Author: <span>Griff Wigley</span>

City Podcasts

best-of-2009-sshotThe editors at the NEG have done the tallying and we now have the results of the Northfield Entertainment Guide and Locally Grown readers’ poll of the Best of Northfield 2009 (4-page PDF). (The official announcement was made today at 7:45 am when Mr. NEG, Rob Schanilec and I announced the winners on KYMN Radio 1080 with Jeff Johnson.)

The Feb. 2010 issue of the Northfield Entertainment Guide (PDF) includes the results and is now available throughout Northfield, and in Flash format on the NEG site.   Rob writes in the intro to the Best of 2009 section:

Arts & Culture Businesses Media

Northfield City Council goal setting sessionI 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:

City Photos

Site Admin Technology

Chad Dougherty Tim BiergertI 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.

Civic Orgs K-12

At last Thursday’s Northfield.org WinterNet party, Paul Niemisto pinned a Vintage Band Festival 2010 button on me in a shameless marketing ploy, trying to promote the Aug 5-8 event. It…

Civic Orgs

Businesses

President Barack Obama delivers his first State of the Union address tonight at 8 pm CT.  Let’s critique the speech and his first year in office.

National

Community Resource Bank logo 
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

Businesses