We have this term around CSC that is definitely not a word: "mailout."  Spell-check catches it every time.  It's not as bad as Minnesotans calling the thawing of something "dethaw," but it's still bad grammar.  Anyway, the mailout is the event where we bring all our newsletters, invitations or fundraising letters together with a bunch of volunteers and they get it ready for immediate dropoff at the post office.

The volunteers who work our mailouts are awesome.  I'm not going to guess the average age, but someone in their 50's would definitely be a young'un with this crew.  In fact, when we did our volunteer appreciation event last fall we did this thing where I asked for everyone's birthday and promised they didn't have to disclose the birth year.  I was quickly informed that there was no need to be discreet because "we're at the age that we like saying how old we are again."  I love it.

We take a break at 10 o'clock on mailout morning that is announced by Millie, the official timekeeper and maybe the sweetest person I've ever met.  She always has a hug to deliver to Theresa and a word of encouragement.  She's hard core about the break though.  She announces it every 10 minutes until it comes (sometimes several times in the last 10 minutes) and keeps everyone buzzing and laughing.  Then we always get some incredible treat that Brenda in our office has worked up.

It was good to be with them.  This newsletter got botched up in the final stages, and eventually ended up causing me to completely rehash the schedule we use and the creation of a proofing checklist.  After all of that though, it's off now.  3,000 people will receive it.  Last year over 1,500 people gave to CSC.  How many places can claim that many people giving in comparison to their mailing list?  Not many.  We've got some amazing people taking part in CSC...including a group of people who have no qualms about sharing their age.