Main St Construction

Main St Construction Originally uploaded by shersteve The walls are rising Straight clean lines Steel and wood Angled support Extra angles critical until complete The building will then stand on it's own Angles hidden within What angles for support do you have? Are they exterior or interior?

Franklin: Summer St fountain

Franklin_SummerStFountain Originally uploaded by shersteve When you learn something new, do you share it?

Franklin: Water Cell

Franklin_WaterCell Originally uploaded by shersteve Yes, this Franklin water tower also serves as a mount for cell phone service. Smart dual purpose use. What can you leverage to help yourself or someone else?

Rapid Fire Learning - May 2007

Another month slips from us this year. Five down, seven remain. Taking stock of the learnings with a few days left this month I find: Good customer service is still possible Good news can be found Franklin took one step towards self-sufficiency but the road ahead is still fraught with troubles Surprise, I am not alone in believing in life, long learning Danny Meyer's "always be collecting the dots" What have you learned this month? Share it here in a comment, or write about it on your blog and trackback to Terry Starbucker's posting on Joyful, Jubilant Learning.

Reflections on blogging the override

Blogging the information on the override was fun. I learned a whole lot about Proposition 2 1/2. About town government. About town finances. About the school budget. About the workings of our government. Franklin is not a very online community. The student population is much more online than the adult population. The primary exposure of the adult population to online activity is email. They can follow a link in an email but are not sophisticated about RSS feeds, commenting on blogs, and other similar activities. The town does have an online forum but it seems to be limited to a small group. The forum allows anonymous profiles which does not foster a real good conversation. I hesitated to join but while I have tried to obtain access, several attempts are still pending acknowledgment. There is a good opportunity to use Web 2.0 tools like blogs, social network sites (Facebook, etc.), and to enable a healthy discussion amongst identified individuals in Franklin's future.

CoWorking

While I been busy recently on the Franklin Override issue, I was delighted to find a new opportunity getting underway. Bernie DeKoven, the Funsmith, and a regular stop on my RSS reading list is CoWorking with Garrit Visser. This is related to what the blog Synergy attempted and what the Joyful Jubilant Learning blog is working towards, and since I am a "collaboration teammate", my efforts in this area need to commence today. Check out what they are up to! One thing is for sure, CoWorking is sure be some fun!

Light blogging alert

Franklin is facing a budget override and I anticipate that I will be busy helping to get the vote turned out for May 22. It really is a mayday call to Franklin. The Town Council decision to put forward a $2.7 Million Proposition 2 ½ override still leaves all departments short of their budget requests and will require cuts to the services provided for in the current fiscal year. Exactly what that means to Franklin is still being sorted out. Amongst the items discussed IF the override passes would still be approx 25-30 school personnel cuts, Fire, Police, DPW cuts, library shut. Stay tuned for the details. IF the override fails, the picture gets worse real quick! PS - check the scrolling headlines for Steve's 2 Cents to keep up with the override.

Franklin Station - Double deckers

Franklin Station 2 Originally uploaded by shersteve. can shade as the train pulls into the station