capeSF Sponsors Support Community

On behalf of the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival, we want to extend a heart-felt thank you to our sponsors for their commitment in supporting capeSF 2010. We, at capeSF, are dedicated to providing quality entertainment for our local residents and for the many tourists and storytelling fans from around the country that choose to attend our festival. Our sponsors’ generous contributions have helped make capeSF’s vision a reality by offsetting the cost of hosting such an event in an environment as historic as downtown Cape Girardeau. We believe that our sponsors support the community because their contributions ensure that an outdoor event that is accessible to all ages is possible in Cape Girardeau.

As the Storytelling Festival continues to grow, please understand that partnerships with our sponsors are a vital part to the success of current and future festivals. We hope to grow our sponsorship packages in the future, to ensure that everyone can reap the benefits of this fantastic community event.

Please visit our sponsors by following the tale to our web site at capestorytelling.com.

Sponsors include: Holiday Inn Express & Suites; Southeast Missouri State University; US Bank; Hillin and Clark, PC Certified Public Accountants; Ruopp & Ruopp Dentistry; PDQ Quality Printing; and Teresa Connell, Graphic Designer.

Friends of the Festival include: Thomas R. Higgins Accounting and Tax Service; Hendrickson Business Advisors; The Bank of Missouri; The Library in Downtown Cape; Department of History and Historic Preservation Program at Southeast Missouri State University; Plaza Tire Service; Realty Executives; Ferguson Appraisal Service; Chateau Girardeau; State Farm Insurance, Michael C. Jones, Agent;Vickie Devenport; First Community Bank; Southeast Missourian; Elite Travel, Inc., Carolyn Kempf.

capeSF Includes Southeast Student Involvement

Enlisting the help of several student interns from Southeast Missouri State University during the planning and execution of capeSF 2010, has created a mutually beneficial relationship for both the festival and the interns. The Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau, primary sponsor of the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival, saw a desire for student involvement in “real” business situations and found a vehicle for tapping into students.

“By encouraging Southeast student involvement, capeSF has not only enabled students to experience hands-on event planning, but through significant participation within the Southeast and Cape Girardeau community, these students’ resumes will really stand out in the crowd of potential job candidates,” says Marla Mills, Executive Director of Old Town Cape and member of the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival Committee.

“capeSF headquarters currently has three interns working in the office, eight virtual volunteers working from home, and three student groups that are contributing on special projects. These students include: Brittany Meek, Brittney Ruopp, Angie Herzog, J. Michael Willis, Molly Finch, Chelsea Niswonger, Ashley Autry, Michael Skeens, Kari Young, D. Brand, Rebecca Christain, Crystal Hoke, Coleman Bonze, Caleb Dunn, Rachel Burnett, Kendra Haney, Bailey Reutzel, Joe Groeller, Trevor Morgan, Noland Cook, and Josh Thompson. Not to mention over 20 volunteers will staff the event over the weekend of April 9-11,” says Stephanie Lynch, PR and Marking Director for the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau and Storytelling Festival Committee Member.

“The Southeast students have been a huge invaluable resource to the festival. The Ad Club, Photo Club and Video Club have been involved with creating flyers and videos for our social networking sites and radio spots for the RAGE 103.7 campus radio station. A handful of professors have even supported their students by taking photos, enlisting their classes to attend the event and sponsoring the festival through their department. We cannot thank them enough and we’re really looking forward to rolling out the materials they created over the next several weeks,” says Lynch.

“This has probably been one of the best projects I’ve ever worked on. I never would have had the opportunity to do something that has real-world results. I feel good about the fact that my work is benefiting the community—and it’s really a lot of fun. We’ve really just had a great time,” says Brittney Ruopp, graduate student in Public Administration at Southeast.

“All I know is that I’m working hard and getting to use my skills. I’m writing press releases, coordinating projects and getting to see how social networking really works for small businesses. I know I can use my experience as an intern at capeSF when I graduate,” says Brittany Meek, a senior in Public Relations at Southeast.

Tickets are now on sale through the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. To purchase tickets and for more information about the festival and the city of Cape Girardeau call the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau at 1-800-777-0068 or visit the website capestorytelling.com. For those tech-savvy Facebook and Twitter fans, search for capeSF.

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Fans Come to capeSF From States Across the Country

With more than a month left before the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival begins, the second weekend of April, fans across the U.S. have already purchased tickets. “People are coming from as far as New Hampshire to attend our storytelling festival,” says the Event Coordinator for the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival, Betty Roth. “It’s going to be a real treat to host these out-of-towners in Cape Girardeau this year. A lot of them are coming for the third time and have great things to say about our festival.”

Toni Eftink, a member of the Storytelling Festival Committee says, “We’ve created this really fun Google map so we can track the fans and you can see it for yourself.” Director of PR and Marketing, Stephanie Lynch says, “It’s a great way for local residents and business owners to see the broad reach of the festival, and it just goes to show that despite a bad economy, people are still spending money on the events that mean a lot to them.”

Click for the fan map!

For more information on the Cape Girardeau Storytelling festival tickets and passes, click capestorytelling.com, search on Facebook and Twitter @capeSF or call (800) 777-0068.

"Marketing Cool"? An Interview with Stephanie Lynch about capeSF

Recently, Lauren Robb, a Southeast Missouri State University student had a chance to sit down with me to find out more about this whole "storytelling thing". She asked some good questions, and helped me remember what makes the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival tick. Click to read the full interview...

capeSF Provides a Sense of Place to the Region

If location is the most important thing about real estate, than “sense of place” must be the most important thing about home. Without that intangible “sense of place”, the location in the mind is meaningless in the heart. “Sense of place” means an understanding that this climate, this landscape, these sights, sounds and smells, these people and the stories they share—this is home.

The 3rd annual Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival gives this region its “sense of place”. The festival brings together the entire community, provides a full weekend of fabulous entertainment, features storytellers that remind us of where we come from, and locates it all under tents in historic downtown overlooking our most famous “place” of all—the mighty Mississippi River.

This year, we encourage our area businesses and realtors to get involved!

• Purchase tickets to give to clients.
• Purchase tickets to give to new home buyers.
• Become a friend of the festival and receive $60 in free tickets AND recognition in our free souvenir program.

Support the “sense of place” we know and love so well, and share the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival. Show your clients and colleagues, family and friends, a city “where the river turns a thousand tales”.

To purchase tickets and for more information about the festival call the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau at 1-800-777-0068, click here for online ticketing, or see the sidebar on the left side of this page for links to contacts, Facebook, Twitter, video and more!

capeSF offers Swapping Ground: a Space for Anyone to Tell Tales

This year the Cape Girardeau Storytelling festival will be offering a "Swapping Ground" for anyone wanting to take the stage and try their hand at storytelling. Located in one of the main tents, amateur tellers (that means YOU) can come, share, tell a whopper or two or maybe even a funny or poignant memory. The Swapping Ground will be held in the Meriwether Tent on Saturday April 10th, from 12:00-1:00 and again from 3:30-4:30. Each teller will be given a maximum of 10 minutes so we encourage you to sign up prior to the festival by e-mailing Joyce Slater at slatertales@kc.rr.com or by signing up at festival headquarters.

So there you have it. Gather a group, bring a friend or come alone, and tell your tale at the Cape Girardeau Storytelling Festival on Saturday, April 10th. We hope you do—we would love to sit and listen.