Gather more information. Be a hunter-gatherer and then share your wealth. You’ll expand your horizons. You’ll promote your community. You’ll promote community within your community.

Spread the news, be the beacon. Let everyone know.

But I digress …

You need to ride your bike for two reasons: exploration and connectivity. Hmmm … big words. Let me explain.

In “Get Our of Your Car!” I asked you to “Think about it, you’re driving along at 30 miles per hour, possibly texting or talking on the phone, not noticing the first thing in that blur on the other side of the glass that is your windshield. There’s no way for you to get to know your neighbors from your moving, gasoline propelled capsule and the “vibe” of your community cannot pass through its clear-coated, hard shell.”

On your bicycle, you move along at a certain pace that isn’t too fast and isn’t too pedestrian. You can cover more ground than you would if you were walking but not so fast that everything is a blur. You can ride along and see the sites that your neighborhood offers. Maybe you’ll notice a cool house for the first time even though you’ve driven past it a hundred times. Maybe you’ll take a detour down a street that you’ve never traveled before.

You can explore. Your bike will encourage you to take different routes than you do in your car. Most people try to avoid the busy streets where nothing is happening but a bunch of rushing to the office and to the store and home again.

On your bicycle, you travel differently.

And, you can stop. You can stop and enjoy a park bench or a conversation with your neighbor. The sites and sounds and smells of your neighborhood will become more vibrant. You’ll be a part of them. Your neighbors will become more familiar to you. After all, you can talk to them instead of just waving or nodding as you drive by.

The bicycle allows you to become connected with your environment. Whether it’s the gritty city or a lazy neighborhood park is up to you.

So now that you’re out of your car and you’re on your bike, where will you go? That’s up to you but I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t close with an excerpt from the immortal words of Dr. Seuss from “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!”

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

You’ll look up and down streets. Look ‘em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

She’s right of course, there really aren’t many, if any, local options for a growing family to find everything they need for breakfast, school lunches, fruit break, after school snacks, dinner and my midnight snacks. There are great options like local farmers markets, CSA’s and the soon-to-be-open cooperative grocery store, but nothing that fills all of our needs.

So let’s be practical. When it comes to shopping local, we can support the locally owned, mom and pops that fit our needs and lifestyle. Cinda Baxter, founder of the 3/50 Project, has boiled it down to a deceivingly simple concept. She says “Pick 3. Spend 50. Save your local economy.” It started as a blog post and exploded into a National phenomenon. If you’re interested in learning more about the 3/50 Project, Cinda will be speaking in Carmel, Indiana on Thursday. She’s currently touring the country a region at a time. Catch her when she’s in your area.

Whether you buy into the Project’s system of picking 3 locally owned stores where you spend $50 each month or you prefer a more organic system of simply supporting the shops in your neighborhood by stopping in there before going to a big box store, shopping local when you can is an effective way of supporting the life blood of your community. Remember, when you spend money locally, more of it stays in your area. You don’t have to be anti-big box, just be pro-neighbor.

But it doesn’t take much of a stretch to realize how we can apply the concept to our very own neighborhoods. Everyone needs help with something at some point. Your neighbor may be trying to get his house painted before the weather turns cold. Someone else may need help raking the leaves from their 3 Oak trees. My neighbor has a fantastic woodworking shop in his basement and occasionally needs a strong back to get a new tool or workbench down the stairs.

It’s our own version of a barn raising. We help our neighbors. Our neighbors help us. Working together, for each other, breeds familiarity. It strengthens connections and resolve. We grow more interested in each other and begin to look out for each other. The whole community is strengthened.

Of course the other fantastic aspect of an Amish barn raising is the community meal that accompanies the work. Did you ever make brownies or cookies for someone that helped you out? Good neighbors are always happy to work for brownies. Aren’t you?

So what’s your tribe? To what group do you belong ? Psychologists tell us that it’s important to belong. It helps to define who we are and builds connections. Your tribe could be 20,000 members of an association or it could be 3 friends who meet for coffee regularly. It could be your family. Either way, it’s a community that you belong to. You probably belong to several.

What brings solidarity to your tribe? Is there an issue or a cause? It could be an alma mater or a heritage. It is what will define your community.

Communities, by whatever definition, are here to support us, guide us, engage us, and entertain us. But, it’s a give and take relationship. That’s the other key ingredient. What are you doing to support, guide, engage and entertain others? You’ll find that the more you give the more you take away. It’s not enough to simply belong.

Who leads your tribe? You? Your group may have more than one leader and you may lead some communities but not others. Leadership is not necessarily about control. Your leaders may not feed you but they may teach you to find food. True leaders are contributors. Learn to contribute. The survival of your tribe may depend on it.

So find your tribe. Let it define you. Help to define it. Enjoy all of the benefits of belonging and embrace the responsibility of engaging. Maniac or not, be one of the 10,000.

I am most assuredly no JFK but I’ll issue the same challenge to you. Find out what you can do for your community. Today the Irvington Development Organization held its Annual Meeting. It was a public affair where everyone was invited to meet the Board and listen to a number of presentations about what we’ve accomplished in a year. It may not sound that exciting but I enjoyed the opportunity to thank those that have supported us and let them know that their investment in our Organization and the community has paid off. It was also a time to call for action; to call for both financial and volunteer involvement.

Where ever you live, there is probably a group or an organization that has formed to address the same concerns that you have. If there isn’t, now’s your chance. Either way, get involved. Do something for yourself, your neighbors and your community. Then, a year from now, celebrate your successes.

Boil it down to it’s most basic thought or idea. If you’re organizing in your community, that’s your starting point. The mission statement, the events that you plan, the logo, everything should be about what’s loved in your community. Don’t ever lose sight of that idea. It is literally the reason that you, as an organization, exist.

If you’re on the planning committee of your organization, plan an event around it. Take that kernel and design an event, a festival, or a concert around it. It’s the reason that you’re here, why would someone else want to come there? Remind people of that, bring people back for that, market that reason to people outside of your community. Hey, this is America. Hallmark taught us over the years that you can make up an occasion for any reason that you want.

Most of all though, whether you’re the pioneer, the one that’s organizing in your community or you’re just working on ideas to bring people together, don’t forget to enjoy the place where you are. People will see that, it will show in you and your family and friends and neighbors. Like many things, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you love where you are, there will be no place like home.

Stephen Stills said “Love the one you’re with.” I say, love where you are.

This weekend is the annual Alumni Block Party for Thomas Carr Howe High School and the Irvington Development Organization (IDO) is gearing up. We’ll be there representing the community and raising funds for ongoing projects.

Let me set the scene for you. Historically, Howe was the neighborhood school where generations of Irvintonians received their high school diplomas. As these things go with neighborhood schools, there’s a strong connection from class to class.You know:

“My sister Julie dated Bill Murphy’s younger brother Todd, who lives over on Elm. Todd’s oldest son plays football in college with Pat Quinn’s son.”

“Who’s class was Pat in, yours or John’s?”

“Neither, he was a year behind John.”

“Oh that’s right, he was in my cousin Ann’s class.”

It’s like one, great big family tree.

As you can imagine, many Howe grads no longer live in Irvington. But, many still call Irvington ‘home’, as in hometown. And many have a romantic connection to the area and return every year for the Block Party.

That’s exactly what IDO is hoping to capitalize on. We’re counting on drawing support from those with a nostalgic connection, those that appreciate what we’re doing to preserve and enhance their neighborhood, whether they still live here or they make it back only occasionally.

So what is it that keeps people coming back to your community? Is it nostalgia? Is it some annual event or festival? Is it a building, a place or a team? Whatever it is, you need to capitalize on it. ‘It’ needs to be one of the corner stones of your community building effort.

Any time there is something that brings people together you need to be there.  Take advantage of the captive audience but make sure you’re selling value. Do you sponsor projects? Do you advocate something? How are you helping your community?

If you can show value and sell to nostalgia, you have the basics of a successful neighborhood organization.

I recently spent an afternoon in the Irvington Development Organization booth at the Irvington Art Fair. This wasn’t my first shift under the blue canopy rep’ing IDO, but this time something struck me as unique. We always have lots of friends and neighbors stop by our booth at events like the Farmer’s Market or the Halloween Fest. This past Saturday though, a number of people from outside of the neighborhood stopped by. Their stories were all different but the same. “My daughter, the recent graduate, is looking for a neighborhood to buy her first house.” “My wife and I both grew up here and we’re looking to move back.” “We’re closing on our new house next week and we’re excited to see what this neighborhood is all about.” They were all there to see the art, to get information and to talk to real live people in the place that they’re headed.

There’s no doubt that the recent uprise of Social Media has made community information, organizations and causes increasingly accessible. Common practice today suggests that our favorite neighborhood should have a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, a Twitter stream, and a Flickr portfolio, not to mention the old blog and website. Your smartphone, iPad and laptop are incredible portals to instant updates on the latest and greatest happenings in your area. They may be the modern equivalent to the old yard sign. To get the whole scoop and feel the real vibe, scope out next weekend’s festival online and then go check it out. Go with your neighbors, meet the vendors and find out what your neighborhood is all about. That’s how you make the transition from logging onto your online community to building a community. Combine the two and you’ll know exactly where you are.

It may be your favorite form of transport, but your car is one of the biggest obstacles to your getting to know your neighborhood. Think about it, you’re driving along at 30 miles per hour, possibly texting or talking on the phone, not noticing the first thing in that blur on the other side of the glass that is your windshield. There’s no way for you to get to know your neighbors from your moving, gasoline propelled capsule and the “vibe” of your community cannot pass through its clear-coated, hard shell. It’s basic physics.

Before you can make your neighborhood a better place, you have to know your neighborhood. In order to know your neighborhood, you have to experience it. Before you can experience it, you have to spend time in it. In order to spend real, quality time in it you have to get out of your car. It’s like dating and marriage. Get out, take a walk, sit on your porch, talk to your neighbors or maybe meet your neighbors. Walk to the library or to a local restaurant. It won’t take long and it won’t hurt. It’s simple; say ‘hi’ to someone. Who knows, you might even make a new friend or learn something new about your community.

You’ll start to make connections and these connections will be the beginning of a change for the better. One thing’s for certain though. It won’t happen while your driving down the street.