Friends of the Nurse Tree Arch

I asked my advisors to help me understand why the Nurse Tree Arch Hatchfund campaign was not being used. Based on the feedback I received from them, I am asking this of you: DON’T CONTRIBUTE to the Nurse Tree Arch through the Hatchfund platform.

I missed an important, and devilish detail: IF YOUR PROJECT DOES NOT SUCCESSFULLY FUND, DONORS WILL NOT RECEIVE REFUNDS. See the rest of the policy in which this is embedded below.

3. All donors receive a tax receipt IMMEDIATELY after they make their donation online. If your project does not successfully fund, donors will not receive refunds. However, please be assured that they have already received their tax receipt. Also, remember that only 5% of donations go to unfunded projects.

This is not a fair practice, and I cannot support it. So please do not give Hatchfund any money.

I will work with Drachman Montessori to find out how you can donate directly to them in support of their arch construction. I am putting my other marketing fundraising goals on hold.

I apologize for not catching this detail sooner. Repeated calls to the Hatchfund representative, Dillon Nicholson, have not been returned.

Sincerely,

Michael Ray

Components were milled on Tuesday October 13, picked up on Wednesday, released from the plywood sheet and sanded on Thursday and Friday, and stained on Saturday. First assembly happened at the festival site Sunday morning. None of this would have happened without the help of my team: Acacia Alder, Gayle McGuire-Solexx distributor, Gary Sullivan, Gary French of CNCRoutingAZ, Javier Lopez, Kristen Bury and students from Drachman Montessori school. As usual, people were curious about the Aluminet sunscreen. Festival organizer’s placed our booth against a west-facing wall outside. Air temperatures were in the high 80’s. It was the perfect place to demonstrate the cooling effect of this innovative aluminized polymer sunshade material. We got new names on our mailing list, and may have a qualified buyer for an Entry Arch. Also a high point: teaching the students how to use the battery-powered drill as we disassembled the arch.

The support crew under the Entry Arch

Gary Sullivan and Michael lift the arch frame into place above the base bed.

This is the current state of our display. Our crowdfunding campaign will help upgrade display materials.

It is a small miracle that I am able to design in 3D on my 2008 Macbook. I use a program called Sketchup Pro, which will export images in a program language called .dwg – from which the computer controlled router at CNCRoutingAZ in Chandler will do its thing on a sheet of exterior-grade 3/4 inch plywood. It took me about 40 hours of intense work the past two weeks to get the designs for both the Entry Arch and the Full Arch with 37″ sidewalls ready for production. If I get milled components in time to do some finishing work I will be assembling the Entry Arch for show at the Envision Tucson Sustainable Festival on October 18th. After that I am installing the Full Arch over a hugelkultur bed belonging to Dale and Julie in a midtown home in Tucson. See images below.