Nominations Sought for GMHS Athletic Hall of Fame

By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
April 18, 2012

The George Mason High School Athletic Hall of Fame Nominating Committee has announced that it will be reviewing nominations for the Hall of Fame with the objective of holding inductions in the Fall of 2012. Interested individuals are encouraged to nominate any athletes, teams, coaches, administrators, or program friends they believe are worthy of consideration and induction. The Committee will also consider nominees for a Special Achievement Award which is designed to honor persons who have made particularly inspiration contributions to George Mason High School athletics.

Information as to the criteria used for selection are available on the website and the nominating form. The form can be obtained at http://www.masonathletics.org/index.cfm?action=main.alumnitr (when you are on the site, scroll down and click on “nomination form”) and may be submitted after completion as described on the form.  Among other things, athletes must have graduated at least five years ago (classes through the Class of 2006 are eligible) with similar constraints as to teams (teams that completed their seasons on or before the spring of 2006 are eligible). Self-nominations are not permitted.

Nominations should be submitted by no later than Tuesday, May 15th.

If you have questions, please contact the Committee Chair Scott Sager (scotts1147@aol.com), Vice Chair Joel Hamme (joel.hamme@ppsv.com), or George Mason High School Athletic Director Tom Horn (HornT@fccps.org).

 

Through MONDAY 4/9: Troop 349 Mulch Fundraiser – $4.55 a bag

Troop 349 is selling 3 cubic foot bags of Merrifield Garden Center hardwood mulch for $4.55 each. 1 bag spread 2” thick will cover a 3’x4’ area, 1 bag spread 3” thick will cover a 2”x4” area. Troop 349 is selling this mulch at well below retail, and don’t forget, Free home delivery/placement a savings of $30.00 (minimum delivery order is 10 bags) not to mention saving your back  Deliver/placement service is available to a 4-mile radius of the city of Falls Church.

Scouts will deliver and stack your bags of mulch neatly on the pavement on the side of your driveway or by your flowerbeds. Please note any special location requests on the form provided click here.

Order now for delivery of your mulch on April 14th-15th, 2012.  All orders must be pre-paid and received on or before April 7th, 2012.

Please help support the activities of Boy Scout Troop 349. Donations are also welcome.

About Troop 349: The Troop is open to any boy between the ages of 12 and 17, who has graduated from the fourth grade, and/or has received his arrow of light award. Boys desiring to join the troop are welcome at any time to attend a meeting and present themselves to the Scout Master for admission. Troop 349 meets every Tuesday evening at 7 PM between September and June at the American Legion Hall on Oak St. The troop web site contains more information about joining and what Boy Scouts is all about. Go to www.troop349.us and click on downloads to view the scout handbook and primer.

SUNDAY 4/29: FCCFA Recruiting Event

The Falls Church City Football Association, in conjunction with the George Mason Mustangs football team, will host the organization’s Annual Recruiting Event at FCCFA Treasurer Dave Hagigh’s home at 306 Shadow Walk, Fall Church, on April 29, from 1:00-3:00pm.

All MEH and GMHS students, 6th – 11th grade who are interested in playing George Mason football next Fall are welcome. Pizza and drinks will be served and opportunities for joining the team will be discussed.

Current Mustang players are welcome and encouraged to attend – bring a friend who doesn’t yet play!

To pose inquiries, contact theFCCFA (info@thefccfa.org)

Troop 349 Receives Highest Honor

By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
March 18, 2012

Troop 349 of Falls Church was awarded the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) highest honor for organizational preparedness – the Journey to Excellence (JTE) Gold Award. “Troop 349 is proud to be part of a group of units in the area to receive this honor and it reflects the dedication and hard work of all of our scouts, leaders, and parents,” stated Tony Ulses, former Scout Master of the troop.

Instituted by the BSA last year, the JTE gold award is given to units that have followed a strict regiment of training, advancement, fiscal responsibility, and participation criteria.  Troop 349 was founded with a desire to bring a hi-quality scouting experience that focuses on teaching leadership and community involvement to the youth of Falls Church.  With 37 scouts, the troop has worked hard to provide that environment and will continue to maintain it going forward.

Guest Speaker: Troop 349 has a history of focusing on scout advancement and providing its boys multiple opportunities to do so. In January of this year the troop welcomed Special Agent Michael Mack, from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security to talk with the scouts on the first class trail. He discussed with the boys our constitutional rights and obligations as a U.S. citizen. Special Agent Mack has worked for both the county and the federal governments for over 30 years. He has served in various roles as a policeman and has been stationed overseas in Ethiopia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Africa. The boys enjoyed his stories and everyone who attended learned a great deal about how our government works.

Teaching Leadership: Leaders from Troop 349 spent a recent Sunday morning learning about team work and leadership from one of Falls Church George Mason High School’s premier coaches: Julie Bravin, an extraordinary mentor for Falls Church City. Ms. Bravin has developed leadership techniques that consistently produce superior results in motivation, fulfillment, and top-level performance. Coach Bravin’s record of team successes is extraordinary.

Boy Scout Troop 349, Falls Church City, was formed with the specific purpose of using scouting to teach leadership to youth. Ms. Bravin was gracious to present her winning philosophies to the adult leaders of the boy scouts. She delivered important lessons for our parents, youth, and our City. As adult leaders in the community, we thank and applaud both Coach Bravin and our school district for such superlative talent and dedication.

ABOUT TROOP 349: The Troop is open to boys between the ages of 12 and 17, who have graduated from the fourth grade, and/or have received his arrow of light award. Boys desiring to join the troop are welcome at any time to attend a meeting and present themselves to the Scout Master for admission. Troop 349 meets every Tuesday evening at 7 PM between September and June at the American Legion Hall on Oak St. The troop web site contains more information about joining and what boy scouts is all about. Go to www.troop349.us to learn more about the troop and it’s culture.

Boy Scouts Serve Pancake Breakfast

By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
March 11, 2012

The Boy Scouts and leaders of Falls Church Troop 895 made and served a Pancake breakfast to the combined congregations of the Falls Church Presbyterian Church and Falls Church Episcopal in the Falls Church Presbyterian Church Fellowship Hall on Sunday February 12th

By way of a thank you to the Falls Church Presbyterian Church for their support, the Boy Scouts of Troop 895 served breakfast to the combined congregations of the Falls Church Presbyterian Church and the Falls Church Episcopal Church after services on Sunday February 12th. It was estimated that the 32 scouts, including 8 who ushered at the church service, and the 10 supporting adult leaders, were able to serve and feed over 400 members. Diners were seated at tables in the Fellowship Hall and boys served them restaurant style with freshly made pancakes, sausages and fresh fruit salad.

“I received many compliments from both congregations during and after the breakfast” said Dr. Gordon Theisz, the Falls Church Presbyterian Chartered Organization Representative, who acts as the liaison between the troop and the Church. “Furthermore, the Scouts who volunteered as ushers during the service were among the most respectful and attentive group the adult ushers have ever worked with.”

Troop 895 has been active in Falls Church since 1957. It is part of the National Capital Area Council of Boy Scouts of America and is chartered by the Falls Church Presbyterian Church. The troop has over 80 active members aged 11-18 and meets regularly in the FCPC halls. In the past year, members from the Troop have had the opportunity to experience a wide range of outdoor activities including hiking, rifle shooting, pioneering, skiing, winter camping and canoeing. The Troop is also committed to service in the local community.

In order to maintain the quality of their program, Troop 895 is currently engaged in their 13th Annual Fundraising Mulch sale. They are selling bags containing 3 cubic feet of double processed hardwood mulch, which if ordered by March 16th, will be delivered to your home by Boy Scouts the weekend of March 23rd-24th 2012. For more information go to www.troop895.us

Many things contribute to the success of a Boy Scout troop including dedicated leaders, a strong program of activities, the support of the community and a sponsoring organization. As a follow up to the Pancake breakfast, Dr Theiz added “It is through such hard, caring work of the adult staff, and the polite, friendly and positive attitude of the Scouts that continues to make Falls Church Presbyterian Church proud to charter Scout Troop 895.”

 

Falls Church Common Place – the Success Continues!

By STEVEN VALLEY
January 9, 2012

This month marks a year since the Falls Church Times reported on our own Peter Davis and his efforts to bring a new type of community awareness web site to life.  Falls Church Common Place is the brainchild of Pete and his partner Max Novendstern and they unveiled it here in Falls Church to considerable acclaim.  As of this month www.ourcommonplace.com/fallschurch has over 1,100 members who post news about garage sales, civic events, blood drives, book readings, home rentals… on a daily basis.  When we met with Pete a year ago, we told him we’d be impressed if his site got more than 200 registered members, guess we were wrong huh?

When you talk with Pete you can’t help but get the feeling that he deeply cares about connecting families, neighborhoods, and cities.  You can tell it’s in his DNA.  His father was a local activist and Pete is continuing the family tradition by creating a place based networking site.  Before we go any further though we need to be clear, Commonplace (CP) isn’t about social networking on a national or global level, it’s about something more intimate, something we can all understand – Who are the people raking their leaves 2-doors down from me?  CPs goal is to make sure that in this hyper connected world we now live in, we don’t become “neighbor blind”.  Or, to put it more simply, its aim is to be the front porch… the building stoop… the neighbors lawn that we can congregate at.  Once there we can share information about baby sitters, snow shoveling, trust worthy handy men, the need for a new stop sign on the corner of Pine and Lincoln, or info on good deals at local stores.

By now we’re all pretty familiar with how CP works, but for those of you who don’t here is a short explanation from the web site, Social Capital Blog, http://socialcapital.wordpress.com/tag/peter-davis/:

Residents can find out what’s happening locally or post about local happenings, needs (a good roof repair company, or interest in starting a Boomer ultimate frisbee league, for instance).  They can

-Ask to borrow a ladder or power drill
-Publicize a tag sale or block party
-Find out how they can take cooking classes
-Ask who has a used loft bed they can have or buy
-Find people and organizations with shared interests or hobbies around them
-Ask how to fix a pot hole
-Find out where their lost cat wandered off to
-Organize a service project

Users can connect one-to-one or one-to-many (to their neighborhood or to their town).  These one-to-many posts can either be a neighborhood post (e.g., do you have a lawn edger I can borrow, or offering babysitting services, or need someone to help me with my computers.) or a community announcement that notifies the whole town of some upcoming event.  Residents can also be e-mailed a weekly summary of key interesting posts and events.

CP has been written up in several blogs and has been featured on social media industry sites, newspapers have interviewed them, as well as local TV news shows, they’ve had radio interviews, and they’ve promoted themselves to local governments and at community gatherings.  All of the press seems to be working for them, as they move into new cities and set-up shop they begin broadcasting their presence and then they get discovered in the cities and states next door.

Burnsville, Minnesota CommonPlace: http://youtu.be/_PZ3rcJ8fv8

Marquette, Michigan CommonPlace: http://youtu.be/6yD_MCgyFBI

I sat down with Pete at Paneras on Broad Street back in August, he told me about what he and his team had been doing to both build and promote CP.  He told me that currently there were 5 cities that had adopted CP and that they would consider the effort a success when they had 10 cities under their belt.  Well as of November Our Common Place is now in 10 cities and growing:

1. Falls Church, VA
2. Harrisonburg, VA
3. Vienna, VA
4. Warwick, NY
5. Marquette, MI
6. Burnsville, MN
7. Golden Valley, MN
8. Clarkston, GA
9. Owosso, MI
10. Chelmsford, MA

I asked Pete if he was having a good time doing this and he answered with an enthusiastic “Yeah!”  He went on to tell me about the Memorial Day 2011 training retreat they had for CP student organizers.  The meeting was held locally here in Northern Virginia, Pete went on to say “Nine students were flown in from all around the country - Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, and of course Falls Church.  Of the nine, two gave up… kinda, we’ll see if they can get their cities up and running, the others were able to get CP going in their cities.”  Pete went on to explain “we consider a city fully adopted and bought into the concept when it has 6 posts per day.”  Falls Church City currently has 2-5 posts per day.  Pete told me that they had a lot of goals for CP in the next year; expansion, new features, expanded support for current markets, but their main goal will be to make our common place THE PLACE BASED community network sometime in 2012.

As we talked about the mechanisms his team was using to get CP to be that place based community network Pete told me some interesting anecdotes.  He related how the Falls Church Garden Club was discovered on CP, a single Moms group was started on it, people connected with yoga clubs through it, and how discussion threads on environmental issues took place in it.  He related a funny story about how someone posted a note on the Falls Church Patch, that note failed to get a response from anyone.  So, two days later, the poster wrote a reply to their own note that stated; “Thanks, but I got a response on Falls Church Commonplace”.

Commonplace has had many new features added to it in the past few months:  a groups feature was added in September to help add clarity to discussions and the directory feature was beefed up in October to allow for easier use, several more enhancements will be coming in late January so stay tuned.

So, ten markets and growing and it all started here in Falls Church.  I think it goes without saying that Pete and his partners have really hit on something.  It’s great that as a city we were able to help it get off the ground and move into other markets.  Pete has a year to go before he graduates form Harvard with a degree in Political Science but we all know what he’ll be doing when that day comes and we couldn’t be prouder of him.

Falls Church City Football Association Awards 2011 Player of the Year Scholarship

By: STEVEN VALLEY
Falls Church Times Staff

January 4, 2011

It was announced today with great pride that the winner of this year’s FCCFA Annual Youth Football Scholarship is George Mason High School Varsity Football player Stephen Lubnow.  Pictured here receiving the award from FCCFA President Brian Sulc, this year’s scholarship amount grew to $1,000.00.

“As this tradition continues and as the FCCFA grows it will definitely be a highlight of the season to award a former youth player this honor and it will most definitely go on to become an integral part of the football season and a motivator for GMHS players,” stated Tom Horn, Head Coach of the George Mason Varsity football team.

This scholarship, awarded to a current senior who previously played organized youth football, is in recognition of his exemplary performance in abiding by the Mustang Football principles of “Pursuing Victory with Honor,” and contributing to the mission of ensuring that the George Mason Football Program rests on a foundation of strong character. In keeping with Mustang Football’s proud tradition, the board of the FCCFA and the GMHS coaches felt that Stephen demonstrated exceptional enthusiasm, and a superb sense of individual pride, personal responsibility, tolerance, respect, integrity and discipline. Additionally, his devotion to Mustang Football will serve as a model for current youth football players who may be aspiring George Mason Mustangs. By striving to reach these high expectations for a student-athlete in the areas of character and sportsmanship, Stephen stood out as an ambassador for, and a model of, the “Six Pillars of Character,” (Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship).

Stephen’s previous Arlington Youth Football experience, his personal initiative, dedication and loyalty to George Mason High School his teammates and coaches reflect great credit upon him and is in keeping with the highest traditions of George Mason Football. “In addition to receiving the scholarship, Stephen is also honored with a perpetual plaque that will be on display in the trophy case at GMHS and it will list him and all of the future awardees,” said Brian Sulc, the FCCFA’s President. The FCCFA was created with the goals of promoting participation in youth football to the City of Falls Church and developing a community connection with George Mason High School Football.

It’s been a busy year for the FCCFA.  In addition to giving the scholarship, the Association also held its annual football summer camp for boys between the ages of 7 and 14.  Over 40 local youth players came and worked on developing their football skills during some of the areas hottest days this past summer.  The camp is hosted and run by GMHS coaching staff and FCCFA volunteers, and varsity and junior varsity players also helped to instruct the young athletes all the while giving back to the youth programs that helped them get their starts.  This year the FCCFA also marked what it hopes to be an ongoing tradition: a gift to support the JV and Varsity football teams.  This year, the FCCFA donated a practice clock to the GMHS athletics department, the clock which cost $1,000.00, will help the team to stay focused and scheduled during their practices.

We all wish Stephen good luck in his future academic studies and on the field if he plans to continue his football career at the college of his choice.

About the FCCFA: The FCCFA is a non-profit 501 c 3 organization.  The current officers are Brian Sulc, Steven Valley, Kevin Creed, and Dave Hagigh. The association was founded with the mandate to increase awareness of and participation with local youth football clubs, host an annual football summer camp for kids 7-14, and handout one-time scholarships to graduating senior players who exemplify the game. For more information about the association and to view information on the benefits of playing youth football go to: http://www.thefccfa.org

To become a member of the board or to volunteer at the camp contact The FCCFA directly at: info@thefccfa.org

 

 

SATURDAY 12/31: Traffic Advisory for Rt. 7

Date: Saturday, Dec. 31-Sunday, Jan. 1

Time: 5 p.m. (Sat., Dec. 31) through 1 a.m. (Sunday, Jan. 1)

Where: 100 block of W. Broad Street (Route 7), Falls Church, VA 22046

What: The block is cordoned off for the annual City of Falls Church Watch Night New Year’s Eve Celebration. For more information, go to www.fallschurchva.gov/watchnight

 

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