radicaljoy

Has anything gone in where Naya was on East Paris?

honey

This calls for a Frankentrike: http://www.frankentrikes.com/

Burning Man passed through my mind while listening to the announcement too. I like the de-professionalization of the judging process. Encourages active participation by all.

The strong association with one name/company dashes my hopes that it'll be a Transition Town official unleashing. I hope that official Transition Town status is in Grand Rapids [not distant] future though. My guess -- and it's a stab in the dark, is some green space and/or recreation facility and/or entertaiment/mixed use development that uses the river to greater advantage. That keeps it pretty broad, eh?

Here's my plan, I'll bring ice cream in case there are cookies. I'll toss the ice cream in the other direction, then run for the cookies. I know you'll go for the ice cream.

Okay, with official permission, here's some URLs to make it a little easier to check this out if you're interested: http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/watch-...tion-initiative www.transitionculture.org www.transitiontowns.org There are 2 of the 12 Transition steps where Detroit is ahead of GR or in a better position: Detroit just announced community currency and they have a lot of vacant land that can be used to grow food. We'll have to go micro-local and everyone give their yards over to food not lawn production. Not that this is a competition. The more cities that adopt the model, the better for everyone, everywhere. Zenstyle, thanks for that post. I hadn't (and haven't) tried to find out if there are any U.S. cities that are "official" Transition Towns (if there is such a credential). While it might be an ego boost or PR generator to say one is the first, having others as models is useful. I find the categories mentioned in the video 'WATCH: Rob Hopkins Explains the Transition Initiative' (first URL) amusing: about 200 UK town are "mulling", 12 are "fully endorsed".

Here's my fantasy of what this is going to be . . . It's going to be Grand Rapids "official unleashing" as a Transition Town. The unleashing (announcement) drives momentum and engages people. In a nutshell, a transition town positively builds local resilience to be able to proactively adapt to change. Very exciting stuff and would impact the city for a long time to come. I've had my hands slapped for posting links in the past, so I'm not going to post any here, unless GRDadof3 gives permission. Using 'Chelsea Green Rob Hopkins Explains the Transition Initiative' or 'transitionculture' or 'transition towns' in a search engine will get you to sites that explain what I'm getting at. I'm struck by how many pieces of the 12 steps Grand Rapids already has in place. Seeing the pieces as part of a roadmap to somewhere and something that we collectively want to get to is a very important part - starting with the "official unleashing". Unleashing is the 4th step of 12 in the Transition Town strategy. To take this fantasy farther out - the old Davenport campus could be used as GRCC's Schumacher College division, which would be focused on the Great Reskilling needed for the transition and beyond.

I was there too. Crowded but fun. Saw many familiar faces, not all of whom I could place. Glad for all involved that it was so successful, especially WSBA. Organizers can try to learn from it, but unexpected things will always arise. Sounds like the biggest surprise was the huge turnout. Not all bad. Rhino, have you frozen any of your leftover soup? Or you could invite us all over to help you finish it off.

Well, that's what I get for not checking in here for almost a week. Looks like I missed my chance at this one. (Concerts are my favorite part of this season.) I've already got a full day planned for tomorrow, including attending Tuba Christmas. Almost daily I remember that early on when I moved here some people couldn't fathom that I'd want to live in Grand Rapids after living in the Chicago area, suggesting that there isn't enough to do here. I find myself very often torn between multiple options. Tomorrow has been one of the most difficult since I've been here -- multiple things I REALLY wanted to do.

You can check out 115 photos posted on their Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=34523891447 (you might have to have Facebook to see it) These were posted before the opening, so I assume that the people are friends and family.

The Dragon Room 48 W. Fulton Grand Opening this Saturday, Nov. 22. Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=34523891447 Interesting: "Smart Dress Essential" Is that why plee30 thinks UPer's won't be there?

With all the photo folk here, thought this might be of interest to some: NYT Polling Place Photo Project http://pollingplaces.nytimes.com/