Transcripts For SFGTV 20111130 : vimarsana.com

it has been amazing. the people have been so gracious and so supportive of what we re doing. the energy here is fantastic with so many couples getting married. it s just been an absolutely fantastic experience, so wonderful. by the power vested in me, i declare you spouses for life. thank you. thank you. to actually be able to get married and be a part of this time in history and time in our history is amazing. this is a momentous occasion for us to be able to actually have this opportunity to have equal rights. we have been together for 14 years. everyone is so welcoming. it s been all set up and people have guided us from step to step. it s been easy. there was live music. people are so friendly and excited. so excited for us. it s really great. yeah. and salvador is party a here to known as party a. on the out it looks pretty simple. you come in, you made your appointment. you pay. you go here for your license. you got there to get married. you go there if you want to purchase a certified copy. behind the scenes, there was just this monumental just mountain of work, the details into everything that we had to do and we quickly realized that we were not ready to issue the numbers of licenses that people are anticipating that we would need to issue. we definitely did not want people waiting in long lines. this is somebody s wedding. you want to be able to plan and invite your family and friends. know what time you are able to get your marriage license, know what time you re going to have your ceremony. thanks for volunteering. we got city volunteers, we got members of the public volunteering. we had our regular volunteers volunteering. we had such an overwhelming response from city employees, from the members of the general public that we had way more volunteers than we could ever have hoped for. we had to come up with a training program. i mean, there are different functions of this whole operation. you were either, you know a check-in person. you were a greeter. you were part of the license issuing unit. you were deputy marriage commissioner, or you were on the recording side. each one of those functions required a different set of skills, a different oath of office if they needed to be sworn in as a deputy county clerk to issue marriage licenses or as a deputy county recorder if they were going to register the marriage licenses or the deputy marriage commissioner if they were going to be performing ceremonies. donna, place the ring on her ring finger. the marriage commissioner training was only about a half hour. it was very simple. very well run, very smooth and then we were all sworn in. they said we would get our scheduled sunday night and so 7:00, 8:00, 10:00, you know, i got it at 11:00. this person who was orchestrating all of the shifts and the volunteers and who does what, you know, said from her office sunday night at 11:00. they are just really helping each other. it s a wonderful atmosphere in that way. have you filled out an application? not yet. you want to do that. take this right over there. all right. take it tout counter when you re done. very good. congratulations, you guys. for those volunteers, what a gift for them as well as us that they would take up their time and contribute that time, but also that they would in return receive so much more back because they re part of the narrative of someone else s love and expression of love in life. this isn t anything that we had budgeted for, so it was basically we asked our i.t. director to do the best you can, you know, belling, borrow, steal if you have to and get us what you need to do this. and he knew what the mission was. he knew what our goal was. and, you know, with our i.t. grids and our software vender, they really came together and pulled it together for us. it made it possible for us to be able to serve as many couples as we have been. so once you re ready, you and your husband to be or wife need to be need to check in here and check in again, ok. are you also going to get married today? yeah. let s process you one by one. do your license in, exit and re-enter again check in at that desk. our wedding is at 3:00. as long as we get you in today. we re getting married at 2:30. don t worry about the time line. we re greeting people at the doorway and either directing them to the services they need on this side which is licensing or the services on this side which is actually getting the ceremony performed. this is an opportunity to choose to be a part of history. many times history happens to us, but in this case, you can choose to be a part of it. this is a very historic day and so i m very, very proud to be here. i have been volunteering. last monday i performed 12 different marriage smones. the least amount of time that any of the couples that i married have been together is two years. most of the couples have been together eight, nine, 10, i d say 70% have been together at least that long if not longer. there is a lot of misconception about who gay and lesbian people are. it s important that people see that we love our husbands and wives to be and love our children and have the right to have families just like everyone else. it s important that we have experienced our own families, our own friends, and the excitement of the volunteers when we get here has made us feel wonderful and accepted and celebrated. there is a lot of city agencies, city departments, divisions that offer up their employees to help us out since overwhelming response, it s unbelievable at how city government works. this is the time that san francisco city employees have really outshined san francisco s clerk s office didn t need to hear from the mayor to say what s your plan. they offered a plan and said here is our strategy. here is what we can do. we can add all of these computers here and there. we can connect our databases, we can expand our capacity by x. we can open up early and stay late and stay open on the weekends. it s unbelievable. we can coordinate all of the training for our volunteers and them in as deputy marriage commissioners and make sure it s signed and certified. that s an example and a model for others. this is what happens is when people prove that things can be done, it just raises the bar for what is possible for everyone else. it kind of went cooled plan and this is what we planned for. in some respects, people have kind of commented to me, oh, my god, you were a part of history and how many couples did we mary? how many families did we start? how many dreams did we make come true? the whole part of being part of history is something that we are here and we are charged with this responsibility to carry out. this lodge is home to some of the best fly casting pools in the world. these shallow concrete pools don t have fish. this is just a place where people come to practice their fly casting technique. ith was built in the 1930 s and ever since, people have been coming here to get back to nature. every year, the world championship of fly casting is held in san francisco and visitors from all over the globe travel to be here. we are here with phil, general manage of san francisco rec and parks department at the anglers lodge. what do you think about this? it is spectacular, travis from oregon, taught me a snake roll and a space cast. there are people from all over the world come to san francisco and say this is the place to be. yeah. it s amazing, we have teams from all over the world here today and they are thrilled. i flew from ireland to be here. and been practicing since for the competition. all the best casters in the world come here. my fellow countryman came in first place and james is on the current team and he is the head man. it s unique. will not see anything like it where you go to compete in the world. competitions in ireland, scotland, norway, japan, russia each year, the facilities here in the park are second to none. there is no complex in the world that can touch it. i m here with bob, and he has kindly agreed to tell me everything i need to know about casting. i m going to suit up and next, we re in the water. what any gentleman should do. golden gate angling has free lessons the second saturday of every month. we have equipment show up on the 9:30 on the second saturday of every month and we ll teach them to fly cast. ok. we are in the water. let me acquaint you with the fly rod. nice to meet you. this is the lower grip and the upper grip. this is a reel and a fly line. we are going to use the flex of this rod to fling away. exactly as you moved your hands. that s it? that s it. i m a natural. push both arms forward and snap the lower hand into your tummy. push forward. i did gave it a try and had great time but i might need some more practice. i met someone else with real fly casting skills. her name is donna and she is an international fly casting champion. i have competed in the casting ponds in golden gate park in san francisco. i have been to japan and norway for fly casting competition. i spend my weekends here at the club and at the casting pond. it s a great place to learn and have fun. on a season day like this, it was the perfect spot to be. i find fly casting very relaxing and also at the same time very challenging sport. takes me out into the nature. almost like drawing art in the air. and then i can make these beautiful loops out there. even though people from across the globe come here to compete, it s still a place where locals in the know relax and enjoy some rely unique scenery. until next time, get out and play!