September Update: Dinner, Classes. Get Connected! Meetings & More

We have some exciting events coming up this month and next –  our annual Pick of the Market Dinner, plus Get Connected! meetings with NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota. the District Councils Collaborative and Great River Greening ;  low-cost classes on “I’m on Facebook, but I have no idea what I’m doing” and Driving More Traffic to Your Website (Search Engine Optimization), plus a Social Media Clinic, and a three-part Step in Up Reporting Workshop on how to write the kinds of stories that attract readers. Plus lots of free Newsroom Cafe workshops. Scroll down for details, and our editors’ reports.

This year’s Pick of the Market dinner on Sunday, September 16 at the Blackbird Cafe is going to be our best yet. Celebrating its fifth year, the Blackbird Cafe has always focused on local sourcing, partnering with Dragsmith Farms, Hope Creamery, Grass Run Farms, Wild Acres, among others. On the day of the dinner, chef-owner Chris Stevens will shop at local farmer’s markets and pick the best meats and dairy from his local vendors to assemble his “Pick of the Market” menu. This year’s dinner will include a “meet and greet” starting at 6:30 p.m. featuring local cheeses, vegetarian pates, crudites and traditional charcuterie such as chicken liver mousse, country style pate, pork rillettes, smoked trout and chicken gallantine. To purchase tickets, click here: https://www.thedatabank.com/dpg/262/mtglistproc.asp?formid=TCM-Event&caleventid=20652.

Get Connected! is the Twin Cities Media Alliance’s series of meetings highlighting organizations working for change in the areas ofEducation, Transportation, Work, Immigrant Communities, Health and the Environment. At each meeting, you’ll have a chance to find out about the organization, how you can get involved, and how you can use social media to work more effectivelyon the issues that you care about. Each meeting also includes an opportunity to socialize and network over food and drink. Get Connected events are free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

• On Sept. 8 our engagement team will be at St. Paul’s Merriam Park Library, to introduce NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness Minnesota. NAMI will highlight the work it does to support the rights of those living with mental illness. Find out how you can become involved. To sign up, click here.
• District Councils Collaborative will take center stage on Sept. 18 at their University Avenue office. Learn about the work DCC is doing to ensure that all residents’ transportation needs are being met, as light rail construction through the Central Corridor continues. Also get a first look at the results of DCC’s Central Corridor walkability survey. To sign up, click here.
• On Sept. 27 we close out the month at Indeed Brewing Company, where Great River Greening will present on the work it does to engage the public. As always, our Marcos Lopez-Carlson will present on ways to use new media tools to engage networks and take action, in this case to support the ecology of Minnesota. To sign up, click here.

Mark your calendars: Get Connected! will also be the theme of this year’s eight annual Fall Media Forum, to be held Saturday,  November 10 at UROC, the Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center of the University of Minnesota. It should be a great opportunity to find out more about  how you can get connected with local organizations working for change, and how you can use media tools to engage more effectively. More details to follow.

Newsroom Cafes: 

To find Jay, just look for the laptop with the Freaky Deeky sticker. To find Mary, just look for the laptop with the sticker that says “I heart the First Amendment.” 

Staff reports: 

Community Engagement Coordinator Bruce Johansen reports: 

Cause Spirits & Soundbar was the place to be for August’s Get Connected! happy hour meetings. Over a generous array of appetizers and drinks, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy staff members introduced MCEA’s work and the civic engagement opportunities that organization provides, particularly around proposed mining in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Lake Superior region. Twin Cities Media Alliance’s Marcos Lopez-Carlson offered advice on how to be a more effective environmental advocate through the use of new media tools that help connect activists with each other and with decision-makers. Cause was also where the League of Women Voters Minneapolis introduced its work, with a focus on the proposed voter ID amendment. Facebook groups and interest lists were highlighted as useful tools for those working to defeat the proposed amendment at the polls in November. We returned to Open Arms of Minnesota on Sept. 5, where we introduced NAVIGATE Minnesota and the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, two organizations working hard on immigration reform and deferred action.

Arts Editor Jay Gabler reports:

Minnesotans love to talk about “our scene,” but how inclusive are those discussions? In a new series, we’re broadening the scope of these discussions to ensure that they include all Minnesotans—including the newest Minnesotans, and those whose voices aren’t often enough heard in mainstream local media. The first “Our Scene” post features Hmong MC Tou SaiKo Lee, who talks about his intergenerational collaboration with his grandmother and calls for more events using hip-hop to connect different cultures. The second post, by art curator Christina Chang, sparked a lively debate about whether artists from the Somali and Hmong communities are adequately visible to audiences from outside those communities. Who else should we feature in the Our Scene series? Let me know: jay@tcdailyplanet.net.

Editor Mary Turck reports:

Swinging into September, our news coverage continues to expand. We’re looking to you to contribute to that coverage — sending us tips about stories you think we should cover, writing those stories, contributing photos from events you attend (like the Monarch Festival coming up on September 8!), writing a paragraph about the new coffee shop or the clean-up day in your neighborhood. And, if you’d like to do even more, our September 19 Step It Up workshop focuses on finding and writing stories for TC Daily Planet.

Best,

Jeremy Iggers
executive director, Twin Cities Media Alliance