KKB Board Retreat a success...after we transcribe the notes we will post some specific results. I can report now that the retreat was well-attended and we probably generated some of the most solid ideas in years. We had lots of guests including Mayor Haslam. Come back in a few days for an update. Image one shows our year-in-review slide show; next shows facilitator Annette Winston giving our group their instructions; and Jenny Raines, Mayor Haslam and Joshlyn Hundley working on their exercise. The next row shows Mark Cawood, Mary Lou Horner and Tim Wheeler sharing their results; John Evans' drawing; and Scott Frith basking in the glow of praise for the success of the Halls Tribute Trees project. The last row shows the group working on the main exercise; Susan Long and Tim Wheeler reporting results; and Annette Winston thanking UT PR Concepts students for their work on the planned marketing effort.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 5:09 PM

Monday, January 26, 2004

The Beautification Task Force of Nine Counties, One Vision is still working. Litter, sign control and landscaping issues were top ranked citizen concerns during the original visioning process. The group set out to put in place a system to educate community leaders, elected officials, law enforcement, builders, judges, etc. about the need to take a more progressive approach to these issues because it reflects the will of the people (based on the visioning process comments). After some time, the Beautification Task Force came to its senses and recognized that if the people lead, the leaders will follow. The planned product is a Best Practices Guide addressing litter, signage and landscaping issues. The guide will be distributed to neighborhood leaders, schools, libraries, planning agencies, government departments, elected officials, community organizations, etc. - any group that potentially has an interest in these issues. With this information, we believe citizens will be better able to provide the political support needed by community leaders to take these progressive steps. Some committee members picture below are David Watson, Anne Harter, Misty Goins and Tom Simpson. Other active members not pictured incude: Maria Compere, Mary Lou Horner, Larry Clark, Tom Salter, Sam Adams, David Vandergriff, Kristi Falco, Meredith Leihmohn, Julie Webb and Sharon Webb (apologies to anyone not mentioned). Also pictured are those little thingies the 9C1V staff keeps for fidgety people.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 5:32 PM

Thursday, January 22, 2004

The conference ended on a real high note. Keep America Beautiful trainer and master story-teller Sue Smith led a session on the importance of stories. Telling a good story has a greater impact on an audience than hard facts. We learned about six types of stories we need to tell: 1) who I am, 2) why I'm here, 3) my vision, 4) my values in action, 5) teaching stories, and 6) "I know what you're thinking" stories. Below is an animation of Sue telling a story about her experience as a teacher and KAB trainer.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 4:19 PM

After the session we went to the Renaissance Center in Dickson. It is a state-of-the-art community arts center. It offers everything from painting and Suzuki violin classes (at incredibly low fees) to community theatre productions and computer software training. It has a full digital TV studio and an acoustically perfect performance hall that has been used to record Emmy Award Winning concerts and music videos. We ended the evening with a laser light show. It was very cool - definitely worth a visit.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 8:10 AM

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

We are still at the conference and today was a big work day. Our session was facilitated by Brad Gray of the Center for Non-Profit Management. All the attendees completed the DiSC Classic Personal Profile System 2800. It was a lot of fun and we learned about our personal approaches for dealing with the world and had a number of exercises about applying this knowledge to making our work with volunteers more effective. Pictured below are (l-r): KKB Executive Director Tom Salter, Keep Tennessee Beautiful Executive Director Edith Heller, Union County Executive Director Cindy Cole, Monroe County Coordinator Judy Patterson, KKB's Cortney Piper, Keep Sevier Beautiful Executive Director Allison Teeters, Keep Tipton County Beautiful Coordinator Ruth Wallace, Morristown/Hamblen KABS Coordinator Melanie Justis and Director Debi Stevenson, C.L.E.A.N. Inc. Coordinator Gail Sandlin, Scenic Cities Beautiful Commission Director Jeanette Eigelsbach and our tribute to the new State Littery, oops, I meant Lottery.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 4:25 PM

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

KKB staff is still at the annual Keep Tennessee Beautiful conference. We woke up to 18 degrees and a frozen lake this morning (see yellow arrow on picture below). We went to work immediately on a state-wide marketing and education plan and ended with some excellent Keep America Beautiful fundamentals. After dinner, an elite group of KAB affiliate staff from East Tennessee caught a movie in Dickson (wherever that is). After the movie several of the staff made a contribution to the new State of Tennessee higher education fundraising program. One of them came home with a $15 net gain (is that how a fundraiser is supposed to work?).

- posted by KKB Staff @ 10:49 PM

Monday, January 19, 2004

Greetings from Montgomery Bell State Park. I've been here twice before. The first was with a church youth group - we stayed up all night and watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. The second time was last year when the space shuttle Columbia crashed. Being a life-long space fan this place obviously has some special meaning for me. It's not just one of Tennessee's many beautiful state parks. This trip I get to meet with my Keep Tennessee Beautiful colleagues to help plan the future of the Keep America Beautiful system in Tennessee. Our task for tomorrow is to help envision a plan that will change littering and related behaviors in ALL 95 Tennessee counties, NOT just the counties with KAB affiliates. Pictured below are KAB national trainer Sue "don't take my picture" Smith (from Michigan), Allison "talk to the hand" Teeters (E.D. of Keep Sevier Beautiful), Ruth Wallace (Coordinator of Keep Tipton County Beautiful) and Eldra White (E.D. of Memphis City Beautiful Commission), Judge Larry Potter (Environmental Judge from Memphis) talking to Diana Fedinic (Keep Tennessee Beautiful staff), Jodi Jacobs (Coordinator of Keep Jackson Beautiful) and Brad Gray (Center for Nonprofit Management trainer) and Edith Heller (E.D. of Keep Tennessee Beautiful).

- posted by KKB Staff @ 11:08 PM

Friday, January 16, 2004

After the Education Summit we had a drop-in visit from Bob Santore who updated KKB on the activities of the South Knoxville Beautification Committee and 3 UTK public relations students from their group PR Concepts came for a meeting on the planned marketing campaign. Lauren and Ashley are pictured here. We discussed the overview of the spring marketing campaign focus on 16-25 year old males. Studies have shown this group is most likely to litter and is very difficult to reach with public service advertising. Several focus groups will be held on campus late this month and in early February to generate ideas for the campaign.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 4:27 PM

KKB had several representatives at the Education Summit today. KKB's staff members Tom Salter and Cortney Piper participated as well as board members Mary Lou Horner, Edythe McNabb and Cassandra McGee. There may have been others hiding out in the crowd of 1,000. This was a super event with a lot of great ideas generated. My table had three school principals and our facilitator was Ronni Chandler (see below). Ronni did a great job and her picture was on the front page of the News Sentinel.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 2:20 PM

Wednesday, January 14, 2004

Neighborhood Services Committee, Part 2…Mayor Haslam's Neighborhood Services Committee had it's second meeting today. Sam Anderson and Cathy Chesney joined the group. Bill Lyons was there with committee members Tina Rosling, Joe Fuhr, Matt Edens, Tom Salter and Doug Allen. Margaret Gaiter and Connie Loy couldn't make it today. There was a discussion of One-Call, especially the possibility of combining a system with the County and the knowledge required by those answering the phones. There was a discussion of assigning a tracking number to all service calls so City management can track outcomes. Ultimately this is something citizens might use to track the outcome of their calls. Sam Anderson stressed that the service department will make every effort to become very, very good at routing services like picking up brush, leaves, etc. Special response employees might be assigned to take on unique demands. The group discussed at some length the need for citizens to learn more about how city services are delivered and how citizen behavior can impact those services. When and where leaves and brush are set out and where cars are parked have a significant impact on pick-ups - sometimes making it take much longer than it should or preventing pick-up altogether. There was brief discussion of the need to recruit and train more neighborhood leaders. Programs like CAC, PNI and CND help many citizens become better neighborhood leaders, but it is estimated that only about 30% of neighborhoods have an active group. Finally, we talked about litter again and the possible impact of a formal "adopt" program for inside the City. The County has an "adopt-a-road" program that has involved more than 70 groups in just 3 years. During this year's Great American Cleanup™, KKB will ask groups from City neighborhoods if they would be willing to make a multi-year commitment to determine the potential for a City Adopt program. The group plans to meet again on February 18th.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 5:05 PM

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

This is the Blog entry you've all been waiting for...the update on the Emporium Renovation project. We went on a tour today led by Liza Zenni, Executive Director of The Arts and Cultural Alliance - Liza is going to be our new landlord. Our new offices are downstairs off the main Rodman Townsend Gallery. This is going to be so cool I can hardley stand it. The first image below is the view of the Emporium from across the street near Harold's (the building entrance is marked by the yellow arrow). The second shot shows the entrance (second yellow arrow) to the new KKB office behind some temporary stairs. The third image shows the office area nearest the entrance (view 1 on the diagram). The next image shows view 2 with a little recessed area in the wall and some exposed brick. The next image shows more of the office with more exposed brick. The final image shows the wall inside the director's office (more exposed brick and interesting repair job...see last yellow arrow) as viewed from the store room. This is going to be a lot of fun and we will get a lot more walk-in visitor traffic.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 2:55 PM

Cleaner and Leaner??? KKB staff has been exploring various themes for the 2004 Great American Cleanup. One idea tossed around for several years is the calorie burning/health improvement potential benefit from doing cleanups and realted tasks. A non profit organization called the Calorie Control Council has an on-line calculator that automatically calculates the number of calories you burn for a whole range of activities from weight lifting, swinning and hiking to mowing the lawn, throwing frisbee and brushing your teeth. KKB program coordinator Cortney Piper contact the group and asked if they would consider adding categories for picking up litter, recycling, removing graffiti, etc. The Calorie Control Council agreed to do this. Now we have to consider how to best promote this development. If you have any ideas, let me know.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 10:46 AM

Friday, January 09, 2004

And the winners (in the Tree-Cycling conest) are...from Solway - Michael T Huie and Laura Cosey, from Halls Tom Witt and Ruth Brennan, and from Forks-of-the-River Belinda Hudgens and Kent Alton. These first and second place winners selected from a random drawing of people who recycling their trees will receive Papa John's Pizza coupons, Mayo's gift certificates, a gift from the Knox County Sheriff's Office and a 1 cubic yard scoop of landsape mulch from Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee, the operator of the County greenwaste facility and a Tree-Cycling Partner. Neal Denton, KKB board member and otherwise famous person, picked the grand prize winner on his show during Alive at Five (on WBIR) today. Mike Harris of Farragut won a Homelite, gas-powered, string trimmer courtesy of Natural Resources Recovery of Tennessee. We want to congratulate the winners and thank everyone who took the time to recycle their trees.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 10:32 PM

Thursday, January 08, 2004

What's in your water? If you want to find out plan to attend Earthfest 2004 scheduled for Saturday, April 24, 2004 at World's Fair Park. At an Earthfest Committee meeting today, plans were discussed for an expanded event with more information displays, more food vendors and more entertainment. At this time organizers are close to identifying a big-name band for an FREE evening concert. Watch this blog for more information and watch for a special edition of Metro Pulse on April 22 with expanded information about Earthfest activities.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 5:21 AM

Monday, January 05, 2004

More Tree-Cycling numbers...the Solway site took in 400 trees and Forks-of-the-River did 50. These numbers are slightly higner than previously reported. Total trees at all 3 locations was 850. Ijams Nature Center also collected several hundred trees they will use for habitat restoration.

- posted by KKB Staff @ 10:09 AM

Saturday, January 03, 2004

We know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats for the results of the Tree-Cycling Event. The Neal Road site in Halls took in 400 trees. This is down from last year and we speculated everything from the dreary weather to people switching to artificial trees as the culprit. Numbers from Solway and Forks of the River are not in. We opened at 9:00 a.m. and KKB Program Coordinator Cortney Piper, her friend Pat Poynor and Board Member David Collins were there to greet them:

KKB Board Member and County Commission Chairman David Collins worked for hours helping citizens unload their trees. KKB Executive Director Tom Salter ponders separating a tree from a rather large plastic bag:

Edwards Tree Service donated a chipper and a crew. Once the trees were ground up many people took home the mulch. Some got truck loads, others used trash cans and bags:

Several other KKB Board Members were present including County Commissioner Mary Lou Horner, County Solid Waste Board Member Edythe McNabb and Susan Rudell from KUB. WATE and WBIR both sent news crews and ran nice stories on the event even though several big stories broke on Saturday. The News Sentinel and Halls Shopper had previously run stories promoting the event. County Solid Waste Director John Evans dropped by to check on us after supervising the Forks of-the-River site: