Volunteer of the Month: Ken Zirkel

Occupation: Graphic Designer
Neighborhood: Park Slope, Brooklyn
T.A. Member Since: 1994
Why Joined: T.A. is directly involved in making NY a better place to live. What better goal is there?
Volunteer Activity: I'm the unofficial T.A. Photographer. I co-ordinate much of the photography for the newsletter, whether it's shooting events, giving out assignments to others, or trying to tame the photo files in the T.A. office.
Philosophy: I'd encourage other professionals to think about donating their services, whether they are photographers, illustrators or even lawyers. If members don't have extra time to give, maybe they would consider donating equipment. We currently need a film scanner, as well as a large size monitor for the MAC we use to produce this magazine. Another 486 or Pentium PC would also be a boon to T.A. membership database maintenance.
Hours per week: It varies a lot depending on how active things are - right now T.A. is hot and I could really use some help with shooting events such as the upcoming NYC Century Bike Tour. I could also use a hand with photo filing and labeling. And if anyone has a darkroom and can do some B & W printing for us, there's a backlog of that too. We always need illustrators who can do good; line art too! Maybe someone would like to start a comic strip for the T.A. magazine...?
Upcoming Projects: I'm designing a t-shirt to raise money for the T.A. Brooklyn Committee's Car-Free Prospect Park Campaign. For a project like that to work, we rely on a lot of professional good-will. Hopefully, by the time you read this we will be nearing production.