Monthly Archives: March 2008

Soup Mama Delivers to the Neighbors

Posted on Thursday, March 6, 2008 by • No comments yet

Congratulations to the Soup Mama, Lorraine Murray.  Nice coverage in today’s newspaper…

The only thing better than a bowl of homemade soup in winter — at least for those of us who arrive home from work simultaneously with the family’s demands for food — is a bowl of homemade soup we didn’t actually have to make.

If that soup made in somebody else’s kitchen were actually delivered to our front door, why we might just fall down and kiss the hem of that cook’s garment.

And she exists, at least if you live in Burlington. Hooray for Lorraine Murray, the Soup Mama, who delivers her homemade concoctions door-to-door every Monday.

Murray, the 26-year-old mother of one, launched her business in October. It works like this: She posts her soup-of-the-week on the neighborhood e-mail newsletter, Front Porch Forum, and her Web site (http://thesoupmama.wordpress.com/) each week. Customers place orders by Saturday evening.

Lots of small and micro businesses use Front Porch Forum to get the word out about their offerings… another great use of this service.

Past coverage in Ghost of Midnight… one, two and three.

Word-of-mouth has been very, very good to FPF

Posted on Wednesday, March 5, 2008 by • No comments yet

I was talking to a marketing professional this week and he was asking me how big Front Porch Forum‘s marketing budget is considering the high level of local buzz about it.  Well… what budget?  We depend on happy members to spread the word… neighbor to neighbor… social “contagion.”  So I was glad to read this posting from Perry in a Burlington neighborhood forum today…

I heard about [Front Porch Forum] some weeks ago, then yesterday, within about 12 hours, three different people mentioned it. I figured that’s the sign I need to become part. Looking forward to becoming more familiar and involved with the neighborhood.

8,000 local subscribers and counting… out of a base of 50,000 households.

More Sample Forum Headlines

Posted on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 by • 3 comments

People post items on Front Porch Forum across a wide variety of topics. Here are some of the headlines from one day (Feb. 1, 2008)… just to show a random cross-section…

(And you can read more about Front Porch Forum on our blog.)

  • Another Neighbor Joins Forum
  • BABYSITTING MINGLER AT UVM
  • Car Repair Shop Recommended
  • Carpooling to Downtown Burlington?
  • Cat Clue
  • Centennial Lot Activity
  • Colchester Ave. Sidewalk Update
  • credit where credit is due – Winooski Schools
  • Daisy no longer on prowl
  • Daycare Substitute Teacher Needed
  • Democrats gathering Feb. 10
  • Dion Street traffic comments
  • Dog Play Time?
  • Dry CleaningPlant Proposed Near School
  • DSL Expanded in Westford
  • Eastwoods Winter Party back on at Twin Oaks!
  • Eco Kid’s Craft at The Bobbin Sat.
  • Fire/Water Damage Repair Service Recommended
  • Five-Gallon Buckets Available
  • Forum Introduction
  • FORUM RAFFLE FEEDBACK
  • Forum Welcome
  • FPF Postings for Political Parties
  • Fundraiser via real estate transactions
  • Go Winooski Go! High School Basketball
  • Group Home Improvement Projects Anyone?
  • Help Animals by Supporting VSNIP!
  • Hey Front Street – float time?
  • hey neighbors
  • HISTORIC MARKERS FOR BUILDINGS
  • Housing available
  • Islander Timing
  • Jazzercise now on Saturday
  • Learn to Curl Feb. 2
  • Local Candidate Forums
  • Looking For Feedback on community education
  • Looking for housing
  • Looking for metal detector
  • Looking for Queen-sized sheets
  • Meet Candidates Feb. 21
  • More Neighbors Join Forum
  • New Rec Path Section
  • New to Neighborhood; Seeking play options
  • Pancake Supper Feb. 5
  • ROOMS FOR RENT – JUNE
  • school commissioner update and re-election campaig…
  • School information online
  • Schoolboard position – write-ins?
  • Seeking dentist recommendations
  • seeking holisitic primary care MD recommendations
  • Seeking Housecleaner recommendations
  • Seeking newspaper bags
  • Seeking pet/house sitter recommendations
  • Seeking Super Bowl Shoulder Roast Recipe
  • Senior Housing Proposal Comments
  • Sidewalk Plowing and mailboxes
  • Singing Valentine Offered
  • Speeding on Dion St.
  • Such Blessing
  • Support Green Mountain Children’s Museum
  • Tax Prep Offer and March of Dimes
  • Town Meeting with Bernie at MMU Feb. 10
  • Welcome your involvement in autism radio show
  • WING it! Williston Event April 11-12
  • Winooski Fire Dept. seeking new members
  • Winooski Schools Comments
  • Winter Botany Walk at Red Rocks Park Feb. 9

Are Wealthy Neighborhoods Less Neighborly?

Posted on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 by • 1 comment

A couple pieces today make the case that well-to-do neighborhoods have a reduced sense of community vis-a-vis more middle-class and low-income neighborhoods.  True?

From a Wall Street Journal blog (see the comments)…

I’m always amazed at how the richest neighborhoods are also among the most empty.

And from Playborhood…

The fact is that, overall, the owners of these 2+ million dollar homes are not very “neighborly,” at least when they’re compared to owners in other neighborhoods with much less expensive homes.

“Army of Davids” use internet tools against unwanted development

Posted on Tuesday, March 4, 2008 by • No comments yet

The Planning Commissioners Journal blogs today that…

Free, new media have empowered neighborhood groups tremendously. A decade ago, anyone wanting to oppose a rezoning or a development had to go door to door or make scores of phone calls to get people to meetings. Time and distance greatly constrained what people could accomplish.

But now an increasing number of neighborhood groups are using tools like Yahoo or Google groups, which allow e-mail messages to go out instantly to group members — and only to group members — so quickly that neighborhoods are now as agile as their industry opponents. Neighborhoods are also using free blogs to give them a public face and to archive public documents.

I think this new “Army of Davids” power is very apparent in Greensboro, where developers have lost recent rezoning battles (or given up before they started) in response to neighborhood pressure. It looks like they’re going to lose a few more.”

— David Wharton, “And They’re Getting More Organized All the Time” (Dec. 4, 2007, on his A Little Urbanity blog about living in the middle of Greensboro, North Carolina)

People put Front Porch Forum to use in this way too… dozens of times in the past year or two.

Town Meeting and Front Porch Forum

Posted on Monday, March 3, 2008 by • 1 comment

When my wife, Valerie, and I created Front Porch Forum a year and a half ago, we had a simple mission in mind… to help neighbors get to know each other better and foster the sense of community at a very local level.  We haven’t tried to dictate what people write about… we just wanted folks to sign up and put this free service to work.   And they do!

So we didn’t know what to expect with our first real experience with an election cycle.  Wow!  Front Porch Forum has been awash with comments, announcements, endorsements, analysis, opinions and more for the past month or two.  Here are some numbers (rough estimates)…

  • 8,000 households subscribe in Chittenden County  (including 30% of Burlington)
  • 130 neighborhood forums hosted locally
  • 1,400 postings/month typically

Moran Plant Redevelopment Proposal (City’s pitch)

  • 150 people posted
  • 500 households reached on average by each of these posting

Burlington City Council Races

  • 100 people posted

Chittenden County School Board Races

  • 90 people posted

Presidential Primaries

  • 25 people posted

Lots of (mostly) great discussion.  Many people have told me that they are glad to hear their neighbor’s views on these matters.  Others though have said that they are looking forward to getting this Town Meeting Day behind us… soon enough!

Google AdSense can really pick ’em

Posted on Sunday, March 2, 2008 by • No comments yet

This blog is about neighborhood-level community building and our work with Front Porch Forum. To your right (if you’re reading this via a web browser on our blog), you’ll see some Google AdSense ads.

Far be it from me to question the mighty GOOG, but some of the ads that its magic algorithm selects to go with our blog postings leaves me smiling.

And sometimes I’m left just scratching my head. E.g, just now the top ad was for a law firm asking… “Need help beating the death penalty?” or something to that effect. Do people on death row have internet access? But more to the point, how did Google decide that that ad would appeal to our readers?

About Blog

Ghost of Midnight is an online journal about fostering community within neighborhoods, with a special focus on Front Porch Forum (FPF). My wife, Valerie, and I founded FPF in 2006... read more

Search the Blog

Yearly Archives

Post Categories