Finding ways to engage our neighbors and make friends is rewarding to the whole community.

Neighbors Project is a growing movement of a generation of people living in cities who want to connect with their diverse neighbors to improve the neighborhood for everyone. Their mission is to inspire and train members of the new urban generation to connect with their neighbors through projects that improve the neighborhood for everyone.

You can improve your community through small events, considerate touches and reaching out. You don’t need to be a board member to make a difference.

We start by saying hi to our neighbors and take it from there.

Choose something on our Neighbors Checklist to get started in your own neighborhood.

Neighbors Checklist: Ideas for Condo Boards

* Do something special (and hopefully tasteful) with the front yard–e.g. flowers that everyone can enjoy.
* Devise a system for disposing of or recycling large objects, and coordinate your disposal plan with your neighbors on the block. This will help avoid fly dumping in the neighborhood.
* Encourage public posting on a bulletin board in a laundry room or other common space for things like: board meeting minutes, pet or baby sitting, furniture for sale, tutoring, etc. Be sure to include a post to your online forums.
* Schedule a meeting with a councilman, to introduce your condo association to him.
* Create a gathering space where neighborly interactions can occur, like placing a small food spread from time to time in the lobby to encourage people to hang around for a moment and chat. Try this the same day every month, at different times to see what works best for everyone.
* Elect an official liaison to the neighborhood association; actively participate in neighborhood meetings.
* Properly maintain the parts of the building that face the street, adding some bonuses like flower boxes.
* Provide a community space open to the entire neighborhood. For example, don’t wall off green spaces or courtyards, or at least keep the gate open during the day.
* Devise a way to store bikes so that it’s easier for people to access their bikes than car. This will encourage more people to bike and discourage car use.
* Use your green space as a community garden or establish a community garden in a vacant lot.
* Contact the condo boards of the other condo buildings on the street to discuss issues common to everyone, like improved street cleaning and parkway improvements; form an organization or encourage the various condo boards to get active in the neighborhood associations that already exist.
* Organize street games with other buildings.
* Stop by and talk to owners who are not as active in the building and encourage them to get involved or try to get their ideas for improving the building.
* Establish and use a website. Send out information over e-mail to the full condo association every month, including financials, management updates and general announcements.
* If your building has owners who are renting out their unit, reach out to both the absentee owners and renters to ensure that they feel invested in the building and neighborhood. Encourage renters to join the website, so they receive emergency bulletins.
* Invite an officer from your local police precinct to a condo board meeting, and keep fostering that personal relationship.

(source: http://www.neighborsproject.org/pages/condo_boards/26.php)

Useful Website Feature of the Month: Forums

Forums and bulletin boards are the same thing online. Forums provide individuals, who share a common interest, with a meeting place for open discussion, and a great gathering spot for “water cooler” talk. When used properly forums can be an excellent tool and resource. By providing well thought out, helpful responses posters can develop a reputation as an expert. Establishing a reputation within forums will eventually lead to solid relationships.

If your community is in need of a forum of your own, visit HOA Wiki Websites. In our forums, you must be a homeowner to post or comment, and your login will show under your post. If you expect negative posting, we can set it to show your real name with each post or comment, to insure everyone keeps a cool head.
Link of the Week:

Download: Local Government Commission Report (narrated powerpoint) - Smart Growth and Health (Free powerpoint reader download.)

This once weekly newsletter is now a monthly newsletter to allow you more time to read it at your leisure and forward it to friends and family. We all need reminding that we are part of a larger community. Learning to nurture new relationships with neighbors is an easy way to remind ourselves that simple acts of kindness can lead to helping hands.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
– John Quincy Adams

“Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.”
– Benjamin Disraeli

Download:   Local Government Commission Report – Cultivating Community Gardens