NOMA February Meeting: A Smashing Success! New Ideas!

Hello All -

We had a great February North Main meeting back on the 25th! A BIG THANKS to Koko Java coffee shop for letting us meet there! They extended us a discount on our coffee beverages and stayed an hour later than usual to accommodate us. (They are also serving wine now - a bit of a treat!). We will more than likely meet there again for future NOMA meetings because it was so nice...and they were so great to us!

We had so many ideas hit the table - it was inspired and inspiring.

With so many ideas hitting the table, we ended up narrowing our 2010 goals down to (5):

1) We are going to be organizing a "NOMA Night Out" or a "Fork & Cork" night out where we will house-hop for drinks and appetizers. More to come on this later ~ But mark your calendar for April 10th!

2) We are going to organize a NOMA Train Trip to the State Fair in September. A dedicated train takes us there..and waits to take us home! Details to follow.

3) We have a small subcommittee reviewing our 'dark' corridors (Church Street for example) to see where we might petition the city to install more street lighting for our pedestrians.

4) We have the opportunity to develop the small plot of land we gained at the corner of W. Miller and N. Jackson Street. There is a FABULOUS idea on the table to incorporate a public art project to create a 'Welcome to the NOMA' pocket-park at this site. We are working on proposal details right now. This should be an opportunity for possible grant funding. Donations to the project would be tax-deductible. We are very excited about the potential here to make a nice entryway to our neighborhood from the Parks.

5) We are going to stake out a neighborhood spot for the Pops at the Post.

OK ~ so those were the 5 big ones! We also had a wonderful idea to go "Guerilla Gardening". This is where a bunch of us sneak out at night (or sometime) with plants and "pretty up" a spot that need

s it. Doesn't that sound like fun! shhhh! don't tell!

We will also try to organize a table at the Friday-Nights-Out to advertise North Main and what a great place it is to live. Maybe this will help us fill some of those empty houses. We have already got permission from our neighbor who owns 'Hot Junk' in town. Great!

And last, instead of waiting until later in the year, we are going to schedule our events like our Annual Celebrate NOMA Fall Picnic ~ and additionally a Christmas Party and maybe a 4th of July event - more details to come on this as well.

As always, you are urged to speak up at City Council meetings about any neighborhood issues that you are aware of. We are told time and time again that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

And the last thing we mentioned was to go online to http://www.historicsalisbury.org/ to sign the Shober Bridge petition. The neighborhoods really must look after one another and that neighborhood is petrified about the pending changes that will so greatly impact their area in a very negative way!

So - you can see it was a very energetic meeting, as they usually are!

The next meeting will be held WEDNESDAY MARCH 24th - 6PM - KOKO JAVA!

See you then!