Category Archives: Stories
After 24 years, community connection blossoming
#VT – My husband and I have been living in Cambridge, VT for 24 years. We don’t have children of our own which has made it difficult to get to know people in our community and the events that happen here. Front Porch Forum changed that for us… thank you.
The Cambridge FPF covers all 1,500 households in this small rural town, and it has about 1,300 members who use it in wonderful ways. No wonder FPF packs such a wallop for the member quoted above.
How do Vermonters prepare for Town Meeting Day decisions?
#BTV #VT – Increasingly, the answer to this question includes Front Porch Forum. Ninety Vermont towns are served by FPF and public officials, advocacy groups and voters alike use their FPF to share information, state opinions and encourage participation in local democracy. Occasionally an FPF will get heated in the days approaching Town Meeting… but that’s how community works. Ideally neighbors pull together and move the community forward after Town Meeting Day, regardless of which candidates and ballot measures prevail.
FPF is popping up in traditional media this week. Two recent front pages (one and two) of the Burlington Free Press mentioned FPF’s role in Town Meeting issues. And Seven Days quoted former City Councilor Ed Adrian today…
In a February 28 posting on Front Porch Forum, Adrian lodged five points of criticism against Bushor, including: “To the best of my knowledge, Sharon has never posted on FPF. Anything.”
Ed will be glad to know that Sharon posted a campaign-related item to her FPF today!
Feeling connected…
#VT – “Thanks to Front Porch Forum for the first time I have felt truly connected to the people and happenings in the town I live and grew up in.”
That’s from Elias, who lives in a small town in Vermont.
Small-town NY social network rescues horses
The tiny Argyle Front Porch Forum continues to outperform expectations. See these two recent postings from Shannon…
Sadly I have been asked to help with a very hard emergency situation. One of our fellow Argyle residents is losing their home. They have tried all the options out there and the last effort to do a loan modification ended up not working out after all. It looks as though next Friday the 8th could be the last day this family can be in their home.
They have 5 horses who all need a safe place to go. They are looking for homes for them and they do not need to stay together. Each horse will come with aprox. 55 bales of hay. There are 2 horses who are 9 and could be ridable when properly trained. The other 3 are mainly companions although the oldest (30) could still work with kids.
I realize this is a tall order to fill in a week’s time. We just don’t have the space here for them either. If we split them up perhaps they can all land in a safe spot. Please pass this on, post it on your facebook pages or any place you think it would help. The 2 younger horses would be great training projects. The gelding needs all his training and the mare already has lots of training e/w and some dressage but freaks out if you raise your voice. She is an Adn. TBX. Gray.
Shannon – Double L Stable Equine Rescue and Sanctuary
And her follow up…
Wow! Was I surprised at the number of calls I got in regards to the 5 horses in need on Coach Rd. Over 100 calls! Not only did Argyle animal lovers step up but I had at least half a dozen calls from folks who thought they might have info that would help the family losing their home… I believe all the horses may be spoken for but I will update everyone if any of the homes fall though. Way to go Argyle! You picked up the post and really ran with it… I had more success just posting this on the Argyle Front Porch Forum to spread the word then I have ever had before, even posting it on our national Petfinder site!
It takes a village to raise a teenager…
#VT – “Looking for a loud and obnoxious (& cheap) alarm clock to get my teen up in the morning. I’m sure there must be a few of them out there?”
That’s my favorite Front Porch Forum posting of the hour… from Peter on the Waterbury FPF.
“We don’t need another newspaper, we have Front Porch Forum”
#VT – How fortunate we are in Bristol to have Front Porch Forum at our disposal. I certainly hope that someone is recording all these postings using some media that is not ephemeral (imagine if the Constitution had been recorded on 8 track?) as future generations may be able to use current Front Porch Forum postings the way our generations use the old Bristol Heralds- a view into a time gone by.
I was talking with a good friend the other day who had been considering starting up another newspaper that would deal with only local issues, much like the last several efforts to do the same but which all met an early demise. We don’t need another newspaper- we have Front Porch Forum which meets all those needs.
I just hope that future generations can enjoy this as much as we do and that they will be able to look back to our time and try to understand the issues that confront us in the same way that we use old publications in our quest to understand the issues of earlier times, and as George Santayana observed, “Those who cannot learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”
Shared by Ted with his Bristol, Vermont, neighbors on their FPF today.
Vermont connection to The Simpsons?
#BTV #VT – Posted by Nicki Feldman on the Underhill Front Porch Forum today…
My brother, Ben Feldman, is 1 of 3 finalists chosen out of 25,000 for a contest on the Simpsons Television Show! The winner will have their illustration animated on the season finale.
I am being a shameless sister and asking if you would please vote for him…check it out!!
http://www.fox.com/thesimpsons/couchgag/
Thank you and stay warm : )
Campaigns, Businesses and Nonprofits put FPF to work
#BTV #VT – 45,000 Vermont households participate in their Front Porch Forum now. Use FPF advertising and campaign postings to place your message into neighborhood conversations.
“Front Porch Forum is the finest tool ever invented for speaking directly to your constituents, or to potential voters. It’s direct, it’s personal, and it’s increasingly powerful as more and more homes come online. Where I used it in my last election, my vote totals visibly increased, because it’s less a form of advertising and more a kind of conversation — and that’s the way we should be doing campaigns in Vermont.”
– Philip Baruth, Vermont Senate Majority Leader
“We just conducted a survey, seeking respondents through many local news channels. Our Front Porch Forum campaign outperformed every other link by a huge margin! So huge in fact, that we needed to retool our workflow to manage the high number of FPF-generated responses. Front Porch Forum is amazing! It will always be an integral part of our ongoing community outreach effort.”
– Cal Workman, Greater Burlington YMCA
“We book with FPF because we feel it’s a great, cost-effective way to reach local consumers who are actively engaged with their communities and looking to support local businesses/organizations.”
– Elisa Garcia-Rey, Karen Fahey Advertising
“There is no doubt that Front Porch Forum was immensely helpful in making this year’s conference our most successful event ever.”
– Charlie Brooks, 15th Annual Vermont Breast Cancer Conference
Building community resiliency before natural disaster
#VT – Shared recently by Meg Allison, Moretown Elementary School librarian:
Moretown is a typical rural Vermont town, defined by her extraordinary landscape of hills and valleys, and peopled with caring, resilient, and proud people. When the rains of Tropical Storm Irene caused our rivers, the Mad River and the Winooski River, to rise and inundate our neighborhoods, when our village had to be evacuated, when our post office, town office, and elementary school filled with flood waters, when our bridges were compromised and roads washed away, we had one thing going for us that some other towns did not ““ a digital infrastructure and a citizenry who knew how to use digital tools to communicate, to organize, and ultimately, to continue our long-term recovery.
Moretown was the recipient of round two e-Vermont funding that established, among other things, Front Porch Forum, a robust digital network for our residents, digital workshops and training for our residents, computers and wifi access for our town library, and an invaluable partnership with Digital Wish, providing each of our 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and their teachers with netbooks and training for how to learn and teach with them.Without our own local news station, newspaper, or radio station, typical of so many rural Vermont towns, a platform such as Front Porch Forum proved to be vital when we needed it the most. Moretown only had Front Porch Forum for a few months and it was slowly growing. Town officials were embracing it and posting agendas for upcoming select board meetings, some neighbors told of yard sales and extra eggs from their hens to give away, but many weren’t sure of why we had it, or what its purpose was.That changed in the days and weeks immediately following Tropical Storm Irene.Within days, interest in Front Porch Forum exploded. Dozens and dozens of residents signed onto FPF as it became the number one way that town officials and neighbors communicated with one another. It became so important that minutes of our daily emergency response meetings posted onto FPF were printed and tacked to the Town Hall and other outlying areas of our town…
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
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