I noticed some people bitching whining thoughtfully discussing this on Facebook yesterday and today. Some comments:

JP: “Why not just call a snow day right off the bat, rather than forcing [...]]]> Many local schools/districts cancelled classes two hours early yesterday and have scheduled two-late starts today cancelled classes today (Northfield school-closing info here). 

I noticed some people bitching whining thoughtfully discussing this on Facebook yesterday and today. Some comments:

JP: “Why not just call a snow day right off the bat, rather than forcing everyone on the roads twice within four hours?”

HS: “I never understand why "big" schools never close right way but they have no problem closing in the middle of the day. I went to a small school and they always canceled snow early in the day. It was much safer!”

MU: “And how about just a full snow day today instead of making us bring the kids in 2 hours late in the middle of the work day when the roads still are dangerous?”

We don’t know what guides the decisions by Supt. Chris Richardson after he talks to the folks at Benjamin Bus.  But put your supe hat on. How would you go about deciding?

Today, we hit 25 memberships: 8 businesses/organizations and 17 individuals/couples. Let’s call them the Founding Members!

To celebrate our modest success, [...]]]> Back in early December when we launched the LG membership plan, I blogged that my goal for the week was 25 memberships.  That was a typo. I meant to say “for the upcoming quarter.” Heh.

Today, we hit 25 memberships: 8 businesses/organizations and 17 individuals/couples. Let’s call them the Founding Members!

To celebrate our modest success, I’m turning off the ad banners for a while to give everyone a break. (They’ll be back!)

Founding members include:

Businesses/organizations

Bridgette Hallcock Photography
Ecotrans, Bill Steele
Northfield Historical Society, Hayes Scriven
KYMN Radio, Jeff Johnson and Tim Freeland
Lampe Law Group, Tracy Davis
Premier Bank Northfield, Sandy Vesledahl 
Rice County Humane Society, Kathleen Jasnoch
Rotary Club of Northfield, James Grabau

Individuals/couples

Anastasia Balfany
Andrea Een
Anthony Pierre
Bruce Morlan
Clay Oglesbee
Curt Benson
Doug McGill
Felicity and Patrick Enders
Jane Moline
Joe Paul
John George
Kathleen Galotti
Kiffi and Victor Summa
Leanne Stremcha
Leisa Irwin
Paul Zorn
Peter Millin

Tim Freeland at KYMN has blogged that schools are closing early. Kids [...]]]>
Brothers Jon Feldman and Matt Feldman from Cannon River Tree Care were pruning trees on Bridge Square this morning in the middle of our gorgeous snowfall. Jon said that winter is the perfect time to prune trees.

Tim Freeland at KYMN has blogged that schools are closing early. Kids love to climb trees so why not give them some rope, saws and clippers and have them trim your trees today? If they fall, the snow cover should protect them just fine. If they cut off a digit or two, no biggie, the Northfield Hospital has a great surgical team, plus it helps the local medical economy.

Since it’s the first week of the month,  Friday’s memo [...]]]> The “Friday Memo,” written by Northfield City Administrator Joel Walinski and various department heads and other City staff, summarizes the staff and department activities for the week. The Friday memos are published and archived in PDF form at the bottom of the City Administrator’s web page.

Since it’s the first week of the month,  Friday’s memo also includes the monthly Boards & Commissions report. Additional items of note this week include:

• Details on Northfield’s landfill charges and a graph of cost & volume for the past couple of years
• Information on checking out meeting recordings
• Information about how to make a  data request
• An article on Fiscal Heath Contingency Planning

You can find all the above on the memo page for the week.

There will be a City Council meeting and work session on Tuesday, Feb. 9. You can view all upcoming City meetings on the City calendar.

I’ll be one of several musicians (faculty and some guests) performing "The Soldier’s Tale" by Igor Stravinsky tonight, 8:15 pm in the Urness Recital Hall at the Christiansen Hall of Music at St. Olaf.

In addition to me on violin: Connie Martin, string bass; Jun Qian, clarinet; Mark Kelley, bassoon; Martin Hodel, trumpet; Larry Zimmerman, [...]]]>

I’ll be one of several musicians (faculty and some guests) performing "The Soldier’s Tale" by Igor Stravinsky tonight, 8:15 pm in the Urness Recital Hall at the Christiansen Hall of Music at St. Olaf.

In addition to me on violin: Connie Martin, string bass; Jun Qian, clarinet; Mark Kelley, bassoon; Martin Hodel, trumpet; Larry Zimmerman, trombone; Fernando Meza, percussion; Steven Amundson, conductor; Gary Gisselman, narrator.

As you can see from their Valentine’s Day [...]]]> A couple of parents of local teens have alerted me that Synergy Dance Club (Facebook group) events at the new Onyx/Olmeca night club in Burnsville are increasingly drawing Northfield’s teens for their special shows, ages 16-20. The next one is this Friday, a Valentine’s Day event.

As you can see from their Valentine’s Day poster, girls are encouraged to dress up in sleazewear (that links to my June 2008 blog post with 61 comments).  Take a look at some of the photos posted to Synergy’s Facebook group.  (Anyone with a Facebook account can view them.)

The dancing often includes freak dancing (simulated sex acts), which schools nationwide have been trying to crack down on. The videos posted to Synergy’s Facebook group show the dance.

Should parents be worried? Or is this a way for teens to safely release sexual urges on the dance floor instead of elsewhere?

But I can’t seem to find it on the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce site nor on their Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Visiting Northfield [...]]]> I got a tweet in mid-January from NHS ED Hayes Scriven that the Jan-Mar 2010 Northfield Visitors Guide was available. The flash version is embedded on the NHS home page

But I can’t seem to find it on the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce site nor on their Convention and Visitors Bureau’s Visiting Northfield web site. It’s not linked to or mentioned on the City of Northfield’s visitor page and I couldn’t find it on the Northfield.org or NDDC blogs either.

I know, I know, the print version is the main thing and it’s distributed about town. But why not make it easy for Northfielders to email it, blog it, tweet it, and post to their Facebook Walls about it so that their non-Northfield friends and colleagues take a look at it?  It costs virtually zero to do this. Plus, the thing is full of great photos, BTW. Heh.

So allow me to do my part. Here’s the PDF version, courtesy of LoGroNo. Here’s the Flash version, courtesy of Hayes Scriven and the NHS. Go forth and multiply it, by which I do NOT mean what Brits mean when they say go forth and multiply.

There’s an ice palace in the Carleton Arb, just off the start of the Ann Sipfle Memorial Ski Trail. Candles are stuck on the sides of the inside walls.

Looks like a great place for a romantic night under the stars. And with Valentine’s Day coming up… hmmm, this gives me [...]]]>

There’s an ice palace in the Carleton Arb, just off the start of the Ann Sipfle Memorial Ski Trail. Candles are stuck on the sides of the inside walls.

Looks like a great place for a romantic night under the stars. And with Valentine’s Day coming up… hmmm, this gives me a great idea. Cheap, too.

Eric Johnson sent me these photos last week of an owl perched on his patio porch light.

What kind of owl is it? (Hint: it doesn’t hoot.)

It features a roundtable discussion (“chatfest”) about “marriage, dating, romance and relationships in general” with some Northfield-area guys including Hans Olsen, [...]]]> Susan Hvistendahl alerted me to an article titled A Guy’s Take on Love and Romance in the Jan/Feb issue of Girlfriends magazine published by I 35 Target Media, a sibling of the Northfield News.

It features a roundtable discussion (“chatfest”) about “marriage, dating, romance and relationships in general” with some Northfield-area guys including Hans Olsen, Mike Miller, Adam Andreasen, Nathan Kuhlman, Ed Kuhlman, Drew Weis, James Schlicting, Jason Hoffman and Dan Freeman.

RCHS board member Kathy Jasnoch, pictured here with volunteer Sandy Vesledahl, commented here that over 400 people [...]]]> I spent most of my time chatting and eating at the Rice County Humane Society’s Annual Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser at the Eagles Club on Sunday since volunteer Bridgette Hallcock was there taking photos. Hopefully, she’ll publish those soon.

RCHS board member Kathy Jasnoch, pictured here with volunteer Sandy Vesledahl, commented here that over 400 people attended.  Here are four more photos:

After a few twists and turns, it happened yesterday. Barbara wrote at the end of a blog post:

Today, February 1, 2010, is the day the beautiful hardcover edition published by Hay House is released in the US. The book is sold in [...]]]> About 18 months ago, Tracy blogged about Northfielder Barbara Burke’s book deal. 

After a few twists and turns, it happened yesterday. Barbara wrote at the end of a blog post:

Today, February 1, 2010, is the day the beautiful hardcover edition published by Hay House is released in the US. The book is sold in India and will be available in the UK in March, as will the German translation.

Barbara’s book is The Napkin, The Melon & The Monkey: How to Be Happy and Successful by Simply Changing Your Mind. Hay House’s (publisher) Heal Your Life website has a blog post on the book here.

The Hay House page for the book says this about her:

Barbara Burke is an internationally known consultant, speaker, and author specializing in the “people side” of customer service management. At the core of her philosophy is the belief that exceptional customer service is only possible when the employees providing the service feel valued and engaged. In the last 25 years, thousands of front-line employees and their leaders have benefited from her innovative training programs. Her clients include Honeywell, Progress Energy,Alltel, Microsoft, Estée Lauder, Target Corporation, Portland General Electric, the State of Minnesota, the State of Pennsylvania, Procter & Gamble, Cox Communications, Vertex, Time-Warner, and Austin Energy. To invite Barbara to speak to your group, visit www.BarbaraBurke.com or call (507) 663-7232 for more information about her inspirational keynotes and seminars.

Full disclosure: I’ve started working with Barbara on putting some of her materials into an online course.

First step: the free Group Activity Leader’s Guide.

Do you have questions for her that you’d like us to consider asking?  (Note the word consider, please.) If so, attach a comment here or use our Contact Us form.

Update: [...]]]> We’re having Northfield Mayor Mary Rossing on our show today, live at 6 pm on KYMN 1080 AM. (The photo is from our January, 2009 podcast.)

Do you have questions for her that you’d like us to consider asking?  (Note the word consider, please.) If so, attach a comment here or use our Contact Us form.

Update: 2/2, 7:25 am: Ross wasn’t able to attend. And the live show went for a full hour. Yikes!

Click play to listen. 60 minutes:

You can also download the MP3 or subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes. Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Mondays at 6:00 PM and Sundays at 10 AM on KYMN 1080 AM.

For reference, see the 2009 Council Vision and Goals and 2009 Council [...]]]> I attended the first hour and the last hour of Monday’s Northfield City Council goal setting session held at the Northfield Hospital Board room from 5-10 pm. The husband/wife team of Richard Fursman and Irina Fursman, Global Synergy Group (GSG), were the meeting facilitators.

For reference, see the 2009 Council Vision and Goals and 2009 Council Goals and Initiatives.

See the photo album of the meeting (mostly photos of Council-generated content posted on the walls), the large slideshow, or this small slideshow:

I am pleased to announce that Dusty Budd will be back on the microphone Saturday mornings at 10am, for Raider Wrap, talking to local Raider coaches and players.

Visit his program page to listen live.

We’re now following 80+ Northfield-area people and organizations who are using Twitter.

If you don’t see our LoGroNfld Twitter account among your followers, follow us and we’ll likely follow you.

Or let us know that you’d like us to follow you by attaching a comment here or by using our Contact Us form.

For the CO2 races, each student shapes a [...]]]> I got an invitation from my mentee, Chad Dougherty, to attend his Industrial Tech class at the Northfield Middle School on Monday to watch the CO2 car races. IT instructor Tim Biegert and Instructional Educational Assistant Lance Poole graciously allowed me to take some photos and video.

For the CO2 races, each student shapes a block of wood into a car body shape, drilling holes for the axles and the CO2 cartridge. Considerable sanding, sealing, and painting in involved. Students attach two eyehooks to the bottom of each car so that a string can be used as a guide to keep them on the track. 

On the day of the race, student cars are paired up to race against each other but the key metric is the elapsed time for each car.  Mr. Biegert inserts the CO2 cartridges and a student triggers a mechanism that punctures the seal on the cartridges and sends them down the track at 20-50 MPH, taking about a second to finish. Finishing times are automatically recorded to a computer and displayed on the screen, with rankings likewise updated after each race.

It was quite an exciting event to watch and clearly exciting for the students. Here are 6 more photos and a 10-second video clip of Chad’s race.

General admission tickets are $20. You can order tickets online. [...]]]> On Sat., Feb. 20, the Northfield Rotary Club & the Northfield Public Schools Community Services Division are hosting To Brasil and Back: An evening of Brazilian music, culture and food at the  Northfield Middle School. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Proceeds benefit the Rotary Youth Exchange.

General admission tickets are $20. You can order tickets online. See the poster PDF and the ‘To Brasil and Back’ blog post for more info.

It didn’t work.

Let’s critique the speech and his first year in office.

Federal regulators have ordered Community Resource Bank of Northfield, Minn., to strengthen its loan portfolio and ensure that it has adequate capital. The 132-year-old bank, which has $240 million in [...]]]>  
A story on Community Resource Bank was posted to the Strib web site at 9 pm this evening: Bank in Northfield put under Fed scrutiny.

Federal regulators have ordered Community Resource Bank of Northfield, Minn., to strengthen its loan portfolio and ensure that it has adequate capital. The 132-year-old bank, which has $240 million in assets, must improve its loan review process and reduce its delinquent loans that have balances exceeding $500,000. The bank also was told to come up with a plan to "maintain sufficient capital."

Update: 01/27, 6:50 am: 15-page PDF: Written Agreement by and among NORTHFIELD BANCSHARES, INC. Northfield, Minnesota COMMUNITY RESOURCE BANK Northfield, Minnesota and FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF MINNEAPOLIS Minneapolis, Minnesota

… But the bank appears to have a healthy cushion to absorb these loan losses. Unlike many banks that have been hit with regulatory actions, Community Resources’ equity — or its cushion against future loan losses — has improved during the economic downturn… Kuehnast, the bank’s CEO, said most of the loan problems are confined to commercial real estate, primarily loans to small businesses backed by property they own. The bank, he added, did not get swept up in the housing boom; construction and development loans represent only a small portion of the bank’s overall balance sheet.