Saturday, July 30, 2005

This was the final day of the conference.  There was some optional sessions but most everyone packed up went home.  As far as I know everyone had a good trip home.

- posted by KKB staff at 6:15 PM

Friday, July 29, 2005

Today was more sessions all day.  It started with a nice presentation by several affiliate directors, including Keep Sevier Beautiful's Allison Teeters on really great ideas on junk car removal, extreme makeovers, shopping cart litter, GIS tracking of your urban forest and more.  Then we had a super presentation on the characteristics of generations (baby boomers, gen Xer's, etc.) and the implications for volunteerism.  There were breakout sessions on xeriscaping, hazardous waste and paper recycling.  I went to the xeriscaping and it was interesting.  Xeriscaping is creating landscapes that require little or no maintenance after the installation.  Emphasis is on proper selection of native (and other) species that will thrive under the soil and water conditions present in the landscape.  This cuts down dramatically on watering and other maintenance in the long term.  Then a bunch of us went to the Old Town for lunch and a brief shopping spree.



Old Town is on the world famous Route 66 and there was a beautiful old church and lots of shops and restaurants.  This little band was playing Let it Be by The Beatles - it actually sounded kind of awful with the two flutes.  At the end of the day we all went to a big reception and dinner presented by Keep Albuquerque Beautiful which was celebrating it's 20th anniversary.  Here are some pictures from the reception and bus ride back to the hotel:

- posted by KKB staff at 10:55 PM

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Dawn in Albuquerque - this was the view from my hotel room.



Today was filled with sessions.  The keynote session was so good it would have been enough for the whole conference (except of course for some of the presentations by KAB local directors - who you all know).  The speaker was Roger Brooks of Destination Development.  He is known as the Dr. Phil of tourism.  He had a little moustache and hairline like Dr. Phil.  His presentation was: The Immutable Rules of Successful Tourism.  Of course several of the immutable rules applied to KAB and its affiliates.  The most obvious but perhaps under-appreciated rule was that of first impressions.  Everybody knows how important first impressions are and he made a very strong case for increased involvement by KAB affiliates with local tourism groups, economic development groups and chambers of commerce.  You never know when the CEO of a company looking to relocate is traveling through your town on vacation.  Such a visit is not the controlled wine-and-dine the Chamber does for potential new employers.  It is the uncontrolled experience that probably has more to do with making a decision about relocation than anything else.  (Do you really want the business prospect to see [fill in the blank]?  If he or she is driving through with their family on vacation it will be seen).  His slide show was insightful - and funny.  If you have anything to do with tourism, economic development, community beautification efforts, etc. make it a point to see this guy - it will be worth it.  The picture (below left) shows Roger speaking to the conference. 



Another interesting thing about Roger is that he had another session the same afternoon - one of three breakouts.  One of the breakout sessions was presented by Tom Salter of Keep Knoxville Beautiful on creating or improving your affiliate website.  Tom was worried that nobody would come to his session because Roger was so good.  Anyway with the able assistance of Rob Wallace (above right) of the KAB national office there were about 28 people in the session on websites.  If you missed the session you can click here to see the presentation.  It is really good and features 40 KAB affiliate websites as examples of what you should be doing.

- posted by KKB staff at 11:15 PM

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Tom Salter of KKB attended the Keep America Beautiful mid-year affiliate forum in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  Flights were OK.  There was a 2 hour layover at DFW and Tom's luggage got soaked (that was interesting).  Other Tennessee people at the meeting included: Kristi Falco of Keep Blount Beautiful (and her Mom, Denise!), Debbie Stevenson of Morristown Hamblen KAB, Allison Teeters of Keep Sevier Beautiful (her luggage got soaked too!), Edith Heller of Keep Tennessee Beautiful, JoAnn Jackson of Keep Williamson Beautiful, Laura Marzahl of Keep Tennessee Beautiful, Genette Patton of Keep Bristol Beautiful and Ruth Wallace of Keep Tipton Beautiful.  All in all a very nice showing from the Tennessee delegation.

The first session was very nice with lots of tips on changing the way we look at event partnerships and sponsorships.  Then we had a nice welcome reception and dinner at this unusual Brazilian restaurant.

P.S. - no pictures from the first day - the Palm Cam is broken - we'll see about tomorrow.

- posted by KKB staff at 10:30 AM

Friday, July 22, 2005

Today, thanks to the an email from Keith Richardson to Kim Trent to us, we are picking up two brand new, in-the-box, Dell printer/scanner/fax from the Tennessee Community Assistance Corporation Gifts-in-Kind program.  Normally there is a membership fee to get free stuff, but through a special agreement with Dell those fees were waived.   Our old scanner broke and now we have two.  We are going to really need it when we start getting pictures of Orchid & Onion nominees.

- posted by KKB staff at 10:30 AM

Thursday, July 21, 2005

The big meeting of the day was with the group establishing the Tennessee Valley Earth Partnership.  TVEP will be a new non-profit organization that will oversee the operation of the annual Earthfest event and play a role in promoting other environmental events such as computer recycling, cell phone recycling, etc.  The group is planning one major change for Earthfest 2006.  In the past, there has been live music all day, much of it local and regional bands, with a headliner at around 8:00 pm.  TVEP is looking at having a major act come to town to do a benefit concert for TVEP on the Saturday night before or after Earthfest.  Stay tuned...

- posted by KKB staff at 6:15 PM

Anne Beth of Wesley Neighbors picked up a bunch of supplies for a litter cleanup at the entrance to their neighborhood off Kingston Pike near the Weigel's store.

- posted by KKB staff at 10:30 AM

This morning I met with Christy Green of Natural Resources Recovery of TN.  Christy's new job is to publicize her company's mulch products to neighborhood groups, garden clubs, civic clubs, etc.  We brainstormed for about an hour on low-cost marketing techniques.

- posted by KKB staff at 10:30 AM

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Today, we had a really nice article in the News Sentinel about the litter survey.  It has downloadable detail reports, pictures and everything.  Click here to read the article.  

- posted by KKB staff at 9:15 AM

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Today we had some fun.  We finished the Litter Index surveys.  Many thanks again to Enterprise Rent-A-Car who donated a 6 passenger van to the survey at no charge to Keep Knoxville Beautiful.  A News Sentinel reporter and photographer followed us around for a while.  Keep in mind that we score the litter from 1 to 4 with 1 being the cleanest and 4 being a dump.  Last year we averaged 1.85 for all 60 sub-areas.  This year we scored 1.87 for the 60 sub areas.  That is .02 or roughly 1% worse than last year overall.  I guess we can declare we had no significant change.  Let's all agree that's not good enough.  Some of the sub-areas were much worse and some were much better.  Our wish is that all the neighborhoods would maintain the status quo at worst or get better.  Having more litter is unacceptable.  Click here to download a PDF file of charts of all 6 areas and all 60 sub-areas.  Click here to download a PDF file of all the sub-area scores for each year.  If you live inside the City limits, you can see how your neighborhood is "trending" on litter.

- posted by KKB staff at 7:30 PM

Friday, July 15, 2005

Since we have completed most of the Litter Index routes we should share some of the results.  Remember that a 1 is litter-free or nearly so, a 2 is slightly littered, a 3 is littered and a 4 is heavily littered and would need heavy equipment during a cleanup.  Please keep in mind that we consider the trend more important than the actual numeric value.  Regardless of the value, getting cleaner is better.







The top and bottom graphs show six years of data.  The middle graph shows two years.  Last year we added six new "zones" that expanded our survey area to randomly selected streets covering the entire City limits of Knoxville.  More charts next week.

- posted by KKB staff at 4:30 PM

Harold's closed today.  Not good.

- posted by KKB staff at 9:15 AM

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Tom attended the City Council Workshop on the future of the Candy Factory and Victorian Houses.  Keep Knoxville Beautiful has a long history with the Victorian Houses and the Candy Factory.  As many of you know, KKB's office was at 402 11th Street, aka the Blue Victorian House, from 1989 to 2004.  Since August 2004 we have been in The Emporium building at 100 S. Gay Street.  During our time in the Victorian House experienced first hand the benefits and problems of working in a really old, really interesting house.  If anyone wants to know the inside story call us.  In addition to having been in one of the houses for like 15 years, we have used the Candy Factory for monthly board meetings for the past 6 years.  Like many community groups, we will miss the flexible space and plentiful parking.  Here is a picture from the workshop:

- posted by KKB staff at 7:15 PM

We did two more Litter Index runs today.  Volunteers included Jessica Bailin, Lyling Spoone, Gary Loe, Mike Jackson, Sarah Surak, Darrin Rhines and Caroline Johnson (our trusty intern).  Tom had to go to the World's Fair Park City Council workshop so he skipped the afternoon run.  Caroline did navigation for Emily.  Areas covered included Old North Knoxville, Parkridge, Fourth & Gill, Fairmont, and more.

- posted by KKB staff at 2:30 PM

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

In between the Litter Index runs we had a productive meeting with Diana Morgan of the News Sentinel marketing department and her assistant Katherine Seaton.  We talked about the Environmental Achievement Awards and brainstormed some other interesting ideas.  More on those later.

We made two more runs today on the Litter Index.  Volunteers included Brian Murphy, Jessica Bailin, Lyling Spoone, Edythe Nelle McNabb, Gary Drinnen and Sam Maynard.  Today we surveyed parts of Powell, Norwood, and South Knoxville.

- posted by KKB staff at 7:15 PM

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

The Orchids & Onions committee also met today at Chesapeake's to discuss sponsor prospects and work out additional details of the awards program.

Today was a big day.  We began the annual Litter Index survey and did a morning run and an afternoon run.  Volunteers helping out today included Justina Bunch, Amanda Stinson, Jessica Bailin, Lyling Spoone and Mike Jackson.  Tom Salter and Emily Ditty of the KKB staff drove the van and navigated.  Areas surveyed today included: Fort Sanders, Morningside, Old Sevier, Downtown and more.  Many thanks to Enterprise Rent-A-Car for providing a very nice van at no charge.  Here is a class picture:



- posted by KKB staff at 8:00 PM

Monday, July 11, 2005

Today was the ribbon-cutting for the improvements on the Third Creek Greenway.  We are very proud of Terry Faulkner, KKB board member and Bearden neighborhood activist for her role in making the extension of the greenway possible.  Here are some pictures from the event including Mayor Haslam, Barbara Pelot, all the VIP's, Gary Loe and Cassandra McGee:




- posted by KKB staff at 2:30 PM

Thursday, July 7, 2005

We had the first board meeting of the 2006 fiscal year today.  Cassandra McGee begins here term as president and we started by electing Gary Drinnen to the board.