Next meeting: Monday, April 8th, 7 p.m., 1919
Grove St
Thursday, January 31, 2013 meeting notes:
Lots of great discussion on a wide variety of topics affecting our neighborhood. Take a read and look forward to seeing you next time, Monday, April 8th, 7 p.m. 1919 Grove St.
- Administration/News for Neighborhood Garden
Little Free Library Project for Neighborhood Garden
- Stone design in Neighborhood Garden/Park
- Emma Martinez Park naming effort
- Naropa Students Day of Service
- Civic Center Project
- Arapahoe Reconstruction
- Treasurer's Report
- Social media and Goss-Grove
- Compass Rose refurbish project
The meeting was opened by co-chair Jenny at 7 P.M. There were 19 people in attendance. Attendees
introduced themselves by sharing an interesting tidbit about themselves; we
have a very interesting group of neighbors.
One plays in a rock band, another is an artist, one is from Hungary and
has published a book, one walks Great Danes, there were people who had never
attended, people who had come once or twice.
We had more people at the meeting than we have had at many meetings and
so appreciate all of you coming! Mary
and Maria offered chocolate; Jerrie brought homemade cookies. Of course, wine was poured. Great people in this neighborhood! Please come next time, whether it is the
first time or the 70th time.
Neighborhood Garden--administration
of the neighborhood garden at Grove and 20th is now the
responsibility of GGNA. Stephen, our
co-chair, is building a web site for the gardeners to use. It will include a link to PayPal for the plot
fees ($60/season for this year), a portal to log hours (4 hours per season) and
room for posting stuff such as what to plant now, garden news, etc. Jenny and Michele will continue the
administration for this year. Guidelines
will remain the same as previously (with the exception of volunteer hours only
for this Garden, no longer accept hours donated to Growing Gardens). There will now be a budget for the renewal of
the structures. There is currently a
waiting list for plots. Jenny suggested to gardeners that they consider sharing
their plot with someone.
Chris Shutze, a very talented carpenter and craftsperson in
our neighborhood, generously volunteered to design and build
a Little Free Library for our
Park/Garden. (Find out more about this nationwide project at
http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/).
It will be made of wood from their remodel of
Bernadette’s old house and will have a peaked roof like many of the houses
here.
He thinks it will be done in a
couple of months (working on it between his other jobs).
If you need remodel/renovation or any other
type of carpentry in your home, call Chris at 303-882-4484.
Anyone who has seen Bernadette’s house before
his remodel, and would see it now would be in awe at how beautiful it is.
I sure was.
Chris D., one of our long time gardeners, has offered to
turn the ugly pile of rocks (dumped on the south side of the garden) into an
ornamental stone design for the area between the stone benches. What a wonderful idea and generous offer.
Chris has been diligently sorting the different colors of stone. The stone will be set into cement, or other
suitable frame. Look for it this
summer! Chris will let us know when he
needs our help and we’ll send out a call at that time.
Phil Hernandez grew up in Goss-Grove amidst a thriving
Hispanic population. He showed us a map of our neighborhood highlighting all
the houses with Hispanic residences.
Many of us knew that Goss-Grove had a large African-American
population. Phil explained that as that
population grew older and children moved out, the Hispanic population moved
into this area to raise their families.
He shared some wonderful stories about our neighborhood. It was great to have him join us. As part of his presentation, he described the
tremendous effort that Ms. Emma Martinez
put into promoting and protecting the Canyon Park, at Canyon and 20th,
for all to enjoy. In her memory, the
Hispanic Community of the City of Boulder are in the process of requesting that
Canyon Park, at Canyon and 20th, be renamed the Emma Martinez Park. They requested that GGNA write a letter of
support. This proposal was passed
unanimously. GGNA will provide support
for this project. (Update: Loren W.
drafted a wonderful letter which the co-chairs approved. He is sending it off to the City. Thank you,
Loren!)
Naropa/neighborhood
service day—Amy Soehngen, a resident advisor at Snow Lion attended our
meeting. She spearheaded a community
work project with the Snow Lion students to help out in the neighborhood. Eight Naropa students and several neighbors
worked together in in the Goss-Grove neighborhood on January 21st. They picked
up trash and distributed neighborhood brochure, 195 of them! We certainly would like to deepen our
connection with the students; we discussed some ideas but did not come up with
any concrete plans. More to come in the
future! Thank you, Amy, for attending!
Alexis Winer, Director of City & Neighborhood Relations
spoke about her offices goal to work together with GGNA to help students adjust
to living in the community. She also wants
to coordinate with Amy from Snow Lion. We
welcome participation of the University here and were very happy to have Amy
join us. Maybe we can come up with some
good ideas for the next meeting.
Civic Center project--the
City will rework the area between 9th and 13th, and
Arapahoe and Canyon to provide civic spaces and mitigate flooding impacts. This is a long term project that will be
accomplished over the next few decades. GGNA
will continue to attend meetings about the Civic Center.
The compass rose--needs
refurbishing. Alycia volunteered to
spearhead the effort to get this done.
Thanks, Alycia!
Arapahoe repairs—We
revisited the Arapahoe repair project.
In our previous meeting, we had given the City staff a list of what we
viewed as important for this project. In
this meeting, we decided to write a letter describing the position of
GGNA. This will include the preservation
of trees and landscaping, the relocation of the pedestrian light from in front
of Naropa to 21st or 22nd , the preservation of historic
flagstone sidewalks on the north side of Arapahoe, and the installation of
pedestrian islands. Michele will draft the letter..thanks!
Treasurers report—the
establishment of an LLC or other status for GGNA in order to handle future
revenues better will be researched and reported at the next meeting. Jamie has
offered to help research this. Thanks,
Jamie!
Social
Media/Communications: We had a good
discussion about the best ways to share/communicate within our
neighborhood. The blog serves us well,
but is limited. It would be nice to have
some other way to share more types of information that help build community. Events of interest, needs, things for sale,
and comments about the neighborhood…these would all be good. Most the people who were present had a
Facebook account. That would be one way
to go…anyone who wanted to participate could do so. NextDoor was also suggested by Jamie. He generously offered to do some research on
this and we’ll discuss in April.
Respectfully submitted by Michele Bishop
(The screenshots at the top and bottom of this post are of the neighborhood brochure. Anyone who wants a pdf or Word doc version of it, please contact Jenny at goss.grove@gmail.com. Anyone can print this out and drop it at their new neighbor's doorstep.
The Cultural Events Board, Arts and Sciences Student Government, and CU Environmental Center are hosting an event with special guest Majora Carter entitled "Green the Ghetto". Described as a “Green Power Broker” by the New York Times, award winning Majora Carter’s work is founded on the principle that: “You don’t have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one.” As increasing numbers of Americans find themselves unable to sell or buy homes, this goal is gaining more and more relevance. You can view Carter's TED Talk's from 2006 and 2010 at