Who

RE Group

You may hear this name thrown around the site and wonder “who/what is RE Group?” and I suppose we should answer that question.  RE is a collection of local designers who have gotten together with the primary goal of challenging common conventions of our industry.  Prior to creating RE, we had spoken on several occasions about the joy and excitement that the competition environment brings to our industry while also providing such a fantastic opportunity to let our talents provide a gift to our community.  When we began discussing refortify we knew we had hit the mark!

Our first step in making this event happen was to find out if we were crazy to want to do it. So, we called on our friend Brian Buckley with Maharam to give us his honest opinion on our sanity. Thankfully, Brian gave us some sweet doses of encouragement (mmm…margaritas) along with the bitter spoonfuls of reality to help us get things in gear. We all went to bed with visions of forts dancing in our heads that night, knowing this event not only could happen, but had officially begun!

Over one of our many lunch meetings discussing the options we could pursue for a venue (and there were many), one of team members mentioned the OFS showroom and with our connection to Scott Hall we knew we could easily reach out and explore the possibility.  Scott was almost immediately on board. As soon as we explained the concept, we could see our excitement transfer to him and we knew we had found a kindred spirit (can you hear the sounds of water and birds chirping in the background–it was magical).  Check out our blog post for more information on this great sponsor and the venue!

CCB

The final critical partner to complete this ensemble came in the form of Christian Church Buckhead who’s outreach leader Lindsey Self provided initial contact with SafeHouse and much needed organizational aid, helping arrange all the fun logistics of team registration and finances. CCB’s South Buckhead Small Group, made up of ~15 individuals and families living in the Midtown area (close the event site @ OFS) are also playing a big role in coordinating a community-wide blanket drive and helping staff the event with volunteers (read: additional fort-testers).

For information on how to become a sponsor please contact us directly at refortifychi@gmail.com.