things to do

I read a book by Jane Jacobs called 'Dark age coming' the other day and it made me want to do more with the Broken City. I part dissliked the book and was also part touched by it. I'd really like to read another book of her's called 'the life and death of great american cities'. Anyways I learned a lot (like why public transportation in LA was so bad and who is responsible for that) and it seems like Jane Jacobs would have been a nice lady to know. She died a week ago.

If 'Dark Age Coming' was slightly overstated and overextended, it made me feel like trying to possibly overextend some efforts at community building in Calgary.

I figured I would maybe put it out there for people who might have some well thought out ideas- What would be some things that the staff and ownership of the Broken City can do to help encourage a community spirit in Calgary?

I have a few ideas to start with, but I would really like some other people to help with ideas and possibly with organization as well. The bar is a very good tool for doing something to help motivate people, and to make some changes in the city. So I'd like to explore some ideas of positive things we can do with bar to support and motivate people in Calgary.

We've had some candidates forums at the bar and they have been good events, and I think the bar is a good contributor in other ways, but as I said I'd like to try and figure out what else we can do because I know there's a lot that can be done.

Here are some early ideas I've had.

I was thinking of trying to host some debate nights, possibly weekly, with a good moderator, where we have interesting topics and guests and after the debate the floor is open to anyone who has something to say. Its an idea that is doing well in Dublin right now and is reviving a sense of interest and engagment in politics for the drinkers of that city. I guess after the debate is done in many of these places the discussions continue on far after the moderator turns the mics off.

I also thought of trying to have a book exchange. I don't know exactly how it would be done, but the very first thought I had was that the bar would buy a bunch of books and then sell them to people for three or four dollars (or substantially less than we paid for them). We would also encourage people to bring in books that they were done with that other people could take for free amd would be asked to bring back when they were done. We don't have a lot of extra room at the bar but we could sort something out.

Then there's the environmental side. I think there are lots of things we could do on that front so if anyone out there has some thoughts on this, or if you know someone who you think might, please get them to post a comment. You don't need to be a member to post a comment, just post it anonymously and then put your name on it if you'd like.

Thanks. I hope that some people are into some of these ideas and mostly I hope that people have some good suggestions and things they would like to see. People can get fairly jaded about life sometimes and it seems like that semi-hopless take on things maybe hits the youth of Calgary a bit more than in some other cities.

I think music is quite good, but there is more that we can do so I'm offering the bar up for suggestions.