Posts with the tag "community"

This page shows posts in my weblog that are tagged with the keyword(s) above. This is one of the ways you can browse all of the different topics I write about.


185 Fort Wayne Avenue in Richmond Indiana


Last fall I took possession of the building at 185 Fort Wayne Avenue here in Richmond. It's a cool old space with a lot of history behind it - folks named Nye, Ezra and Starr had a place that made stoves and tinware there in the 1860s, and since then it's been used for [...]

The beginning of the Wayne County Time Bank


Last fall while I was at a conference on our planet's energy crisis and how local communities can be more self-sustaining, I had a conversation with a gentleman from the TimeBanks USA organization. Time Banking is a revolutionary (I think) concept in community building that helps us value the unique skills and experiences that [...]

On volunteering


It's a privilege to volunteer in one's community. In one sense it's literally a privilege of having the time and means to say "I'm doing okay enough in my own life that I want to share some of my energy in service to the lives of others." In another sense, it's a privilege [...]

Our education system is broken


This rant may eventually turn into a podcast segment, but I haven't had time for that and I can't wait any longer. The news has been all the buzz lately: Only 54% of Richmond Community Schools students graduated in 2006, putting us in the bottom 7% of Indiana high schools. There's the commentary [...]

Tired of social networking sites


At lunch today we were talking about all the social networking sites that have popped up on the Intertubes over the recent years. Mark and I sounded a little curmudgeonly about it, noting that we've long since been ignoring invitations to join the latest fad in making virtual connections to the rest of the [...]

Inventory of Sustainability Efforts in My Life


During the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions that I attended last month, I found myself surrounded by an amazing group of hundreds of people who were trying to make changes in the world to move us (the human species) toward sustainability. While I do not limit my thinking on sustainability to [...]

Progressive Wayne County


I recently created a new website that I hope grows into a useful resource in our community. Progressive Wayne County is an interactive community site that promotes and chronicles the progressive efforts of individuals, organizations and businesses in the area. I figured there were enough places you could go to read or talk [...]

The joy of nuanced relationships


(You can listen to the MP3 audio of this entry, too.)
One of my favorite parts of living in a small city in the Midwest is that many of us tend to wear multiple hats for each other. When you get to know someone new in one setting, if you stick around long enough, it's [...]

If I Were Mayor


I was glad to see today's article about the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns` "If I Were Mayor, I Would..." contest (PDF link on that last one). Such things can only improve the quality of dialogue about what we want for our communities. Local elementary school student Ross Mathews took the prize [...]

Props to the P-I for embracing conversation technologies


It wasn't too long ago that I took an inventory of the quality of public dialogue in Richmond, and in doing so, sprinkled in some cynicism about the role played and limitations imposed by the Palladium-Item in that measuring. A bit later I brought the cynicism up a notch (or, down a rung?) in [...]

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