What's This?

   It turns out that Mary Brenner, in addition to being a terrific watercolorist, also has a master's degree in rural economics. This naturally leads to her to be curious about the alphabet soup of organizations who are supposed to be helping places like the NEK improve their lot. Mary, and others of us here, have some concerns:
   These groups are mostly funded by tax dollars at various levels. That means your money, sums in the hundreds of thousands, even millions.  So where is this money going? The people who make these decisions are not elected by you and me. They are appointees. Who are they? Who are they connected to? How do they decide how to spend our money? Where do they spend our money? Are average people in the NEK actually benefiting? Is there waste and duplication of services? Mary has found that getting information about these things is very hard indeed. There is a huge lack of transparency shrouded within a bureaucratic nightmare of organizations. Do you have ideas, or information?  Register your comments here or on Facebook at NEK99%. And stay tuned!

Great New Community Resource for the NEK and Vermont

   I'm really excited about this new resource set up by our own Marina Brown, a NEK resident and internet engineer, using free software provided by Wikimedia, the folks who bring you Wikipedia. It's called Vtwiki.com (not .org or .net) and it is a "wiki" site which is  open to be added to and edited by anyone, like Wikipedia, but it's just for Vermont entries. There is no end to the useful info that contributors can enter and there is no cost to anyone!

   You can make entries without setting up an account, just refer to the "help" section on how to do it. If you want to upload photos, you can, but must set up an account. This is to make anyone uploading inappropriate photos traceable. Other than that, anything inappropriate will be removed by other users or editors (eg: review comments, like "I ate there and it was terrible" are not appropriate, as stated in the guidelines.) This is for information, not opinions. It's also not meant to take the place of other sites, so someone wanting to include an entry on facts and figures about a town can just include a link to another site with that info. This site is perfect for info that might be too regional or specific to make it into Wikipedia, for example famous people in your town's history, town lore (how about an article about Memphre?), or local features of note (how about best hiking trails near your town?). 

   Business descriptions and photos are appropriate as well as links to organizations' web sites in your area. Social service agencies can enter a description of the services they offer and how to get in touch with them. This can be truly one-stop shopping for everything you might want to find out about an area. 

  Remember the old saying "Many hands make light work."? This crowd-sourced project is just that! All of us sharing information about what we know best, in an electronic format that is easily expandable. 

  Please share the news about this resource with others. And visit the site at vtwiki.com  and enter something about your town, business, or organization!