The 2007 Wayne County Alternative Gift Fair, held at the new Reid Hospital today, has just concluded. It was a great opportunity to get gifts for family and friends in the form of donations to local non-profit organizations, and at…
If you follow the news over at The Richmond Coffee Shop Times, you have probably heard by now that Sacred Grounds is closing at the end of next week. The Summersault staff had a last (or perhaps-second-to-last) hurrah lunch there…
I remember the first time I was logging onto a remote computer system (a BBS) and was asked to choose a handle - an alias for my online activities. There'd been plenty of times where a computer game or other…
Rest in peace, Rachel Burrell: friend, encourager, piano teacher, visionary, comfort to grieving children everywhere, and an amazing woman. Seven principles of community building: don't try to control the message, transparency is a must, participation is marketing, concept of audiences…
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…
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)…
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…
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,…
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…
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…