Elmwood IL.org
603 W High ST
Elmwood, IL 61529
I had moved on to a new path of creating and supporting this web site. I hadn't updated this page with a new Elmwood In Touch note, since last Fall. People didn't readily come forward and I just wasn't ready to sell anyone on the idea. I do not want to handle money. I would love to provide part time jobs for Elmwood youth, but I am not willing to calculate wage withholding. I just hate record keeping and now that I don't have to; I am not willing to try and fail at it again. I would like to be able to donate to school fund raisers and festival events, but I don't want to try to make it a true for profit venture. The Elmwood Community Foundation had agreed to try and make it a community project. Our committee would have met before the next bimonthly meeting, but an EF2 Tornado came to Elmwood before we could meet. All the abstract concepts and ideas, I had spewed out like a fountain about a central focus point to communicate with each other and the outside world, was no longer abstract. It was obvious to everyone.
Elmwood In Touch Fourth Installment
Elmwood In Touch
A new project to make Elmwood a better place to live, work, visit, or just be in touch.
I want to bring the whole community together starting with a community web site. It will require an ongoing effort with many partners.
Steps to follow as we start
1] You can join the facebook group
A Better Elmwood
2] Send me an email with your thoughts
Questions or comments please email "The Steve"
3] Check back on this page as we move forward
The Illinois Observer
Elmnet Purchased By Derby Net --- Read Details
I had spent all Sunday posting the pictures I had taken and what facts I knew. I figured a few people would find them. On Monday morning I went to the emergency meeting at our Methodist church. I ended up dragging our sound system into the fellowship hall to help get it started. I sat down and began to do a live blog of the meeting. Live blogging really shouldn't be undertaken by someone who is as poor a typist as I am. I was mostly worried about the stuff in my office. I had been lead to believe; I might not be allowed get it, at anytime. I am thinking, what lose my laser printer? At the emergency meeting about 10:45 AM on June 7th, 38 hours after the storm someone asked how can we communicate the information to everyone. I raised my hand and said Tim, you could put it on elmwoodil.org and everyone with Internet access can get to it. There it went elmwoodil.org scribbled into everyone's notes. All the news reports started giving it out. I saw it scrolling across the bottom of the local news. So, even before I could leave the room people were coming to elmwoodil.org to find out what was happening in Elmwood. Of course, I didn't have a page for emergency notices or business closing, so it took a little more time than just posting. I now wished I had finished those new graphics; I had been thinking about for better navigation. I had to hope those who found my "Fractious Nation" essay wouldn't get too mad, assuming many readers might be a part of the fractious. At least, I made finding it more difficult.
So here is how the week went between web updates, meetings, and the office move out. Waivers, changing rules, and near total confusion was just par for the course.
Monday night ran into Tuesday morning; I went to bed about 2:30 AM. I woke up about 5 thinking about all I had to do, couldn't go back to sleep, so I got going by 5:30. Tuesday night became Wednesday morning. I had gotten to sing a couple of Christian Contemporary songs with our band Closer to Free after the meeting on Tuesday night. I got there just before they were finished with practice. It was a great stress relief. Again, Tuesday night it was after 2 actually closer to 3 and by 5:30 AM I was up. I had all my stuff out of office by Thursday morning and I had four hours sleep to run on that day. In a situation like this each day is like a week. I was finally catching up on web updates by Saturday morning, then helped with thirty others pass surveys out all over town. By Saturday afternoon I began falling asleep, anytime I sat down.
In Conclusion: the site had been averaging 3000 daily hits; this month it is over 40,000. The need for a site and the purpose of the site has become more apparent. Still people haven't developed the habit of sending announcements to me. I keep saying the email; it's steve@elmwoodil.org even that can be confusing at times. I have reached out to a couple people with technical needs. We can continue to improve things and move it closer to my first Elmwood in Touch note. One long year ago, when the big trees stood proudly in Central Park and all the buildings were intact, elmwoodil.org began.
So do help support the site: send announcements to me, become a sponsor when the crisis is over, post links to the coming fundraisers on your Facebook profiles, simply tell people to go to the site to keep up on the recovery efforts. Elmwood has a long way to go, let's all keep moving together.
