Yuri's Night | The World Space Party – Connecting people with each other, their dreams and spaceship earth.

Yuri’s Night 2011 is in the books, which means it’s time for us to start making Yuri’s Night 2012 the biggest celebration of space exploration yet.

Today, we’re officially opening applications for the YN2012 Global Executive Team, the group of volunteers who work to coordinate, assist, and promote Yuri’s Night parties and events around the world. Though some positions have already been filled, we’re still looking for:

• Chief Strategist
• Director of Marketing
• Director of Merchandise
• Director of Special Projects
• Web Content Coordinators
• Director of Outreach

…and many, many more positions! Whether you’re a seasoned event organizer, a party attendee, or someone who’s just learned about Yuri’s Night, there’s a good chance that there’s a position that fits your skills on the team.

Check out http://yurisnight.net/apply-2012/ for a description of the open positions, and then submit your application at http://yurisnight.net/apply-2012/application. All positions are unpaid, part-time positions which can be done from your own home. Applications due July 12.

For further application-related questions, please contact Carolyn Belle at carolyn@yurisnight.net.

Thanks to everyone who joined us in celebrating the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight! We’ll be wrapping up Yuri’s Night 2011 on the blog over the next few weeks and talking about some of the fantastic events that took place. In the meanwhile, you can look through our user-submitted YNLive photos and stories at http://live.yurisnight.net. There are also plenty of Yuri’s Night events still to be held, so if you’re going to one of those, we hope you have a great time!

We’re coming up on the end of our three Yuri’s Night Contests, and have a few updates to make for each of those:

First off, all three contests close tonight, at the end of April 15–so if you’re still putting the finishing touches on your entry (or waiting until the last second to sign up for the Sweepstakes), make sure to get those in ASAP!

Once we receive all the entries, we’ll pass those on to our panels of judges and our random-selection programs. We’ve also extended the deadline on our People’s Choice voting until April 22, to give all entries an opportunity to win the prize. Go like your favorite submissions on Facebook, if you haven’t already!

Finally, we’ll be announcing the winners to all of our contests live on Spacevidcast, at their special on-location show for the launch of STS-134. This show is planned for Thursday, April 28, but may be delayed to April 29 based on the status of the Shuttle launch. Tune in to www.spacevidcast.com (exact time TBA) to find out the winners!