by Tom Kovach
The theme for 2023 is best summed up in the words of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard: One impossible thing at a time. They say never to bury the lede, so let me start with the best piece of news. Each year the Board of Directors sets the goals for the school through the strategic plan and the annual budget. All but two of the 20 goals from the 2023 Plan have been met, and the remaining goals are nearly complete. The most difficult goal came from the budget: Turn around the consecutive years of loss and get to the break-even point. These words were echoed by our Treasurer, Ezra Lowe, at each finance committee meeting. There was concern that the goal was too lofty and unobtainable — in the previous year, our loss was nearly $90,000.00. This goal was challenging, but it was not arbitrary; it was existential. None of the good work we do or plan to do can happen if we continue to operate at a loss.
Our CFO, Scott Friedman, has concluded his annual audit, and we can announce that we met the goal and made a $700 profit. First, I want to say this was only possible thanks to the many people who donated to the school last year, through memberships and other gifts. Additionally, the whole of the community — workshop participants, Board members, the Operations Team, faculty, coordinators, Ambassadors, and volunteers — made this task a reality with hard work and sacrifice. My deep appreciation to all of them.
The year had plenty of other highlights. We started the year with a new Operations Team. Kristy Lowther took on the newly created dual role of Registrar and Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI). In addition to helping the school be more inclusive, they had the added challenge of helping us migrate to a new database, a huge task with a steep learning curve. Their JEDI report is included in the annual transparency report. More recently, Kelly Huxham has taken over Marketing. Kelly has also helped organize our organization through better use of Google Workplace. Our marketing numbers are up: Our workshop-enrollment website traffic consistently shows 6,000 new visitors a month.
Last year we rolled out updates to our membership program. Now all levels of membership get discounted workshops. Our membership has grown by more than 35% since then, our largest increase since we began our membership program with lifetime memberships. RJ McCallaugh is our one and only member at that level.
We launched the BE Stories campaign to gather your accounts of how you came to the Body Electric School. We also started asking participants to be our models for our website and workshop graphics. This is an ongoing effort to show authentic people so potential newcomers can see themselves in our representations.
We had many first-evers and first-in-a-long-whiles in our programming offerings. These included: New Year Visions, in Costa Rica; Into the Heart of Eros, an all-genders intensive; the return of Touching the Heart of Stillness with Steve Schwartzberg; Wild Honey, a women’s intensive; and two BIPOC events — Awakening Our Colorful Souls, for men, and a women’s CBE in Vancouver. Also new to BE was Moving Into Intimacy in New York City, and we ended the year in Puerto Vallarta with New Years Visions with Craig Cullinane. JoJo Bear launched a new workshop: Negotiating Desire, the Language of the Body Erotic.
We expanded to new places and returned to some places we had not been to in a while: Kansas City, Denver, Atlanta, and Palm Springs. We returned to Shalom Mountain with Suzanne Blackburn’s Discovering the Body Erotic. We presented to a CMEN gathering, held a CBE at SIRenity near St. Louis, and had a taster in Maine for men and women. Online, we expanded our offerings with men’s, women’s, and all-genders Morning Practices. We started Yoga with Shai Saliba and Mindfulness Meditation Practice and Instruction with Steve Schwartzberg. We also added the Queer Heart Circle.
Outreach was alive and well in 2023. We gave presentations to ASSECT, Sex Down South, and the Gay Coaches Alliance. We donated to the Fire Island Pines Party, and Craig Cullinane and Ax Love continued The Erotic Liberation Podcast, which broke 5,000 downloads last year. Craig also appeared on half a dozen other podcasts. We started talks with IMEN and MMNG about offering workshops at their gatherings. We continued our relationship with GNI and MMX. We launched our YouTube channel and applied for our Wikipedia Page. The Body Electric School’s own social media platform, the BE Community continues to grow as a place to gather and reconnect with BE alumni aka Body Electricians and Body Electrolytes. Don Shine presented at the North American Bear Weekend.
Volunteers continue to be invaluable to the Body Electric School. Our podcast, YouTube page, and community platform, as well as the video editing for our promotions, are all handled by Kenneth, our Volunteer of the Year. Our public relations is done by Luca. Robert helps with our social media posting. Our Ambassadors are running the new Discovering if Body Electric is Right for You, a free, online, all-genders program. They continue to work on spreading the gospel of Eros with one-on-one conversation, and Steve Sanders hosted a table at the Kansas City Pride. And our Board members all volunteer their time, talents, and treasure to the school.
Doug and Sher are our Coordinators of the Year. They exemplified the best efforts of all our coordinators in speaking with potential participants, helping to guide their experience and supporting making sure the faculty can focus on the container. They consistently do excellent outreach to help fill the workshops.
We provided over 150 Scholarships last year to continue our commitment to radical inclusion. In December we decided to name the scholarship fund for Alan Armus. Alan represented all the best qualities of a Body Electric School alumnus. He always came to workshops with a beginner’s mind, even though he had been to over 50 of them. He was generous with his knowledge, wisdom, and compassion, but not imposing. He donated often so others could have the experience of the workshops. He told me that his goal was to make it to 70 of them; sadly, he died before he could reach that number. But now he’ll be carried there by the countless others helped by the scholarship bearing his name.
We received the Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar for our work to make our finances clear and transparent and our leadership accessible, diverse, and representative of our members.
2023 was an amazing year for the school and me. I was honored to be selected to be the Executive Director and trusted with the truly precious challenge that it is to run this school. I know that I have a lot to do as we not only prepare for the 40th anniversary this year but also make sure we maintain our hard-fought financial stability — all while we continue our intentional journey to broader inclusion.
We supported Wildwood’s application for permits from the county, by providing testimony at a virtual meeting of the Sonoma County, California, Board of Supervisors. Wildwood and BE have a long history together, and we support their efforts to reopen their facility.
We launched the BE Store, where you can get T-shirts and mugs. And we partnered with Allianz. so participants can make sure their travel and workshop costs are covered in case of unforeseen circumstances that would cause them to miss the workshop.
We will continue to provide the finest in programming in groups that help maximize personal growth potential and offer opportunities to stretch as well.
The Body Electric Podcast now has over 40 episodes and has had more than 7,000 downloads. This month we are featuring a very special guest: Joseph Kramer. This is a real treat — don’t miss it.
Friendraising!
Tom Kovach, Executive Director
Throughout Body Electric’s 40-year history, the way many people have found their way to the school is through a friend. Once you have had an experience that you feel transformed your life, you want to share that experience with the people closest to you.
Some people give written testimonials like these:
“Would you like to feel more love and acceptance for who you uniquely are? Like all personal growth journeys, it takes actively being present. Here, I felt our unity in our differences and a greater expansion of love for myself and for others.”
“Walked in on Friday evening not knowing a soul in the group, left on Sunday evening feeling an authentic connection to this amazing group of men, each and every one of them, we are all connected, we are all divine, we are all pure LOVE!”
“Surely this is everything the great and open hearted Walt Whitman meant when he wrote, ‘I sing the Body Electric!’ “ If you are at all uncomfortable with the idea of a group erotic experience, as I was, you needn’t fear! To my surprise, the basic Body Electric workshop was, in a word, wholesome. It is also attuned warmly to the spiritual and sacred. I do not share physical intimacy lightly with others. But just being among fellow men with expert, humorous and respectful facilitators is a joyful experience. And the men present, whatever their age and diversity of body types, responded in kind. The workshop, despite my fears, helped me significantly with some of the important issues I needed and wanted to address for years. Why did I wait?! Do yourself a favor and give the Body Electric basic workshop a try. You may even want to go on to more advanced workshops. I certainly do.”
Others have given video testimonials like this one for Dear Love of Comrades
Wanting to expand these efforts, the Body Electric School started an Ambassador Program a few years ago. The basic idea was to help people tell their Body Electric stories and inspire others to take a workshop and transform their lives. The workshop for this has evolved to include a history of the school and the opportunity to meet Board members, coordinators, and faculty members (and also me).
We have had dozens of graduates, and they continue to help spread the word. Some attend the monthly support meetings; others host our Discovering if Body Electric is Right for You sessions online. This is a free event to answer questions about the school. We often have faculty or coordinators come and talk about their upcoming workshops.
In this 40th anniversary year, please consider friendraising. Whether you become an ambassador or share your love for the school and its work with a friend or a partner, give the gift of transformation, connection, and love by helping someone find their way to the Body Electric School.