Category Archives: Winston-Salem

Support Your Local School Board Member

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According to this article in the Winston-Salem Journal one of the members of the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Board of Education is spearheading an effort to set up an advisory committee that will be constituted of residents, and not necessarily residents with kids in the school system.  An excerpt from the article:

Jill Tackabery a
member of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County school board, hears pretty
regularly from teachers, parents and students telling her what they are
happy about – or what they’re not so happy about.

But Tackabery says
she is afraid that she doesn’t hear enough from the 75 percent of
Forsyth County residents who don’t have children in the school system.

“I really would like to see more engagement with our school system from folks who aren’t connected to us,” she said.

“I feel guilty
asking them for money all the time if they don’t have the information,”
Tackabery said. “I’m very proud to say I’m a school-board member, and I
think we do good things and I’d like to talk about the good things we
do.”

Three school-board members currently have children in the school system.

A couple of things about this article surprised me:

  1. I’m amazed that only 25% of Forsyth County residents have children in the school system. I would have guessed closer to 40-50%.
  2. I’m also surprised that only three members (out of nine) of the school board have children in the system. I realize that these are political positions that carry a lot of clout in the community, but I’d think that without the added self-interest of having kids in the system that a school board position wouldn’t be the most desirable given how much abuse they get, the time commitment, etc.
  3. Finally, I’m surprised that there wasn’t already a community advisory committee in place.

This is a great concept and in particular it’s nice that they’re inviting all residents.  Schools make up a huge amount of our local public spending so all residents should have a say in how the schools are run, and since an educated populace is part of the "common good" for the community it’s important that the schools have the benefit of the wisdom of all of our residents.

One potential shortcoming could be how they develop the committee.  From the article:

Tackabery said she has asked each school-board member to submit two to five names of possible members.

She is also asking community members to volunteer.

The problem I see with this system is that you’ll have personal acquaintances of board members, which doesn’t exactly widen their exposure to folks from different walks of life.  Volunteers are great, but experience with other organizations has taught me that volunteers are usually folks who are already more involved or attentive to community projects than average citizens.  I’d recommend that the school board set up a nominating process so that folks who know somebody who may not think of themselves as community leaders but are viewed by their peers as community leaders can be nominated.  It wouldn’t be hard to set something up on the school system’s website and they could really expand the audience that way.

Finally I think Ms. Tackabery should re-think this:

The meetings would be driven by whatever people wanted to talk about, she said.

“I wouldn’t want to
have a set agenda, although what we could do is take a topic, like
curriculum, and say ‘What do you think of curriculum? What do you think
our children should be taught? What kind of technology do our graduates
need to be able to do?’”

Again, drawing from my experience with other groups I will say that this could turn out to be a mistake.  One thing most people hate is having their time wasted.  If you don’t have a well structured meeting process with properly defined goals you will end up with a glorified cocktail party that is not very productive.  You will also find that meetings will be driven by the most passionate, outspoken individuals in attendance and that the vast majority will sit on the sidelines wondering why they are there.  They should seriously consider engaging an expert facilitator who will help define the discussion and make sure that all voices are heard.  That will help keep the committee on track, keep everyone coming back and provide the school board with the best returns for their efforts.

All that said, I think Ms. Tackabery is on the right track and I hope they get this thing off the ground.

Pics from the Twin City’s Past

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As reported in today’s Winston-Salem Journal, Digital Forsyth has digitized with all kinds of photos from Winston-Salem’s past. Sources include local libraries and universities.

Tagcloud
I like how they’ve organized the photos and how they’ve utilized techniques like tag clouds for searches (see the image to the left for an example).  They also have it formatted much like a blog with each image having it’s own "post" with details about the picture in the post.  My hat’s off to the folks over there at Digital Forsyth.

Avocado Green Oven and The Good Fork

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I got a great comment on yesterday’s post about North Carolina’s water conservation measures over the last couple of months.  The commenter, Laura Giovanelli, points out why Winston-Salem residents may not be slackers even though our water conservation measures didn’t match up to Greensboro’s.  In a nutshell we have more water available to us thanks to having a better watershed and thanks to some prudent governmental decisions in the past.  Definitely read the whole comment to get the full measure of the information.

As a result of her comment I checked out Laura’s blog Avocado Green Oven and I’m wondering why I didn’t visit it before, and if I did why I didn’t get it into my feed reader.  It’s great, especially if you’re looking for some good recipes and it’s now a part of my daily feeds (bad pun alert).

While reading Laura’s blog I discovered that she recently launched a personal chef business called The Good Fork.  Considering the Christmas holiday’s are fast approaching and time is getting crunchier by the day, I’d think that a gift of a personal chef’s service would be quite nice.  Think about it: home cooked meals that you simply have to slip in the oven when you get home.  No muss, no fuss.

The past couple of weeks Celeste and I have been experimenting with DreamDinners.  Well, I should say that Celeste has been experimenting since my involvement hasn’t extended past heating the food.  From what Celeste told me the way it works is you show up at the store, pick your menus and then package all the food items you need for your meals.  Then you package them (usually in plastic baggies) and you’re provided with labels that contain the instructions for preparation.  After that you bring them home and store them in the freezer or fridge until you’re ready to prepare them.

We’ve been happy with the meals but it still takes Celeste quite a bit of time to do the preparation at the store and you definitely spend more than you would if you bought everything at the grocery store.  The upside is that all the items are laid out for you and you don’t have to create the menu yourself.  Like I said, we’ve been happy with the meals so far but I don’t know how often we’ll use the service since I’m not sure the convenience gain is large enough that we (Celeste) will be continually motivated to return.

After checking out Laura’s site I can see a greater convenience gain, and since she prefers fine foods, a taste gain as well.  Of course that comes at greater expense than something like DreamDinners, but once you have your consultation with Laura and let her know what you want your job is pretty much just turning on the oven and eating.  Like I said before, it’s probably a great gift idea for anyone with a jam-packed life who doesn’t want to face another take-out or microwave meal but doesn’t have the energy at the end of the day to cook.

Notes from My Afternoon as a Non-Reporter at a Public Meeting

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As I wrote last week I spent about 5-6 hours listening to people speak at the public forum regarding the proposals by WFU Baptist Medical Center to build a hospital in Advance and Novant to build one just four miles from Advance in Clemmons.  According to the Winston-Salem Journal about 700 people were there, which I think is as accurate a count as any.  Following are some notes and observations from the afternoon:

  • When I first got there I stood in the atrium outside the meeting room and watched the proceedings on a television for a few minutes.  I was holding a steno pad since I wanted to take notes and I also wanted to be prepared if I got an important business-related call.  I guess I looked like a reporter because a tall, snow-haired gentleman in a suit that probably costs more than my annual salary approached me and nodded hello while giving me the stink-eye.  I nodded back and waited for him to introduce himself.  When he didn’t I put out my hand and said, "Hi, I’m Jon Lowder."  He shook my hand and said, "Yes."  That’s when my prick-o-meter alarm started clanging.  Then he said, "You look like you might be a reporter" to which I replied, "No, I just carry this in case I get an important call."  He didn’t seem to be buying it and he just walked off and joined his colleagues from WFU.

    Just after that a nice young lady from Novant approached and asked me if I was there to speak.  I said that yes I was and she gave me a green sticker that all the Novant supporters were wearing on their chests.  I put it on my shirt, but since I hadn’t taken off my jacket you couldn’t really see it.  I went inside and found my cousin, a Novant employee, and made my way to the side of the room where she was sitting.  I decided to lean against the wall and wait until the speaker was done before disturbing anyone to sit next to my cousin and that’s when I realized that I was standing next to a reporter (I could tell by her steno notebook and the fact that she seemed to know shorthand) and when I looked up the snow-haired prick gentleman was watching me.  That’s when I decided to whip out my notebook and pretend to write furiously for a few minutes while glancing at him intermittently.  A guys got to have a little fun in life.  After he left I went ahead and sat down.

  • Listening to 150 people say essentially the same thing is very boring.  The reporter was smart and bugged out after number 20.  I was in for the long haul.
  • If I ever want to be a reporter, or even dream of being a faux-reporter, I need to learn some form of shorthand. If not I’ll be the king of paraphrasers.
  • Two paraphrases leap to mind.  First, when the folks from WFU were given their 10 minutes to respond to some of the citizen comments their VP said that they were shocked when they heard the outgoing mayor of Clemmons say that his citizens welcomed the Novant-proposed hospital and maybe his saying that is an indication of why he got his butt kicked in the election a couple of weeks back. 

    The second was from the Davie county manager who was invited by WFU to use some of their response time to share a personal story to help explain what all this is about.  He said that after they’d publicly announced the deal with WFU he was approached by Novant representatives and he asked them how they could have the gall to approach him after what they did to another local hospital (Stokes County).  He said their reply was that it was all about market share.  He then said he told them that it wasn’t about market share it was about the people of Davie County.  If this had been a Q&A I would have asked the guy if he thought WFU didn’t care about market share as much as Novant, because if they didn’t they would be building the new hospital in Mocksville or another central location in the county and not on the eastern edge that happens to be home to the county’s wealthiest component and just a stone’s throw from the western Forsyth population centers of Clemmons and Lewisville.

  • Yes I was there to back Novant, but I was also there to say that I would like to see both hospitals built and preferably for Baptist to build theirs in Mocksville near the current Davie County Hospital.  I wasn’t the only one of that opinion.
  • The guy running the PR campaign for Novant was Mike Horn of Horn & Stronach.  He’s a former mayor of Lewisville and a current town council member.  It’s probably not a coincidence that several representatives from the town council testified in favor of Novant, but they should anyway since it would be the better option for Lewisville residents (in my opinion).
  • It’s interesting seeing people who’s public lives become entwined in their private and professional lives.  Winston-Salem’s mayor gets questioned every once in a while about his dual roles as mayor and president of the Winston-Salem Alliance, and seeing a town council member like Mike Horn wearing his other hat as PR pro was also interesting.  He didn’t speak himself on behalf of Novant, but since many of the speakers had been recruited by either side (WFU or Novant) it wouldn’t be a stretch to conclude that he probably asked his fellow leaders in Lewisville and Clemmons to appear.  Again, I’m not saying anything untoward was going on, it’s just always interesting to me to see how people who serve in public office balance their duties with their private lives.
  • The people from Novant and Baptist were all well-behaved. No catcalls, no booing, only intermittent boosterism.
  • A few of the public speakers mentioned the astronomical costs of healthcare in their comments, but no one from Baptist or Novant addressed that in their responses at the end of the day.  We need a public hearing about that.
  • One’s butt tends to go numb after four hours of sitting.  And if that’s the kind of thing that’s representative of what reporters do day-in and day-out then they can have it.
  • Finally, I’ve determined that I’ll carry a steno pad where ever I go.  It scares people and it’s a lot easier to lug around than a Fancycam.

Good PR Through Good Deeds

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Local graphic design firm PAVE Creative Group is getting some good PR mileage out of its sponsorship of the Bikes for the World event on November 10, 2007.  They received some notice in the local press, a mention in Smitty’s Notes Winston-Salem’s best resource on local happenings, and they just earned a nice mention on what I suspect is Winston-Salem’s most read blog, Life in Forsyth.

Businesses have long known that they can do well by doing good, but
to really do it right a company needs to make sure that its
philanthropic effort is structured properly.  PAVE affiliated itself
with an organization that is doing something unique (collecting
bicycles for developing countries), aggressively communicated their
program (Esbee shot a picture of PAVE’s poster in a local store) and
worked with other local groups like the Wake Forest cycling team and Simplyummy
to pull off the event.  In other words they treated it like any other
marketing effort which benefits them, their partners and most
importantly the people they are trying to help.  Well done.

Full disclosure: Chris Patti, one of PAVE’s principals, is a friend of mine.

Offshore Outsourcing Hits the Winston-Salem Journal

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The Winston-Salem Journal reported that customer service calls for its circulation department will be outsourced to a company based in the Phillipines.  More interesting to me was a comment that the managing editor Ken Otterbourg left on his blog in response to another comment left by a reader on a post that had nothing to do with the outsourcing story (his post was about photography on the Blue Ridge Parkway):

Reader’s comment: I love great photographs.  Hopefully you guys won’t be outsourcing your photography to Manila any time soon.

Capitalism is alive and well in W-S (and the non-US areas we send our jobs to.)

Ken’s comment: Thanks for the comments. I’m not going to minimize the import or
symbolism of the movement of our customer-support operations. But I do
think that it speaks well of our newspaper that we reported this. For
job cuts at this level, many publications would not report them. We
thought it was important to do so, from a credibility standpoint and
also from a fairness standpoint, because we’ve reported extensively on
IT and back-office operations in this area moving offshore.

I think Ken makes a good point, and I’m glad to see that the Journal is engaging in a little transparency.  I do ask though that they order the company not to use fake American names for its representatives. Nothing more annoying than talking to another "Jack" who’s real name is Arjun or a "Mary" who’s real name is "Ashakiran".

This story reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to look into.  Does anyone have access to the total number of NC jobs lost to overseas companies in the last 10-20 years?  If so, how about a yearly breakdown and a breakdown by industry?  I’m thinking I can get it off the state’s website somewhere but if someone already has it I’d love to see it without duplicating the work.

DonorsChoose Update

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I posted earlier this week about DonorsChoose, which is a service that helps teachers raise money for projects.  One thing I wasn’t clear about is how the donated proceeds are handled, but today I read Fred Wilson’s post about his DonorsChoose challenge and he offered this useful tidbit of info:

I want to emphasize something that most of you probably don’t know
about Donor’s Choose. The public school teachers use the Donor’s Choose
procurement system to "buy" the supplies they need. Their shopping cart
becomes the "cause" that is funded, and when the total is reached, the
supplies are purchased by Donors Choose and sent to the teacher’s
classroom. This is not about sending money to teachers. This is about
sending supplies to classrooms.

That makes a lot of sense to me, and I’m sure it quells the misgivings of some potential donors who don’t want their funds to mysteriously morph into a trip to the ice cream shop for 30 kids.  So, if you were thinking about taking part in my challenge and had some second thoughts here’s your chance to help some teachers in Winston-Salem do better for their students. 

Lowder’s Lewisville Challenge

Go Deacs! Who Farted?

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P8030321Last night I had the privilege of attending the Wake Forest-Florida State game at Grove Stadium, er, BB&T Field.  I went with my uncle Frank James and my cousins Jeff and Chris James.  To say that we had some nice seats would be an understatement.  That picture you see to the left was taken from my seat with an Olympus Stylus 710 with a 3X Zoom lens, which is to say the seats had to be good for the camera to get that picture.

The Deacs won 24-21 in a tight, fairly sloppy game.  My biggest regret is that I wasn’t using the video capability of the Olympus when the Deacs scored their first TD.  It was an 83 yard run by Josh Adams that started right in front of us.  Here’s a link to some video I did shoot.

On the weird front there was a guy sitting somewhere in front of us who was cutting some of the most horrifically smelly farts you could imagine.  The odor was so bad that it wafted over several rows and the ladies behind us got so fed up they left before the fourth quarter. The guy seemed to burp them out whenever an exciting play happened so you couldn’t help but inhale them as you cheered.  Before the ladies left they informed us that the smell had been happening all season, so I feel for the season ticket holders who have to attend the games knowing that they’re going to be dealing with a stench that could peel paint.

On the good luck front as we were walking through the parking lot to get to the stadium a couple of girls in a golf cart stopped and handed us some free chicken sandwich meals from Chick-fil-A.  We’d been planning on getting dinner before the game but didn’t have time so we readily took the freebies.  The sandwiches were still hot and quite tasty so my hat’s off to the Chick-fil-A marketing people and the young ladies they hired to hand out the freebies.

This was my first Wake football game and you can count me as hooked.  Grove Stadium, er, BB&T Field is a great place to see a game and offers a fantastic atmosphere if you disregard stinky in our section.  If you get the chance I highly recommend you go.

Thanks!

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Last Friday I posted an item about DonorsChoose.org and the Blogger’s challenge I set up.  I chose four programs chosen from over 180 that I found for the Winston-Salem Forsyth County schools and this morning I logged in and found that one of them is already fully funded.  I don’t get to see who funded what so I’m simply going to say thank you here to the kind folks who have funded the "Love You Forever" program at Easton Elementary School.  For a refresher, I’ve pasted the description of the program below, and for those of you who may want to fund some of the other programs in the challenge here’s the link to the challenge page.

"Love You Forever"

Literacy, big word, but it simply means
reading. There many components to reading. My classroom library is
lacking in variety, components, and enthusiasm. I am a new kindergarten
teacher who inherited a classroom that was started in the middle of
last school year. There were 10 small books in the classroom and no big
books or books with tapes. Through the graciousness of other teachers,
some books have been donated.

This is a class of 16 students that are new to school, many
have never been to a preschool or had any formal training. They have
had little exposure to the world of books. These precious students are
most at risk, and have a harder time mastering the basics. I am eager
to get them reading. I want them to gain respect for books and what
they have to offer. A book for these kindergarteners to take home and
share would be the start they need. The children will be taught the
responsibility of caring for books and returning them when assignments
are completed.

I am honored just to have the opportunity to make such a request
to such a wonderful giving organization. Thank you for considering my
proposal.

My
project needs take home readers, books with tapes, and concept books
for the classroom. Requested are: a science book and tape set, learning
to write transition kit, ‘The Story of Ferdinand’, guided reading book
bundle, and much more. The cost of this proposal is $272, which
includes shipping for any materials requested and fulfillment.