Draft GBYS Map Released!

Hand Out Map for Yard Sale Shoppers

Thanks to all who have signed up so far.

I've taken all the information on participants through Sunday and produced the attached draft map. When finalized, we can each print a supply to handout to shoppers on April 19th.

This is just a draft, but wanted to give you an idea of what we're currently working on to help make the event easy for both participants and attendees.

If you've signed up for the yard sale, please check the map to see if your location is listed properly. If you need any corrections, please email me at Fortinandrew@hotmail.com

The file is also posted on the Brookland Yahoo group page in the Great Brookland Yard Sale Folder and is called "GBYS Draft Map.pdf".

Remember this is just the draft. We'll let you know when the final map is ready to print.

Planning Your Yard Sale

Dealing with the clutter, sorting your stuff

The Great Brookland Yard Sale is just 20 days away and it's never too early to start planning. Here's a couple of tips to get you moving.

Have a plan.

Most people dread combing through the house top to bottom looking for yard sale items. Don't. Take baby steps and spend a half hour to an hour a day in each room sorting through items. Price your items as you go to save time. If you are unsure of a reasonable price, try checking e-bay to see what similar items are going for. Set a side a corner of a room to place your yard sale items.

It's in the bag

Yard sales are a great way to reuse those old grocery bags filling up the cabinet under the sink. So take a quick inventory and set aside enough bags so your shoppers can carry away their purchases. The easy it is to carry, the easier it is to buy more items. Also, start saving the newspaper to wrap your more delicate items.

Think about the sale day.

Remember there are more than 30 yard sales scheduled for April 19th. The planning committee is producing maps for participants to hand out to shoppers, but you should also think about placing signs to direct people to your individual yard sale. The main corridors will be 12th and 13th Streets, NE (as well as the other main arteries like Michigan and Rhode Island) for the farther out sales). Oh yes, and adopt a sign from the map (red indicators on the google map) to direct passing cars into Brookland.

A little Change will do you good

Don't forget to be prepared with enough small bills and coins to make some change. You'll need a good supply of one's, several fives, a couple of tens and a good supply of coins.

Read All About It

There are helpful links to yard sale tips on the links to the left of this page. Check em out.


Good luck with your yard sale preparations. Think positively, keep things in perspective and keep telling everyone you know about the upcoming sale!

CALL FOR STORIES!

Make your yard sale stand out!

With 31 yard sales and counting, shoppers will have a range of choices when they come to Brookland on April 19th. Want to increase your chances of connecting to potential shoppers?

The best way to attract eager shoppers for your gently used items is to market your sale. In other words, to tell your "Yard Sale Story".

Here's how:

• Make a list of your big ticket or unique sale items
  Take some digital pictures of these items
• Write up a short list or description or your yard sale, include information about your life in Brookland to personalize it.
• Email your photos, list of items or 'yard sale story' to me at Fortinandrew@hotmail.com
• I'll post them to the blog, then link your story to the yard sale google map! (Note: your story may be edited for space or appropriateness)

Remember, all this technology is not a substitute for all of our collective efforts in getting the word out. But a yard sale story is a great way to distinguish you sale from all the others!

More Pubilcity!

GBYS Added to WTOP Funformation Calendar!

Another great posting for our event. WTOP has added the Great Brookland Yard Sale to its Funformation Calendar! You can view the posting here.

Remember, grassroots word of mouth is really the key to any yard sale success, so each of us should be posting and distributing the yard sale fliers and telling our friends and co-workers about the event.

Let's Get the Word Out!

Post them signs!

OK Team Brookland, we're three weeks out from the Yard Sale. Time to get the word out.

As posted below, the planning committee has been working to post ads in local press, get the word out on local blogs and we've even developed a flier to post at work, at church, or in businesses across the region.

Our success depends on each of us taking small steps to get the word out.

Please take some time this weekend to distribute the Great Brookland Yard Sale Flier to local churches, businesses, civic groups or hand out to coworkers or post on work activity boards.

Today I was on Capitol Hill for some meetings. I posted the flier on the activity bulletin board outside the House Cafeteria in the Rayburn Building (See picture above). The Hill is full of hard working and underpaid young people would love probably love to get some good deals at our event.

So download the flier and make a commitment to get it posted in a nearby business or pass it on to at least three people over the weekend. The flier may be downloaded here. If that link doesn't work, email me at Fortinandrew@hotmail.com and I'll email it to you. It may also be found in the "Files" section of the Brookland Yahoo group in the "Great Brookland Yard Sale" folder.

Also, if you let us know where you posted the flier, I'll add it to the Yard Sale Map by making it with a light blue push pin. Take a picture of the posting with your cell phone and we'll show it on the blog!

Yard Sale Ad Running in the Post

More Publicity!

The Washington Post finally got around to posting our online add today. You can view it here.

Again, to date we are running the following ads:
1) Craiglist
2) DC City Paper - Print and Online for the next 3 weeks
3) Washington Post Online.

Local Media and Blogs:
1) Brookland Heartbeat - story on yard sale in the works!
2) Stop, Blog and Roll
3) Best of Washington, DC Blog


More updates to come, but we're gonna keep on getting the word out.

Promotion Signs and Fliers 4 U!

Hand 'em out, Post 'em Up!

Once again, Jenny on Taylor has put together a truly awesome yard sale flier for us to use to promote the Great Brookland Yard Sale!

The first set of fliers were designed to share with friends and neighbors to spread the word and get folks to sign up. Please hand these out to help us get more participants. Info on downloading them can be found here.

The new flier, is for you to put up in your office, at local businesses, give to area churches or civic groups to do some grassroots work in promoting the big event. Let's make it happen Brookland!

The flier is in both color (here) and black and white (here). If these links don't work, the files can be found on the listserve, in the files section, in a file called Great Brookland Yard Sale, and the file names are promo_flyer2_color.pdf or promo_Flyer2_bw.pdf.

And if none of that works, just email me and I'll send them over to you. Fortinandrew@hotmail.com

Thanks in advance for helping get these posted and distributed around town.