NEWS
Making the Magic Happen: Alicia Radford
IQA Volunteer of the Month By Alex Benepe
I
t’s only fitting that it would take five issues of the Monthly Seer to include a profile on one Ms. Alicia Radford, the IQA’s Chief Operations Officer and Editor in Chief and birthmother of the Seer. As someone who stays out of the spotlight but orchestrates everything behind the scenes, it is typical for Alicia to be modest about her hand in guiding the league, kind of like Eric Axlerod but more attractive. So it was I who recommended her as Volunteer of the Month for the fifth Seer, to which she semi-reluctantly agreed. It is also prescient that Alicia is profiled at this time because she has made some major sacrifices this month in the name of Quidditch. Having graduated early in December from the University of Washington, she apparated from her comfy apartment in Seattle to the bustle of New York City with no job and no housing in order to work for the IQA. Since then she has couch-surfed around the tri-state area, found a full time job with the Jewish National Fund, and logged riddikulus hours working with me at the IQA’s new headquarters in Bedford Hills, NY. So what makes Alicia so great besides her balls-to-thewall attitude? To get straight to the heart of it, a fellow board member and Chief Strategic Officer of the IQA, Alex Terry, once compared her to Hermione, and the analogy is relatively apt. She works harder at Quidditch than anyone else, has an amazing talent for multi-tasking, manages dozens of complex projects at once, has a masterful touch for working with and motivating others, and possesses a strong creative streak that allows her to produce fantastic layouts in the Monthly Seer. She is indefatigable – once she begins working on a project she will not stop until it is done. Over the past year in working with her remotely or in person (she flew out a week early to organize World Cup) I have lost track of how many all-nighters she has pulled. She never complains or gets discouraged; setbacks are nothing more than new challenges to her, and whatever she doesn’t know, she learns quickly, ranging from complex website coding to corporate taxes and filing. Guys, I think Alicia has
13| The Monthly Seer • February 2011
some dirt on her shoulder, can you brush it off for her? Some other things you should know about Alicia: she can play the guitar; loves swing dancing and jazz; used to play Starcraft; participated in/produced the “Intercollegiate Quidditch Trailer” on YouTube (221,000 views, NBD); and would probably gladly marry Joe Walker, the dazzling actor who played Voldemort in “A Very Potter Musical” (which leads me to suspect that perhaps Mr. Terry was right when he incongruously pegged Alicia as a Slytherin). Joe, are you out there? If so email alicia.radford@ internationalquidditch.org and she’ll find some space for you on her schedule. And if you want to be her boyfriend, expect a Google form application to fill out first.