September NEAT Meeting

September's NEAT Meeting was really great and we covered a lot.

Sadly, our President Cookie Quinones announced her resignation last night. She has served with us for four years and helped us accomplish so much. She is now busy with so many positive things in her life that we will be seeing her now as NEAT member instead of as the President. Thank you so much for your service, Cookie.

As we've written about on previous blogs, the transfer of Donovan Park, or MacDonough School's playground, to the Board of Ed has been approved. The final approval needs to be made by the Common Council before it is official. NEAT members were a large part of the process to make this change (see blogs "Problems In Donovan Park" and Donovan Park update for more information). It would be great if we could see this all the way through by going to the Common Council Meeting in support of the transferring the park. We will let everyone know when that meeting will be.

It's time to elect NEAT officers and board members and we are looking for a nominating committee. This is a quick and easy committee to join. If you'd like to help with the nominations or have ideas of who might make a good board member, call the NEAT office (346-4845)or email izzi.greenberg@neatmiddletown.org to sign up.

The 2008 election is coming up quickly and it is VERY important that North End residents vote. We will be holding voter registration drives around the North End in the next few weeks. If you are not registered, please come by the NEAT office or one of our registration tables (look for the Teen Dreams Society) and we will help you to register and give you some information about how to vote and where to vote. Anyone interested in helping register people in your neighborhood, please call the NEAT office or email alicia.mcavay@neatmiddletown.org.

NEAT will be hosting a democracy forum at the next NEAT meeting on October 15th. We will be discussing how voting effects you, your family, and your neighborhood. We are still in the planning process, so if you have any ideas, please feel free to share them with us, call the office or email izzi.greenberg@neatmiddletown.org.

The NEAT Schools Committee formed at the last meeting and we are looking for more members. The committee will come together to talk about the school experience for North End families. We will discuss issues within the schools for North End parents, attend Board of Education Meetings, PTA meetings, and work to support local allies within Middletown's schools. For more information or to join call NEAT or email alicia.mcavay@neatmiddletown.org.

Thanks to everyone who was a part of last night's meeting. We had some great participation and great ideas. See you all next month.