FRIDAY 1/27: Military History Forum

Roger Neighborgall will speak about his trip to the site of the Auschwitz death camp and related places.

No charge. 10 a.m. – noon, Falls Church Community Center, 221 Little Falls Street. 703-248-5020.  The Forum meets every other Friday, same time, same place.

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.

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

 

Falls Church Boy Scout Troop 349 Deliver Food to City’s Homeless Shelter

17 Scouts from Troop 349 delivered some much needed holiday cheer to the cities homeless.  Members of the troop planned, cooked, and delivered a holiday meal to the shelter on Gordon’s Road by the property yard.  Food and dessert was made for all of the shelters occupants as well as the staff.  Troop 349 is chartered by the American Legion Post 130 on Oak St in Falls Church.

Scouts from Falls Church Troop 895 bring some holiday cheer to Sunrise residents

This past week, members of Falls Church Boy Scout Troop 895 visited the Sunrise Senior Living Center in Falls Church. Over 40 boys walked to the center from their meeting at the Falls Church Presbyterian Church to sing and play holiday songs and Christmas carols for the Residents.

SATURDAY 12/17: Final Weekend of Troop 895′s Winter Fundraiser

Boy Scout Troop 895 is in the final weekend of their Winter Fundraiser. Wreathes, White House Ornaments, Citrus and Maple Syrup will be available for purchase Saturday, Dec 17 and Sunday, Dec 18 from 10 AM to 3 PM in the parking lot of Falls Church Presbyterian Church at 225 East Broad Street. As part of giving back to the community, the Scouts will also be caroling at Sunrise Senior Living Community next Monday evening.

Memorial for Richard Marsh at GMHS Sunday

By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
November 19, 2011

A memorial service for Richard Marsh will be held this Sunday, November 20th at the George Mason High School Auditorium from 2:00 PM until 5:00 PM.

Richard, age 16, died on Wednesday November 16 in Newport News where he was attending Woodside High School. Until recently Richard was a resident of Falls Church where he was an outstanding athlete on local football, baseball, and basketball teams. He was a beloved friend to many here and his passing has caused an outpouring of emotion from many students, staff, and residents.

Richard’s mother Rena, is a resident of Falls Church and, as GMHS principle Tyrone Byrd said in a letter to parents, “a steadfast advocate for the Falls Church City school system for more than a decade,”

The Memorial will be held in the George Mason High School Auditorium. There will be overflow seating available in the cafeteria with a live feed. Parking will be available on the GMHS campus with additional free parking in the Virginia Tech/Metro parking lot adjacent to the GM campus. The Memorial program will also be broadcast live on FCCTV.

Funeral Services will be held at 10:30 AM on Sunday, November 27 (Thanksgiving weekend) at 15322 Warwick Blvd, Newport News, VA.

In lieu of flowers, contributions are gratefully accepted at:

Hoops for Youth Foundation
10623 Jones Street Suite 101-A
Fairfax, VA 22030

FRIDAY 11/18: Military History Forum

Guest speaker will be Mrs. Charlene Schiff, topic:” The Holocaust: A Personal Story of Survival.”

No charge. 10 a.m. – noon, Falls Church Community Center, 221 Little Falls Street. 703-248-5020.  The Forum meets every other Friday, same time, same place.

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