFboL as Supporting Organizational Members, due to their generous contribution of assets that were left after they dissolved. This includes: biff, Rover, tyler, Lincoln, Jonathan, Randy, and boyjean. We also have new Supporting Organizations: Mr S Leather, Legion of Sin, and Kink.com.

We had great representation at the Mr SF Leather contest, with two girls participating in contestant fantasies, many girls volunteering, and many more attending. Also amazing was Jessie’s jock strap in leather girl flag colors! We love you Jessie.

Loren Berthelsen from Leatherati interviewed myself and Kate! The interviews are available for viewing at the following link: http://www.leatherati.com/leatherati/2011/03/san-francisco-girls-of-leather.html

Our Toiletry drive for Casa de las Madres has been so successful and the community has been so generous with donations that we have overwhelmed the shelter! Great work Sailor, Lola, and all the other girls who have been working so hard on this. Luckily, we came up with some creative storage ideas in order to save the donations to parcel out to the shelter at a slower rate. We are still collecting until May 1st!

In February we had an amazingly successful fundraiser at Debauchery at the White Horse in Oakland . Thank you to our member tehlola for organizing. Shaun, the event coordinator, was great to work with. Thank you to everyone who came out to support us.

Four of our girls attended the Mills College Sex-Positive Fair. They set up a booth where they spoke of the SFgoL and tied curious attendees up in rope. Thank you tehlola for organizing!

Zed got more girls than ever to gay skate night in Redwood City this month. The photos are adorable, I have to say: http://sfgol.org/photos/rainbow-skate-underwear-night

Other amazing things we did this month included volunteering at the Exiles’ Orientation again, taking a tour of Kink.com, and Keri helped us launch our mentor/mentee program!

In April keep a look out for us at IMsL. We are bronze sponsors and our Sergeant at Arms, Pink, is organizing our involvement. Our girls will be stuffing bags, co-hosting a breakfast with LLW, and creating a space for attendees to leave each other love notes.

Coming up on May 1st is our May Day Fundraiser Extravaganza. Kate is taking lead on this event. It will include a May Day Pole, a kissing booth (with a variety of activities you can negotiate,) a silent auction, and entertainment! Please email info@sfgol.org if you would like to contribute to the silent auction.

SFgoL is a bronze sponsor of the Northwest Leather Celebration. Pink is competing for the title with her Sir, BusDriver!

Please visit http://www.cafepress.com/SFgoL_supporters to get your very own “I heart SFgoL” merchandise and please email info@sfgol.org for information on how to become an official Supporting Member.

Thank you to the Leather community for your continued enthusiasm and support!

Yours in Leather,

Leland
President SFgoL