Civic Pride and all that Garbage
So last night, I attended my third meeting of the newly formed neighborhood association. I had considered running for the board, but had missed last month's meeting (didn't realize that there was one) and by this month there were already elected officials. Unfortunately, neither the president nor the vice president had shown up. (The president at least had an excuse). The meeting was disorganized. What a rag-tag group we are.
So we all loosely sat in a circle...throwing out ideas, talking about what a neighborhood society should be, ideas for how to get more membership...a whole lot of bullshit with very little follow-through. I usually keep quiet at these meetings, but last night I spoke up...quite a lot actually. By the end of the meeting, people were complaining to me as if I were their leader.
The last thing I need is another opportunity to flake on everyone.
The neighborhood association did not elect a treasurer, because there is no money. Yet most of the ideas rolling around require at least little bit of capital. The group needs a website. And even fliers cost money. I made no promises, but I'm going to think about how to get grants or donations for the group. There's got to be some kind of government funding for this sort of this thing. Then I'm going to get a site built.
There's an abandoned house around the corner from mine. In fact, there's an area just two blocks south of me that is turning into a ghetto. One of the board members wants to make a project out of that house. I think it's a damn good idea...property values and all that. I never claimed to be altruistic. ;-)
So we all loosely sat in a circle...throwing out ideas, talking about what a neighborhood society should be, ideas for how to get more membership...a whole lot of bullshit with very little follow-through. I usually keep quiet at these meetings, but last night I spoke up...quite a lot actually. By the end of the meeting, people were complaining to me as if I were their leader.
The last thing I need is another opportunity to flake on everyone.
The neighborhood association did not elect a treasurer, because there is no money. Yet most of the ideas rolling around require at least little bit of capital. The group needs a website. And even fliers cost money. I made no promises, but I'm going to think about how to get grants or donations for the group. There's got to be some kind of government funding for this sort of this thing. Then I'm going to get a site built.
There's an abandoned house around the corner from mine. In fact, there's an area just two blocks south of me that is turning into a ghetto. One of the board members wants to make a project out of that house. I think it's a damn good idea...property values and all that. I never claimed to be altruistic. ;-)