(Community Matters) PeopleFund’s Conference on Economic Opportunity (formerly the East Austin Economic Conference) gets underway at 8:30 this morning (yikes, I gotta pack for DC and make it out their prior to flying out).

Congressman Lloyd Doggett

Congressman Doggett has been a longtime, consistent supporter of & champion for our organization. Good gosh, I’ve been on the PeopleFund board for nearly 12 years.

David Hinton, National Director
Minority Business Development Agency

I didn’t have much of a chance to visit with David. He’s President Obama’s appointeee to the Minority Business Development Agency. We’re honored he’s delivering one of two keynotes this morning.

Amy Evarhart, Byron Marshall’s niece & Lisa Byrd

Amy & Lisa dear friends. Amy with the Mayor’s office; Lisa runs Pro-Arts Collective

Adrienne Neely, Margo Weisz & Henrietta Neely

Margo the founder/executive director of PeopleFund/PeopleTrust. Adrienne a board member and overseeing the construction of our new building on the Featherlite tract.

(Community Matters) 415 volunteers at Zilker Park working on every sort of project at the Park, Botanical Gardens, Nature Preserve, Nature & Science Center and around the pool. Approximately 2,500 volunteer hours worth nearly $50,000 from 25 of Austin’s companies led by entrepreneurs.

gathering at breakfast – thanks Starbucks & Taco Cabana

Austin Ventures team including Mike Dodd, David Lack & Kim Carter

PricewaterhouseCoopers

A million thanks to PwC for being one of the day’s sponsors (along with DLA Piper, Thinkwell and Square One). Together with members of Austin Ventures, Collider Media, Convio, Sante Ventures, and Nvidia, they removed invasive species, thinned out some trees along the Nature Preserve trail and lined the trail with rocks.

PwC

PwC’s managing partner, Jim French & Mike Dodd

the Phurnace Software team
led by my Texas A&M student leader colleague, Larry Warnock
he was commander of the corp

Whitney Mayfield w/ Clif Bar & Co @ Austin Biodiversity Greenhouse

Emily Mayfield w/ Manticore Tech @ Austin Biodiversity

volunteers from Handmade Expressions

a Dell team @ McBeth Recreation Center

vcfo’s Corey Blahuta

back breaking hard workers – always think of Corey, Jeff Browning and John Dirvin

Comerica’s team

Paul Gerling and associates at Comerica
I had a good pic of their Pres. Tim Klitch, where is it?

lunch for 415, thanks to Schlotzsky’s and Ben & Jerry’s and Sweet Leaf Tea

Mayor Lee Leffingwell

the Handmade Expressions team

I enjoyed meeting these guys who have established a social motivated, for profit, fair trade business to provide sustainable wages for India-based artisans – Handmade Expressions

Bryant Howell & Dan from BazaarVoice

BazaarVoice team @ Nature & Science Center

Loved seeing my former undergrad student Harrison now at Bazaar

Boundless team @ Nature & Science

Adlucent @ Nature & Science

Marc Cannon w/ Boundless

Denise Kotria (Sitestuff), Tyler Metzger (Creditcards.com) & Alythia Raya (sitestuff)

Kat Diederich (AV) & Jenny Murphy (Sante)

Creditcards.com @ Nature & Science
team led by Faith Johnson

Parks & Rec Central Parks Director, Joanna Mesecke

Parks & Rec was outstanding. Twenty-three-ish staff members and key volunteers leading our member company volunteers. They prepped and cared & feed all of us really well – many thanks!

Peter Frey & Jenna Poldrogar closing down

Shobie Partos is our program manager extraordinaire who organizes a thousand moving pieces flawlessly – of course well led & assisted by Amanda Chiampi & Peter Frey. EF couldn’t be luckier to have these three as its full time staff.

(Community Matters) My friend Mark Salmanson sent to me and that he’d confirmed on FBI website as legitimate

Jury Duty Scam

Pass this on to your grown children. This has been verified by the FBI (their link is also included below). Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty that a new that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced



The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and bingo, your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma , Illinois , andColorado . This (swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites , warning consumers about the fraud.

Check it out here: http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm

And here: http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp

(Community Matters) Today’s the Entrepreneurs Foundation’s Fall Service Day. We have 415 volunteers from 25 companies gathering at Zilker Park’s Rock Garden Picnic Area who will then fan out to the Botanical Gardens, Nature Preserve, the Nature & Science Center, the Pool and other areas of the park. They’ll log in over 2,500 volunteer hours (valued at over $50,000) today, on projects as diverse as thinning bamboo to creating a mosaic murals.

FSD ’08

Participating companies include Adlucent, Austin Ventures, Bazaarvoice, Boundless Network, Collider Media, Comerica Bank, Convio, CreditCards.com, Dell, DLA Piper*, Handmade Expressions, HomeAway, Manticore Technology, NVIDIA, Phurnace, PricewaterhouseCoopers*, QuickArrow, Sante Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, SiteStuff, Surgient, Thinkwell*, Troux Technologies, vcfo and Vinson & Elkins. Many thanks to our sponsors*

(Community Matters) It’s down to the wire – 48% to 48% in the campaign to overturn marriage in Maine. Supporters of LGBT equality can help by making remote calls. check out http://www.couragecampaign.org/CallForMaine

(Community Matters) Yesterday was historic, the first time ever fully inclusive legislation protecting members of America’s LGBT community passed Congress. On top of a terrific week when the President’s administration announced proposals for Housing and Urban Development to ensure its core housing programs are open to all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity AND that HHS will establish a national resource center to assist in providing services and support for older LGBT Americans.

Thank you Mr. President!

(Community Matters) Wow, Austin has a super group of police men and women and repeatedly a few bad apples taint the entire force.

[Internal affairs detective] Dunn suggested that detectives search the probationary records of Sanders and two other suspects to see if they were complying with probation requirements, curfew or any other laws. If they were not, Dunn wrote, “we can make him/them a causation of the entire event. I am so smart I scare myself. Thoughts?” AAS editorial

(Community Matters)

(Community Matters) Important announcements today from President Obama’s Administration for LGBT community

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan today announced a broad initiative to ensure that the department’s housing programs do not discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

White House Supports Ryan White Reauthorization Act

HHS to Create a National Resource Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders

(Community Matters) Just before lunch, I stopped by the house to pick up a file. The door bell rang, I was slow to answer and heard someone trying my door, finding it locked. When I answered, it was a twenty-something woman wanting to sell me something. She wasn’t exactly coherent, and she was wearing (I kid you not) fluffy pink house shoes. Though for this reason alone I should have written a big check, I declined to engage in conversation and she left. Since she’d tried to get into my house, I phoned the police. They said they’d come talk with her; I had to make a lunch at Headliners with Capcog’s Brian Kelsey.

This evening, another young woman came to the door. Again, I thought she was a twenty-something, but she said she was a home schooled high school student who’d won an opportunity to attend some sort of trip. Claimed she lived with her parents on 34th St. I was about to contribute to her cause since she evidently was the child of a neighbor, but she then launched into a magazine pitch, offering to send any unwanted magazines to “our fighting boys.” She was too rehearsed and all of a sudden I didn’t believe her. When I started asking more questions about her parents, she became defensive and I turned her down. I’m not certain I am right, but I don’t think she’s legit. Just sent an email to our neighborhood list serve. If she is a neighbor’s kid, I’ll buy a lot to make up for it.

(Community Matters) Enjoyed the show at UT’s PAC and meeting Kathy Panoff, it’s new director. Nico, Michael, Milinda and I attended. Subject matter right on the edge of appropriate for Nico, who has four much older siblings and has heard and seen much more than most 10 year olds. I spoke with his mom and his big brother about it before taking him. Excellent music and a really fun musical.

(Community Matters) hey, I’m thrilled for folks to worship (or not worship) wherever they are most comfortable. nytimes