News and Announcements

State of the Alliance - November 5, 2026

(11/06/2026)

This is your weekly informal update from the PLA President. After a couple weeks of delays, I've clawed my way back to Thursday.

The biggest update for this week is the closing of our elections and the results being announced at our Board meeting this Tuesday. We had a number of write-in candidates who were either not present in the meeting or not ready to make a decision whether to accept their nomination, so a formal announcement of the board going into 2027 is still pending as we reach out to those individuals. The Board as it stands now is:

President (term ends 2028): Andy
Vice President (term ends 2027): Mx. Daisy Chains
Secretary (term ends 2028): Bec
Treasurer (term ends 2027): Ace
Member-at-Large (term ends 2028): Carslyle
Member-at-Large (term ends 2028): Tulip
Member-at-Large (term ends 2028): [vacant]
Member-at-Large (term ends 2028): [vacant]
Member-at-Large (term ends 2027): Lisa
Member-at-Large (term ends 2027): Masato
Member-at-Large (term ends 2027): [vacant]

When those vacancies have either been filled with remaining write-in candidates or been confirmed to remain vacant for the time being, we will make an official announcement.

PR / Outreach

The PLA is seeking additional volunteers to support its PR efforts! This committee makes all our event posts, handles some of our formal communications, and makes graphics for events. A high-priority need is someone versed in graphic design and/or Canva to make our promo images, though there's also other work for the non graphically-inclined. Please reach out to pr@portlandleather.org or DM the PLA account on Fetlife if interested.

PLA Space

The PLA Space continues to host a few events each week as we ramp up our processes for private rentals. We're very excited to see this space start to serve the community and be a place for both the PLA and other groups to host kinky, sex-positive, and Leather events. If you're interested in touring or booking the PLA Space, or have questions about it, please reach out by email to plaspace@portlandleather.org.

In terms of improving the space, we've been continuing our work on the West Room of the space, bringing its level of finish up to the East Room we're currently renting out. There are still accessibility improvements to the hallway between the two rooms before we'll be pursuing renting the West Room or the entire space. We also submitted a deposit for a contractor to replace the exterior door into the East Room with an ADA-compliant door and threshold, which is the last major step needed to bring the East Room up to full ADA compliance for mobility devices.

Community Education

Excitingly, the Community Education Committee announced its New Educator Initiative, seeking those looking to get their start teaching kink classes. See the linked post for details!

Programming-wise, we hosted Mx. Knotty for a wonderfully mean predicament rope class at the PLA Space last weekend, and we added an additional online class this month, Co-Creating a Scene with Kol and Robo on November 21st. Our November class schedule:

• Consent in the Kink Lifestyle with Kol and Dynamite this Saturday, November 7 on Zoom
• Co-Creating a Scene with Kol and Robo on November 21 on Zoom
• Power, Privilege, and Intersectionality with Dr. B on November 27 at Sanctuary
• In the Community with Sera Miles on November 28 on Zoom

We will be having a programming-light December for CEC as people are busy for the holidays, but we will be having the monthly free consent class as well as an unannounced Power Exchange class, both via Zoom.

KinkFest

For KinkFest, vendor applications have closed! However, applications are still open for those looking to present a workshop, and volunteer now, with attendee tickets going on sale starting November 20th. Our application for the BootySoBig scholarship tickets for BIPOC and/or disabled community members is also still open.

This week, we released a statement acknowledging the ongoing boycott of KinkFest by some members of the community regarding the accountability and racism issues on the PLA Board earlier this year, and making clear to others in the community that we do not tolerate pressure or harassment towards boycott participants. We also completed our first site visit of the KinkFest venue for this year, where many teams were able to get measurements and firm up various plans for the con's layout.

Following up on last week, I spoke to the Vendors Director for more information about how our vendor hall layout changed in response to feedback from both vendors and attendees from last year. In addition to a reduced number of vendors / booths overall (last year saw a huge increase in our vendor hall size, which proved to be unsustainable), the vendors themselves were empowered to vote on a layout that worked for them. Our Accessibility team will also be working to make sure that the Vendor Hall, like all our spaces, is as accessible as possible for all attendees.

As always, my inbox is open at president@portlandleather.org to any questions, concerns, or feedback, and the board as a whole can be reached at board@portlandleather.org. We also are still monitoring our general feedback survey here:

https://www.portlandleather.org/survey.php?menu=showsurvey&surveyid=4

Yours in Leather,
Andy, PLA President