9 Replies to "Another community cleanup this Saturday: North Delridge"

• QQman February 25, 2013 (11:49 pm)

  NDNC has to find a better way of communicating with neighbors. I live in this neighborhood and if it weren’t for WSB I wouldn’t know this is happening. I’m certain that a small minority of neighbors read the blog, leaving most of the neighborhood in the dark concerning what’s going on in their own ‘hood.

  • WSB February 26, 2013 (12:00 am)

    They have the best site of any neighborhood group around here – we just publish announcements here and there, as we do for many neighborhood groups, because, well, it’s news. Their community communications channels are where they send out far more material:
    .
    http://www.ndnc.org (where this is the top item)
    .
    Also, the Google Group mailing list – try this link:
    .
    https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!forum/northdelridge
    .
    And they have a Facebook group:
    .
    http://www.facebook.com/groups/138557508552

• lox February 26, 2013 (7:27 am)

  It was wonderful to see what they did further up Delridge last weekend. We could really see a difference and felt thankful. Thank you NDNC for caring about our neighborhood.

• QQman February 26, 2013 (11:08 am)

  You don’t get my point WSB. I’m trying to let them, and you, know that putting stuff up on a website is not the most effective way of communicating. Who cares how good the site might be if no one visits it? I feel like they need to do some old school marketing, door to door, flyers, what ever works in getting the publics attention, before the event happens. Maybe then they could have more community involvement. As I said in my previous post, I’m fairly certain that only a minority of neighbors reads the blog, the NDNC website or even knows of the existence of the council. They can’t assume that everyone in the ‘hood has Internet access, because they don’t. If they really want to make a difference, they need to make their presence felt in the neighborhood. And this is not achieved by communicating with a minority of the neighbors. They need to reach out to as many neighbors as possible and the Internet, although a powerful tool, is not the most effective one.

  • WSB February 26, 2013 (11:18 am)

    And as this is not my fight – we have no connection with them other than to cover them – I will just make one further comment. This is a volunteer group, with no funding, no dues, no formal empowerment to make anything happen aside from what they do with their own toil. There is no power or glory or financial compensation in being a neighborhood group leader. They do what they do on their own time. They have conducted outreach in other ways, including signs and flyers and posters, particularly for special events like Delridge Day. My point is that this is far more outreach than any other community group in this area (or any other I’m familiar with) conducts. FAR more. Including groups whose leaders, unlike NDNC – which has the youngest leadership of any local community council except Highland Park Action Committee – include retirees who have more time and money. On the entirety of the peninsula, there is no other community group that has an updated blog-format website, busy mailing list, and Facebook group/page, in addition to regular F2F meetings, plus an annual festival. To do more, they could use more help, and I can’t imagine they wouldn’t welcome yours. Including your expression via the Internet, to which you obviously have access, of your concerns – the mailing list is a good place to start, or a comment on any of their posts. Their officers are also listed on their website and I would hope they have individual mailing addresses so that you could contact them directly if you so chose – TR
    .
    P.S. (added) Also in our five years of covering community councils in the area, I’ve seen door to door communication fall entirely flat. Westwood sent people around for meetings about what were theoretically hot topics like the Denny site revitalization. Still, nobody showed. I’m glad to hear from Sam C that Puget Ridge, which I believe has a smaller coverage area than ND, found some success. They have a mailing list too (we also lurk on that one with permission), although I don’t believe they have community-council meetings.

• sam-c February 26, 2013 (11:16 am)

  QQman- I get where you are coming from. In puget ridge, we have some very dedicated neighbors. a couple times a year, they go door to door, with just a simple flyer. it listed all the upcoming events for the year, important community contact info/resources, and info on the puget ridge websites/ email lists. I know some neighbors didn’t even know the website existed until they got this flyer.
  prior to neighbrohood cleanups, they also put up sandwich boards throughout the neighborhood, noting when and where the cleanup will be (plus info on the post cleanup potluck)
  sometimes reaching out has to go beyond the internet.

• Holli February 26, 2013 (11:27 am)

  @QQman The NDNC has done three canvassing door-to-door efforts over the past 4 years that I’ve been actively participating in the council. The first was for the 2009 Delridge Playground build, the other 2 were last year for the DESC project. The council is comprised of neighbors with jobs and families. Everyone on the council actively engages with their immediate neighbors, several of whom are on block watches.

  How can we engage as you suggest regularly? We’re talking about 4-7 people during each council session who commit to serve the neighborhood to the best of their capacity.

  Door-to-door is most certainly the most direct way of talking to neighbors, but do you know how long that would take 7 people (3 of them with small children), and jobs? Can you round up 5-7 other neighbors to distribute filers for our clean up events?

  I used to lead the clean ups, and spent hours putting up fliers on the street poles, visiting every business from Andover to Juneau to post them. Guess who showed up to help? Only those who signed up for the neighborhood email list and read the WS Blog (this was before we had a website). This wasn’t a one time effort, but a whole year of dragging my kids along. The silver lining was talking to neighbors on the street.

  We have also for the past 4 years hosted an information booth whenever possible. Do you remember the efforts to bring fresh produce to the Super 24 store in 2010? Yeah, I was there every weekend talking to kids and teens and handing out fliers to our next clean up event. I also helped staff a booth at WS Summer fest for 2009&2010. The past 2 years we’ve had a booth at Delridge Day.

  My point is that the NDNC knows and is well aware of the need for more communication; especially since many of the residents here may not have internet access at home. The question is how do we accomplish the most basic way of communicating by visiting each door? I think we need a lot more volunteers to participate.

  We meet on the second Monday of the month at the Delridge Library, in the conference room from 6:30-7:45pm. Please come and sign up to help the Outreach Committee (currently one person). We need you.

• Delridge Mom February 26, 2013 (12:11 pm)

  I am so grateful for the NDNC. I so far have been a slacker and not done much to help this group, but I hope to contribute more energy in the future. For now, I do what Holli says and mention events to the neighbors around me if I can (many do not speak English well.) This group makes our neighborhood better on so many levels. We are very fortunate to have them.

• Mike February 26, 2013 (9:33 pm)

  Thank you Holli, you summed up the situation perfectly. And thank you WSB for your observations and reportage overvthe years.
  QQman, time to jump in and help us out. You could be that door-to-door voice. Want to publish a quaterly paper newsletter that gets dropped on each doorstep? Apply for a grant and you are good to go. Or how about a postcard mailer? Pick up the ball and run with it. There is even translation help within the Department of Neighborhoods. Your help is needed. You need to engage. It can be a lot of fun, and at the same time a PITA.
  I look forward to meeting you:)

Sorry, comment time is over.