How to get people's attention in Petersburg

Well, it seems that we've done what visits to city council, meetings with city officials and letters to the newspaper cannot do: we've gotten everyone's attention and are the talk of the town.

More people are contacting me about Poplar Lawn's canceled holiday party than the traffic circle, trash cans and last year's armed robbery combined.

Here's the scoop that everyone wants: what happened with the party? The answer: the party did not happen for several reasons. A few of those reasons follow.

*We have very little budget to work with because we have not collected everyone's dues. We could not afford to rent a location, and no one wanted to offer a space.

*The usual players who balance the majority of the neighborhood association's workload were all stretched thin with work, moving, job searches, family commitments and illness, and travel.

*The neighborhood was asked for help, and everyone else was too busy as well. Everyone in our neighborhood is busy: we all have careers and commitments and old houses that need fixing and families, etc. All of those things are priorities and should be.

*Finally, much discussion went around the board trying to justify a party that may not even be well attended: our last several have been a waste of money and really poorly attended. Ideas were thrown around to instead do something community-minded and improve the city with something other than a party that gets lost amidst all the other celebrating of the season or have a party at another time of the year.

I think that a lot of this conversation around the parties highlights that the holidays are a busy time, that people are over-extended, and that we all have a difficult time making it to all of the potential engagements. That this is scandalous or a failure on the part of the neighborhood, our association or our board is overreaction.

If anyone would like to host a party in January or February, as has been suggested by several people, please let us know. I will address everyone's individual inquiries in time. Thank you for your patience. I have been traveling and have returned to a lot of deliverables, so I have been and will be somewhat out of pocket.

In closing, since there has been more than one accusation that we did not promote last year's All Neighborhoods Party, I am attaching the below email that was sent out last year as notification of that party. I also personally delivered to residents the hard copies given to us by High Street and did the usual call tree calls for that party last year.

Please do contact me about whatever concerns you have, but please be patient with my slow response time.

Thanks,
Mady