PSG Learn and Connect: Contests, Conversations, Clean-ups and More

Dear ,

Thank you for your great response to our membership appeal. We are honored and grateful to have so many new members. Join today if you haven't yet!

This new year, we are sending out more regular, more specialized alerts to provide our network with the most up-to-date information possible.

Our resolution? Engaged, active citizens from every sector and from every corner of the region planning a healthy future for our communities together.

Based on your feedback, we're making some changes about how we communicate with you:

- Look for our PSG Enewsletter, The Regional Scoop, on a quarterly rather than bi-monthly basis.
- Expect Learn and Connect emails a few times a month informing you of pertinent educational and feedback opportunities.
- Keep your eyes peeled for Speak Up emails. We know we can count on you to voice your support for smarter growth when your input is most needed. And thanks to generous donors providing for a new contact management system, we are now working on making sure you get alerts tailored to your community.
- Watch for PSG Event emails inviting you to participate in the education programs we work hard to present to you.

Best wishes for a successful 2010. We look forward to staying in touch.

Sincerely,

Sheila J. Sheppard
PSG Coordinator

Jane's Walk

Anyone interested in helping to organize a Jane's Walk or Jane's Roll for Richmond this May?

Fifth Annual Grower's Workshop

The Center for Rural Culture is providing this educational opportunity for both new and experienced growers who wish to grow produce and provide fruits, vegetables and value added products for market. Participants will gain valuable knowledge about the business of growing for market. Saturday, January 30th, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Optional half-day Backyard Poultry Class on Sunday, January 31st. More info.

The Future of Richmond's Past: Community Conversations

A number of community conversations are being set up to provide a public forum for discussing ways our city might most effectively integrate its history into its future.

The first community conversation has been scheduled for Saturday, January 30, 2-4 p.m. at New Bridge Baptist Church, 5807 Nine Mile Road. Child care will be provided, and senior citizens wishing to arrange transportation through CAPUP should call 698-1070.

Ted Maris-Wolf, author of the January 3, 2010 op-ed "Commemorating Slavery and Civil War in Richmond" and Selden Richardson, Architectural Historian and author of

Built by Blacks: African American Architecture & Neighborhoods in Richmond, VA

will lead a 45-minute program. The majority of our time will be devoted to hearing from the audience. Three questions have been developed by the Richmond History Working Group to kick off the conversation:

What historical moment has shaped your thoughts or feelings about the City of Richmond?
What can we do a community to make our history more accessible to residents, visitors, and scholars?
If you were writing the history of Richmond and its people and places, what stories are left out? What are the most important moments that should be included?

The second public comment program will be held at Union-PSCE, on Monday, February 8, 7-9 p.m., Lake Chapel building, 3401 Brook Road. If you are able to arrive by 6:30 p.m., plan to enjoy refreshments and learn about Union's role in Richmond's history. Dr. Brian Blount, President of Union-PSCE, will welcome participants to the evening's program on "The History and Creation of the Black Church." The majority of the evening will be devoted to audience discussion, using the core questions listed above to start the conversation.

A third public comment program will be held at The East End Family Resource Center, on Sunday, February 28, 2-4 p.m., 2504 Jefferson Avenue. There will be a program on "The History and Creation of the Black Church," followed by a question-and-answer session and audience discussion. As details are finalized, more information will be provided.

Additional community conversations are being finalized, so watch for updates about additions to the calendar for February, March, and early April and plan to attend one or more of nine discussions being planned. Every effort is being made to schedule programs in all areas of the Greater Richmond area so all have an opportunity to participate, and there has been outreach to a local radio show for a call-in program.

Please let us know your plans for attending the scheduled events. Reply to this email TheFutureofRichmondsPast@richmond.edu with information about your participation.

I will attend the New Bridge Baptist Church, 1/30, community conversation.

I will attend the Union-PSCE, 2/8, community conversation.

I will attend The East End Family Resource Center, 2/28, community conversation.

StaySpace: 2010 JRGBC Green Spaces Competition

This year's competition challenge is meant to provide real and inspiring solutions to the land-use questions that face the City of Richmond. Our current development decisions put into play a series of events that dictate the future environmental, social, and economic course of a property for generations to come and far beyond the immediate development impacts and costs. Stay Space is a place that aspires to change the way we look at development. It is a place that looks to the future and aims to provide the support necessary to achieve carbon neutrality on a community scale.

Challenge:
Last year's Play Space challenge asked entrants to develop a recreational green space solution on the 10 acre Fulton Gas Works parcel to be shared by the surrounding community. Entrants were asked to consider the existing on-site infrastructure, Richmond culture and climate and to develop a solution that not only conserves natural resources but feeds back into the grid.

Building off of last year's Play Space challenge, this year's entrants are asked to look at the remaining 34 +/- acres on the Greater Fulton Gas Works site and develop a plan or design for that land that provides space for living, working, recreation or something entirely different if it feels right. The site can be designed for residential, commercial, industrial or agricultural development or something different and unexpected.

Students and professionals are invited to enter the competition. Individuals may enter although interdisciplinary teams are encouraged and may be composed of students and professionals.

The competition entries are due by May 21st, 2010. Entries will be judged and the results will be announced at the Awards Presentation and Exhibit Opening at Gallery 5 in Richmond, VA on June 4th.

A community forum will be held at the Robinson Theater on May 27th, prior to the Awards Presentation and Exhibit Opening, where entrants and the Richmond community can meet to view all competition entries and discuss. In addition, the City of Richmond's K-12 afterschool programs will compete on the same site to develop alternative transportation solutions for traveling within the area.

Visit the GreenSpaces website to read more and to register your team today!

Debris or Not Debris

Cannon Creek Greenway: Ravine and Roadside Clean-up: A Community Improvement and Environmental Project. Saturday, February 20, 2010: 8:30 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Groups, organizations, and individual volunteers will remove paper, bottles, cans, old tires, and other debris from the heavily-wooded ravine and the "Richmond-Henrico Turnpike" (a two-lane city street) that runs through the Cannon Creek Greenway in Northside Richmond, in preparation for the construction of a Bike/Pedestrian Trail, and park facilities in the Greenway.

Supported by 6^th District City Council Member, Ellen Robertson, and 3^rd District Council Member, Chris Hilbert, and the Civic Associations and other community groups of the Highland Park and Barton Heights Neighborhoods of Northside Richmond, the Sierra Club, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, other environmental organizations, the Richmond Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities, and the Department of Public Works.

Volunteers assemble at 8:30 a.m. in front of the Virginia National Guard Armory, located at the intersection of Dove St. & Richmond- Henrico Turnpike (500 Dove St.), for Clean-up assignments. Dress for weather conditions. If it is cold, layered clothing is recommended. Please bring (1) 3 - 4 large, heavy-duty leaf bags for trash (2)Water and a snack(s).

To volunteer Contact Charles Price*, Cannon Creek Greenway Project, fewmit@comcast.net, 358-0256.

Everything Old Is New Again

Winter Symposium and CVNLA Short Course. February 3, 4, 5.

Presented by Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Central Virginia Nursery and Landscape Association, and Virginia Cooperative Extension

8 am - 4 pm / Massey Conference Center

This event offers green business owners and their staffs, landscape architects and designers, master gardeners, and seasoned home gardeners opportunities to earn continuing education hours, update pesticide certification (Friday) for categories 3A, 3B, 8, 10, 60 and 91, visit industry exhibits, and network with colleagues. The symposium looks at innovations in horticulture and landscape design that are deeply rooted in the past and creatively adapted for the present and future emphasis on sustainability. View complete agenda (pdf)

Cost: $40 per day includes morning coffee and lunch.

To register online, scroll to the bottom of this page.

For a print-ready registration form to mail or fax,click here.

To register by phone, call 804-262-9887, ext. 322