Author Archives: sarah

Meeting Tonight on Neighborhood Communication @ Bloomingfoods

Posted on October 24, 2011 by sarah

I want to invite you to a meeting of the NWSNA Communications Team – a working group that will discuss ways to share information between community members about local news, issues, and events. We’ll be meeting at 5pm at the west Bloomingfoods, at 316 W 6th St, on Monday, October 24.

We’d like to have a robust group that can help with finding relevant information and creating content to share. Do you have a great story of the pet you adopted at the local shelter? Is there an issue at the local elementary school (Fairview) that you’d like more people to know about? Are you performing a local music concert or does your organization need volunteers for a special event? This is a place to share that kind of info!

On the agenda:

  1. Discussion of survey results on how we communicate with the neighborhood, as well as input from attendees.
  2. How can we reach members who are not online? Monthly newsletter?
  3. Who can regularly (once a month) contribute to the blog/newsletter? I think 4 people per month would be a healthy start. VERY open to different topics and ideas. Photos are desired!
  4. Brainstorm ideas of what to share on the website, twitter, email list. Some ideas:

Hope to see you there! Please post a comment or email us if you’re interested and have specific skills or thoughts you’d like to share.

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Updates From Last Night’s October Meeting

Posted on October 19, 2011 by sarah

Thank you to Veda for taking these meeting notes!

We spent most of the meeting time discussing the Habitat Project. There are a variety of opinions about this. There does seem to be a consensus that at least saving a contiguous strip of undisturbed green space would be great. It remains to be seen how infrastructure and the site itself will support construction on the property. Until we have more information about what Habitat is able to do, we will wait and see. There is a contingent of people who still believe that if the site turns out to be undevelopable, the City might yet be pressured into buying the land. Other people feel that the City has no interest in this land, that this development will precede and it would behoove us to cooperate with Habitat and have some input into how the development proceeds. It was a spirited discussion in the democratic tradition of people forcefully sharing their opinions. We are grateful for democracy.

We discussed the need to recruit more participants into the NWNSA. We also need to form a committee to nominate a slate of officers for the spring election. Sophia Hauserman has offered to chair the Nominating Committee (which we hope will also serve as a recruitment tool!) Current officers are not allowed to be on the nominating committee, so we are asking people to volunteer to help Sophia with this task. Please contact Sophia at 332-5556 to support her.

Veda asked people what they thought about amending the NWSNA Constitution to create an executive committee to run the association, instead of the officers that we currently have. Bill Baus made a convincing argument in favor of keeping the current system and there was consensus that Bill was right about this. (The Constitution will be posted on the Near West Side website sometime in the next few days.)

We decided that it would be a good idea to have a party in place of the November meeting. We will post a flyer about this in the next week. All are welcome, regardless of how involved you want to be in the neighborhood – the idea is to build our sense of community and togetherness, and it will be a family-friendly event.

The party will be Monday, November 21st at 7:00 at Bill Baus’ house at the west end of 8th Street. It will be a pitch-in for snacks, with the NWNSA providing drinks. Mark your calendar!

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Updates from Last Night’s August Meeting

Posted on August 23, 2011 by sarah

We had a great meeting last night with a wonderful turnout of new and old members. Thank you to Sandi Clothier for hosting and sharing some delightful strawberries, cookies, and guac! And thanks to everyone who came and shared their thoughts on how to improve our community. Here are the notes from last night, typed up by Veda.

Elder Issues

Sophia Hauserman invited elders to a breakfast meeting at the Kirkwood Café on Wednesday, September 14th  at 8:30am.  She also informed us about an upcoming workshop on Community Development for Enhancing the Lives of Older Hoosiers to be held in Indy on September 6&7.

For more information contact Sophia at sofyhaus@sbcglobal.net.

Yard Sale

The NWSNA yard sale is set for this coming Saturday, August 27 from 8-1.  Brennan, the owner of Time Flies Antique Gallery at 729 W. Kirkwood and Chris and Carol from Sublime Design attended the meeting and they want to participate in the yard sale as well.  We will add them to the 9 homes that will be in the yard sale.  Look for signs and flyers and an ad in the H.T,

Veda will handle the publicity and Steven Janowiecki will help place signs.

Grants Available

Sandi Clothier talked about grants that are available for businesses along the West Kirkwood corridor and the need for our neighborhood to support our local businesses.

Downtown Businesses

Barry Wallock spoke about an opportunity to have Talisha Coppock to attend our next NWSNA meeting to get our ideas about the kinds of businesses our neighborhood would like to see downtown.  Veda will invite reps from both the Prospect Hill NA and Maple Heights NA to attend our next meeting and share in the discussion with Talisha.

 

Welcome New Neighbors

Sophia Hauserman is going to contact Vickie Provine at HAND and order “welcome” magnets for neighbors to give to new people moving into our neighborhood this fall.  Sophie will coordinate with neighbors to deliver the magnets.

Neighborhood Planning

Our Councilman, Chris Sturbaum, attended the meeting and updated us on the EcoVillage.  He also inspired a great discussion about creating a “neighborhood plan” to define our vision for our neighborhood and identify issues to be handled.  This is a lengthy process and we will be meeting in a small group to plan for how to organize the larger process.  Barry, Brennan, Veda and Sandi will meet soon to begin the discussion.

Chris also told us that the Growth Policies Plan will be updated soon and this is an important process that neighborhoods can be involved with.  We will need to make sure to have NWS neighbors in on these discussions about our vision for the growth of our city.

By Law Updates

Bill Baus will head a committee to look at needed by law revisions.  He will convene a committee soon.

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Updates from May 16 Meeting

Posted on July 7, 2011 by sarah

Minutes from May 16, 2011, 7pm-8pm, Banneker Center

1. Traffic Calming Committee – report from Wayne
–plan is in place for 2 islands and a crosswalk to be added at Rogers/7th! Hooray!
–there is an upcoming meeting planned to propose alternate side of the street parking on 7th St

2. Gardening Committee – report from Veda
–will be planting Indiana native perennials in 3 existing traffic circles, 2 on 6th/1 on 7th
–going to ask neighbors for flower/plant donations to help make the traffic circles beautiful
–more info to come on a plant exchange

3. Trees in the Hood – report from Burhan
–plan is to talk to someone in the city about working with them to plant more trees, especially fruit trees, in spaces in the neighborhood that could handle more trees (as assessed by SPEA grad students)

4. Elder Committee – report from Sophia
–would like to know if people have elders/retired on their block, so we can get in touch with them and help as needed
–upcoming event on the 3rd Friday in April at 11am
–please let Sophia know if you have any retired folks on your block that might like to be involved with this! Thanks.

5. Social Committee – report from Veda
–We’re going to have a spring neighborhood potluck party! Save the date – May 21, 4-7pm at Butler Park.
–2 bands will be at the party, Burhan’s group and Shahyar’s group

6. Presentation by Jacqui Bauer, the city’s sustainability coordinator
–Jacqui is interested in working with the neighborhood on various initiatives, including Hoosier to Hoosier, a community sale to encourage people that would otherwise throw away furniture when moving to donate it
–We might have a neighborhood yard sale on the same day, August 20, 2011
–Discussed new city bike/ped initiatives, some proposals might affect our neighborhood streets
–Please contact the sustainability committee chair, Sandi, sandinwsna@gmail.com, if you’re interested in being involved with sustainability issues!

7. Miscellaneous
–Sarah and Brenda discussed creating window cling stickers that will be given to businesses and community members when they pay the membership fee…will research the cost and design
–Membership fee will be slightly higher for local businesses
–Near West Side Neighborhood Assoc. wants to encourage donations from local businesses, and would be happy to put information about businesses in the newsletter
–We had plenty of volunteers for newsletter distribution, I’ll be sending out an email to everyone with the names of people who volunteered and which streets they’re responsible for soon.

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