Daily Archives: 11/13/2009

(Community Matters) Sad to hear of the passing of former Austin Mayor Roy Butler. Condolences to Ann and the entire family.

(Community Matters) Two young redheads, a lot of energy, even more friends and a nose for what’ll be fun – Alex Winkelman and Jessica Gross. Charity Bash describes itself as partying with a purpose and teaching a younger generation to give at a younger age.

Jessica Gross & Alex Winkelman

Last night’s bash was sponsored by the MFI Foundation and Suzanne & Marc Winkelman, the latter Alex’s parents and my good friends. Of course, MFI is Lynn & Tom Meredith’s family foundation. I’m not sure how much they raised, I couldn’t stay long, too exhausted by a long week and needed a quiet night in to read. Did connect with Andy Brown, Michael Barnes, Alex, Earl & Maxwell during the first 45 mins of the event – Marc & Suzanne arriving as I was leaving.

(Community Matters) HomeAway hosted a bash for Austin Habitat for Humanity at it’s swanky new offices at W 5th St and N. Lamar

AHFH board member, Jeff Serra, Michael Willard (AHFH CEO) & Deanna Serra

Michael Willard and I have become good friends, and of course Steven and I have long been fans and supporters of this organization (the international operations for many years until connecting with them locally). I think AHFH is one of Central Texas’ break away nonprofits which provides high leverage, high impact outcomes worthy of substantial philanthropic investment. Through the Entrepreneurs Foundation and leveraging the Meredith ACF fund, we’ve invested $500,000 into their programs and are more than pleased. These monies have built two houses, soft renovated another two, funded a staff position and paid for the substantial, infrastructure renovation of 10 homes of low income, longtime East Austin residents in the Chestnut neighborhood.

Enjoyed connecting with Michael, Jeff & Deanna, Larry Connelly, James Armstrong, Cindy Matula, Everett Plante, Michael Kellerman & several others at the event.

(Community Matters) hosted its annual grantees appreciation luncheon and earlier communications session, the latter focused on collaborations. I wasn’t able to make the earlier session but I know one of the highlighted successes discussed was the recent E3 Alliances successful win of a $1mm from Dept of Ed. KDK was an early supporter of this, investing $20k into the effort. Understand we may be applying for a $30mm junior high innovation grant.

I especially enjoyed meeting and sitting next to Bernard Blanchard, Superintendent of Del Valle ISD. Of course we talked about the PTA situation. Dr. Blanchard acknowledges he’d been tone deaf and has changed his position so that individual principals will work with parents to form additional parental support groups, including PTAs. And, he informed me that many schools have gone to PTO’s rather than PTAs, especially in schools where the required dues from parents might be an obstacle. A principal from Pfluggerville was sitting with us and confirmed this is the case. I find it odd that this wasn’t reported in the articles on the topic.

(Community Matters) Breakfast with my friend, Etta Mae Moore, ED of the Central Texas Council of Girl Scouts. I had no idea they’d merged 19 Texas councils into 7. Central Texas now includes 45 counties, stretching from Austin to Waco to San Angelo and including Fredericksburg and San Marcos.

After accounting for the 2007 merger, membership up over 5% in this region (down 2% nationally). Loved hearing about the thoughtful process they undertook starting in 2006 in arriving at the merger. National Girl Scouts engaged Jim Collins and his Good to Great. Additionally, they were guided by Willie Pietersen’s Reinventing Strategy (Using Strategic Learning to Create and Sustain Breakthrough Performance)

Council budget approximately $7mm per year, about 60% from cookie sales

(Community Matters) Powerful video. I don’t know about the group or initiative.

(Community Matters)

Happy Birthday, Ora

Mayor Lee Leffingwell & Ora Houston

Jo Krouse & Catherine Petit

(Community Matters) Senator Gillibrand was in town today for a luncheon. Many thanks to our hosts for seating me next to her. Wow, she blew me away.

My husband is gonna kill me, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve agreed to serve on her national finance committee. She is smart, attuned to her constituents and committed to the principles of a progressive and financially responsible leadership. She believes healthcare reform will pass the Senate this year, and she’s committed to ensuring the Stupak-Pitts amendment doesn’t make it into the final bill, noting that it will set back women’s reproductive rights by 30 years.

w/ State Rep. Elliott Nashitat

She’s also taken the lead in the US Senate on repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, believing Chmn Levin’s hearings will garner the final votes necessary to reach 60 to pass a repeal next year.

w/ National Women’s Political Caucus Chair, Lulu Flores

She’s in a tough place, needs to raise another $10mm at least for the special election in 2010, then another race in 2012 for a full term. She has the potential to be a very important national leader.

(Community Matters) Two young redheads, a lot of energy, even more friends and a nose for what’ll be fun – Alex Winkelman and Jessica Gross. Charity Bash describes itself as partying with a purpose and teaching a younger generation to give at a younger age.

Jessica Gross & Alex Winkelman

Last night’s bash was sponsored by the MFI Foundation and Suzanne & Marc Winkelman, the latter Alex’s parents and my good friends. Of course, MFI is Lynn & Tom Meredith’s family foundation. I’m not sure how much they raised, I couldn’t stay long, too exhausted by a long week and needed a quiet night in to read. Did connect with Andy Brown, Michael Barnes, Alex, Earl & Maxwell during the first 45 mins of the event – Marc & Suzanne arriving as I was leaving.

I’m moving my blog to Word Press.

Big surprise I am having a bit of difficulty with this (my fault, not the provider’s).  I’m working on importing all older posts.  Regrettably, I appear to have changed the domain name before completing the import, thus older postings only updated from Sept 28, 2008.  There’s another 1,800 yet to be transferred.  Not that you want to see those, but the last few days postings may be of interest 🙂

I’ll manually repost some from this morning and yesterday for now.

thanks in advance for your patience