News Around the Neighborhood
Mardi Gras on the Northside
Learning by Doing: Volunteering on the Christmas Tour
Our friend, Cindy Marie, recently volunteered to help out with the 2015 Old Allegheny Victorian Christmas House Tour and shared her reflections on the experience of taking the tour on her blog, Empty Nest. If you have a moment, take a read through her post, “Day 153: Trains & House Tours” as well as her other articles.
Thanks, Cindy Marie, for sharing!
Remember this Weekend’s Blizzard
Now that the snow is melting away, we can probably take a look back on the winter weather that just was, right? Neighbor Jim Wallace shares these photos from his front porch, looking out at Lincoln Avenue.
5th Annual Brunch Challenge to Support Northside Common Ministries
Are you free this Saturday, January 23rd from 11:00 am – 1:00 pm? If so, consider:
Each year 19 ti 12 chefs grin sine if the best eateries in the area come together to test their skills. They make a tasty brunch appetizer out of the food commonly distributed in the community food pantry. Along with a delightful meal, attendees enjoy some great music and a chance to meet other supporters of our neighborhood food pantry.
The event is at the New Hazlett Theatre in the Allegheny Center square. To reserve a seat, visit www.ncmin.org or call (412) 323-1163. Tickets sell out early – they are just $25 – so order now! All proceeds benefit the Northside Common Ministries Food Pantry.
Calling All Cooks!
Allegheny West is starting to gather recipes to compile a neighborhood cookbook to use for a fundraiser. Do you love to cook and have favorite recipes you know people would enjoy trying? Are there delicious and cherished family recipes you would be willing to share? Please send your recipes to Debra Kelly via email. Please double check for typos and ingredients and include your name. If you are submitting a family recipe, please include the name and relationship of the person whose recipe you are including.
Letter from the President – January 2016
Happy New Year, Everyone!
I’m one of those people who makes, and occasionally even keeps, New Year’s resolutions, so I thought I would share a couple of the resolutions I made for this year.
But before I do that, I do want to take a minute to send out a huge thank you to everyone who did such an amazing job on the Tour. Trish, along with Gloria & Carrie were really able to recruit and organize an amazing amount of support for the tour. I’m tempted to just list out everyone who helped but I’m pretty sure that it would take up the entire newsletter. I’m not sure folks realize that over 100 volunteers participate in the tour every year! For a neighborhood of somewhere around 300 people that just boggles my mind. We’ve been working with some of the other neighborhoods on how to support each other’s efforts and when people ask us how we manage to pull ours off I always end up saying “Have wonderful, great, amazing neighbors!” Not sure how useful that advice actually is, but frankly it’s the truth. Please join us for a Tour wrap up discussion before Tuesday’s membership meeting (7:00pm) so we can run through what worked really well and any ideas for things we want to try differently next year.
Back to the resolutions. This is it, this is the year! WE ARE GOING TO FINISH REVISING THE BYLAWS! There I said it, you all heard me. Feel free to stop me on the street and ask me how the bylaws are coming along. I promise not to deluge you with the minutiae of current best practices around conflicts of interest for Board of Directors for nonprofits. (Unless you really want to know…) A couple of more areas we also want to address are things like defining more clearly eligibility for voting memberships and the accountability and management of funds. If you’re interested in our current Bylaws they are posted on our site. Gloria, Jim and Bob M. have also put in a lot of effort on this project which will hopefully end soon.
Also, the grant for the Buhl Foundation came through, so you’ll start hearing a lot more from Martha and I about how we can improve quality of life. I have some other goals: sell all the real estate! Organize the filing in the office! But the bylaws and the Buhl grant will be my main focus for this year. Stay tuned to hear more from new and returning Committee chairs for their plans as well.
Finally, I hope to see you all at the first meeting of the new year. We’ll have presentations from the folks who are purchasing the Stables (yay!) about their plans for it, as well as our annual update from Calvary. We’ll also be welcoming the new Board members and thanking Board members who are rolling off the Board or changing positions. Hope to see you all there!
Catherine Serventi
President, AWCC
2016 Allegheny West Civic Council Membership
For folks who don’t have a lifetime membership don’t forget to renew (or start) your membership for 2016. You must be a paid member for at least 30 days before you’re eligible to vote at any given Membership meeting. However, membership meetings are open and anyone is welcome to attend! You can also renew/begin your membership online.
Above & Beyond
If there’s anything that embodies Above & Beyond in service to the neighborhood it’s serving on the AWCC Board. I wanted to take some time to acknowledge the contributions of folks who are rolling off the AWCC Board. Their voices and experience will be missed even as we welcome new Board members with new perspectives. We won’t miss them too much, though, since we’ll still, hopefully, be hearing lots from them at the monthly membership meetings and in our “virtual” neighborhood.
Jim Wallace has a strict policy of no more than two years of being on the Board without a break, and I was lucky enough to get to work with him during an ON period as Housing and Planning chair. Housing & Planning is a huge job and we really relied on Jim’s encyclopedic knowledge of all the players and pieces in the Northside real estate game. He’s also a pro at keeping the AWCC Facebook page (and this website) stocked with an amazing array of historic photos and stories to keep us all inspired.
On the other hand, I’m not sure Mary Callison has had a break from the Board in over a decade. She managed everything from Property to Membership and lots of stuff in between. She’s also the architect and caretaker of the gorgeous parklet on the corner of Western and Brighton. Whenever the flowers there make you smile you can send a restful thought in Mary’s direction. She’s earned it.
Trish Burton jumped in and took over one of the most rigorous jobs in the neighborhood, Ways and Means, and the spectacular House and Wine tours were the result. She’s an important voice of calm and kindness during passionate debates as well, which I will miss even more than her lemon flavored treats.
Fran Barbush has been with the neighborhood from the very beginning (well not the 1860 beginning … more like the beginning of modern incarnation of Allegheny West as we know it). In between cranking out newsletter like clockwork, she’s always willing to step up and save a lampost (or 4) or hold a government official accountable for a “too easy” answer with the credibility of long experience to back it up.
I also want to acknowledge the willingness of current board members Gloria Rayman, John DeSantis and Anne Gilligan to take on new positions on the Board and Michael Shealey and Bob Griewahn to continue their excellent work in their current roles.
Join City of Asylum for a Reading on January 20th
The Large Glass: Three Autobiographies
Translated by David Shook
In The Large Glass, celebrated Mexican author Mario Bellatin examines his most complicated subject: Himself. Featuring three different autobiographies, The Large Glass challenges the challenging project of autobiography itself—how can any writer account for himself in a way that is dignified yet honest? Intimate yet public? Like the Duchamp sculpture from which it takes its name, Bellatin’s The Large Glass plays with the artifice of the autobiographical genre, while at the same time celebrating the importance of the stories we tell about ourselves. The Large Glass further solidifies Mario Bellatin as one of Latin America’s most important living writers.
Plus…a unique opportunity!
Meet the translator and publisher, along with the author.
Joining Mario Bellatin at the reading will be David Shook, translator of The Large Glass. David is also the Founding Editor of Phoneme Media, a publishing house in San Francisco.
Join us for an evening with Mario Bellatin
Wednesday, January 20th
330 Sampsonia Way
7:00 pm: Reception
7:30 pm: Presentation and Questions
8:30 pm Dessert and Informal Discussion
[ebor_button style=”alizarin” url=”http://cityofasylum.org/event/salon-reading-mario-bellatin/”] Make Free Reservations [/ebor_button]
Mario Bellatin was born in Mexico and grew up in Peru. He has over 40 books published that have been translated into 15 languages. He was the winner of the Xavier Villaurrutia, Mazatlan, The Barbara Gitiings Literature Award, Antonin Artaud Awards and this year the José María Arguedas Award.
In 2012, he was the curator of Documenta 13, Kassel. Among his most important projects, besides writing, are the Dynamic School of Writers, The Hundred Thousand Books of Bellatin,the film Bola Negra and the CD Juarez Musical.
From 18 Neighborhoods to One Northside
Watch the video: Seeding change on Pittsburgh’s Northside, Neighbor-to-Neighbor
In support of One Northside in 2015, The Sprout Fund catalyzed 48 community-based Neighbor-to-Neighbor projects led by Northside neighborhood residents.
With activities ranging from repairing city steps, planting trees, and starting community gardens to beekeeping lessons, parenting workshops, and job readiness coaching, each project added to the critical mass of positive change emerging on the Northside.
Thank you for being part of the shared vision for Pittsburgh’s Northside.
The Sprout Fund offers catalytic grants and other forms of support in partnership with the Buhl Foundation and in support of One Northside.
[ebor_button style=”orange” url=”http://www.sproutfund.org/one-northside-program/?mc_cid=4e2957a881&mc_eid=2b20a06007″] Learn more at sproutfund.org/northside [/ebor_button]