www.seattleworks.org

Earth Day: more than just a "walk in the park"

Saturday morning I witnessed University of Washington students out of bed before 9:00am (a pretty big sacrifice in college) in order to dedicate their day to the Earth.  Sleepy eyes soon turned into faces of determination as we energetically cleared away invasive plants and removed garbage from the lower half of Kinnear Park.  Many of the native plants in Seattle’s parks are dying out due to plants like ivy and blackberry bushes that have a way of engulfing everything in sight.  The result has been a decline in our bird population from a lack of natural vegetation.  It was no “walk in the park”, but UW students worked hard and had fun at the same time.   

~ Tara Byrne

Impact Channel

Loathe as I am to talk about a presidential election that is WELL MORE THAN A YEAR AWAY (how about we get a little excited about this fall's school board election?) it is worth a minute or two of pontificating that this will be our first pres election in the era of both MySpace and YouTube.

A few weeks back, MySpace launched a new community-focused offering, called the impact channel.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/social-networking/56424.html

http://impact.myspace.com/

Is this a new way to connect with potential voters that really gets people engaged? Or is this the latest version of candidates trying to be cool?

Either way, at least we don't have to watch Bill Clinton play the sax again.

-- Tara

Participate in the Conversation

Ever wonder what the movers and shakers think? We do. More importantly, we'd like to tell them what we think. If you have ever read the paper or watched the news and thought "I would love to be able to share my opinions on parks with King County Executive Ron Sims, then you want to participate in the Seattle Works program that lets you come face to face with some of this region's biggest decision makers. You want to participate in The Conversation. The format is simple: 12-15 people full of questions and one community leader who has an impact on said subject and the next thing you know voila: you have an hour to bend the ear of decision makers on the issues you care about.

Earlier this week we held a conversation with Mayor Nickels (see earlier blog post) and here is some of the feedback we received from the participants:

"What a great opportunity/discussion! I have many jealous friends now! Big thanks to the mayor for giving his time and to Seattle Works for making it happen."

"Thank you! I really enjoyed meeting the mayor in such an intimate setting."

We have two Conversations coming up:

May 4th with the President of UW

May 22nd with King County Executive Ron Sims

For more information or to sign up go to www.seattleworks.org

~Ed

My moment as George Will

This past Tuesday night Seattle Works hosted A Conversation with Mayor Greg Nickels. The basic idea behind the conversation is to get 12-15 people in a room with a community leader and then ask them the questions about issues people in their 20s and 30s care about. If any of you watch "This Week with George Stephanopolous" You know that during the round table George Will always asks the first question. I got to do that with Mayor Nickels on Tuesday.

My question: "...There has been a lot of talk recently about the Seattle School District and the quality of our school system. What do you think needs to happen in the next 5-10 years for Seattle to have a world class education system?"

Mayor Nickels answer: "We need to have high expectations for our students and we need more leadership out of the members of the school board. Just this past weekend the legislature delayed using the math and science sections of the WASL to determine graduation until 2013. That is not setting high expectations for our students. The children in China and India won't hold back from competing until 2013. When we challenge our students to do better they always rise to the challenge."

All in all the event was fantastic. I will write more in separate post about how to get involved in the conversation and what participants thought of their time with the mayor.

~Ed

Carbon Calculator

Wondering how much carbon you're personally putting into the atmosphere? There's a handy little tool on the TIme's website: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/links/climatechallenge/calculatorall.html

-- Tara

Generation Engage

The other day I found out about this slightly brand new organization Generation Engage. Generation Engage is buit on three principals:

1. Young people suffer not from a lack of interest but from a lack of access.
2. Our democracy should be a dialogue not a monologue.
3. The best investment we can make in the future of our democracy is in young leaders at the local level.

The premise is not new: mobilize 18 to 35'ers to take action in their democracy. The interesting question is if they can put a new spin on an old problem.

For more info go to www.generationengage.org

~Ed

Unity 08 - food for thought

There's a group out there called Unity 08, a "diverse group of Americans who believe that neither of today’s parties reflects the aspirations, concerns or will of the majority of Americans."

Right now their website has a "dream ticket" page up, where they are inviting individuals to submit their ideal President and Vice President ticket for 08. The key is that the Pres and VP can not be members of the same party: http://www.unity08.com/dream_ticket

After you’ve made your choice you can create your own bumper sticker or campaign button with your favorite candidates. They also highlight a few choices each day and people's thoughts on who they selected. The current featured tickets are Giuliani/H. Clinton and Specter/Webb.

--Tara

Seeking to much civic meaning in my Saturday night part 2: participate as you see fit

Not nearly as cranky, but no less relevant, my other community philosophy/remarks of Long Winters frontman parallel came when, before a song, we were told something to the effect of...

Two - "Participate as you see fit - that's the Seattle way after all".

You know, it kind of is. The Seattle WORKS way at least. Tap your toe, sing along, or just listen - though it would be good if you chose NOT to be the tall people who always wind up standing in front of me and my equally short friends - the key is, you came out for the show.

Volunteer for causes that matter to you, vote for issues and candidates that reflect your values, give money to organizations that work to build the kind of community YOU want to live in. Participate as you see fit.

--Tara

Seeking to much civic meaning in my Saturday night part 1: Ix-Nay the Ncore-Ey

I saw The Long Winters at The Showbox on Saturday. Not only was the show fantastic from a musical perspective, lead singer John Roderick said not one, but two things in the context of the show that I thought totally nailed my views on community engagement.

One - Bloated Encores

I will confess to having a bee in my bonnet about how stupid the whole processes of the rock show encore is. You get to the “final song”, the band leaves, everyone claps wildly and it’s a big old amazing surprise when the band magically reappears to play another few songs. It has driven me batty for quite some time now. What am I? A trained seal?

Joy of joys – first, Roderick declared the whole encore process to be “bloated” (amen!) and “the grade inflation” of his craft. Then, we were told the band was just going to play a long set, which included an announced “last song”, a dramatic pause and an “encore” of a few more tunes.

Three cheers for transparency (and yes, I can see how the whole thing was a bit of a shtick in and of itself, but I still say it was refreshing.)

Being the civic nerd that I am, I couldn’t help but draw some parallels between the ridiculous spectacle known as the rock show encore, and some aspects of our community and public structures that feel equally loaded with their own insincere set of rituals. Seems to me the metaphorical band should just drop the posturing, stay on the darn stage and play some songs the people want to hear.

-- Tara

EarthCorps & Earth Day

We love EarthCorps--they not only run great volunteer projects, engage people from all over the world in environmental stewardship, but they GET our demographic.

Here's a cool link to EarthCorps' website highlighting lots of folks in their 20s and 30s (locally and around the world) doing great work:

http://www.earthcorps.org/spotlight.php?article_id=483

. Our goal was to add a new twist to Earth Day/Month, highlighting work of our alumni (22 for April 22). We have a few alumni emailing us every day with great updates. It's inspiring to see what folks are up to after EarthCorps.

Steve Dubiel, Executive Director

Feeling inspired, you can volunteer at an EarthCorps project this weekend for Earth Day,

http://seattleworks.org/projects/viewProject.php?_mode=occurrenceView&_action=load&sFrom=monthlyCalendar&ixActivity=817&ixAffiliateRegion=&sZipcode=&bAvailable=&dtBegin=2007-4-21&dtEnd=2007-4-21