Surgance Central

gLove story at Creekview/Sequoyah Game

Great game!  Creekview was leading 1-0 going into the 6th, but Sequoyah scored 3 in the top of the inning and held on to win 3-1.  A few significant facts about the game - It was the 1st win for new Coach Joseph Jones who, incidentally, started for me from his freshman year through his senior year.  One of my best players ever.  - His assistant is Josh Pritchett who played centerfield for me after Joe graduated.  - The Sequoyah JV coach is James Adams, who played leftfield and pitcher for me a couple of years later.  James has also made two trips to the Dominican Republic with us.  - And the JV coach for Creekview, Justin Wheeler, also played for me at Sequoyah.  What a fun night it was.  Ok, it did make me feel a little old, but it was like a reunion.  

We collected a tub full of gloves and the great thing, most are good gloves that need very little repair work. Many were very complimentary of the work we are doing and promised to bring more gloves when we set up at the nearby Macedonia Park.

One little (big) extra gift came our way due to being in the right place at the right time.  A rep from a local sporting goods company was there.  He explained that 60 new  team bags that had just arrived had been recalled by the manufacturer.  He put in a call and the company agreed to give those to our effort if we would promise to take them out of the country to give away.  We promised and now own 60 nice bags with wheels on them.  We can use them to ship gloves.  A perfect solution to a small problem.  We could not have planned it better.

We gave away a new glove in a drawing and the winner was Shaffer Meisner of Alpharetta.  He was so excited and brought us his used glove which was almost new itself.

The night was a success and I am looking forward to March 7 at Shaw Park and March 14 at Macedonia.  These should be great days also.    

Providing some positive rays at Sunnyside School District

Last night I had the opportunity to attend the Governing Board Meeting at the Sunnyside School District in Tucson, AZ. The meeting was clouded with gloom, as the state of Arizona is being forced to make cuts because of the current economic condition. The state of Arizona is being hit hard because of the exponential growth it has had over the last ten years, but now there a major drop in revenues that help support all the people that have moved here. The state is a leader in foreclosures and bankruptcy, and all entities, including school systems, are having to make deep cuts. The Sunnyside District alone is looking to cut 2 million dollars out of next years budget. One of the major areas of cuts will be operations, primarily maintenance. We were told that all dollars for painting schools were cut out completely. Then I got to step up to the mic....

The board was blown away to see that programs like rejuveNATION were out there, and that people, businesses, and non-profit organizations want to help. After talking for just a few minutes and fielding a few questions, the board voted unanimously to approve a partnership with Surgance for the 2009 and 2010 school years.

3 months to live and 'Nothing to Lose'

A dear friend of mine from work, Melvin Walls, passed away on Monday. He was a young, vibrant man, married with 4 kids and he had brain cancer. My heart is broken for his sweet family and for those of us who knew him.

As I learned about Melvin today, I was reminded of a story that an artist friend of mine from NY recently posted to her Facebook page.

Click here to watch the video or click here to see the article.

It's a story about Cordula Volkening, a 52-year-old mother of two from Brooklyn, who years ago, as an art student in Germany — before immigrating to Brooklyn and starting her own interior construction design business — considered painting her passion.  Recently, doctors gave Cordula a grim diagnosis, brain cancer. After a year of unsuccessful surgeries and chemotherapies she chose to forgo additional surgeries and to focus on what she described as "important" - painting and providing for her teenage children. She gave up her apartment and rented a room with family so that she could afford to rent studio space and spend her remaining days focused on her "passion" - painting.

Cordula said, the terminal illness has simplified things, washing away the worry and petty preoccupations that almost made life harder when she had plenty of it. And she has never felt more connected to the canvas and to her creativity.

As I read this story I couldn't help but wonder: "What would I describe as 'important' enough to totally rearrange my life as I know it so that I could focus on that passion?" As I read further I was struck by the idea/realization that every one of us on the planet is terminal. Some us like Cordula just happen to know when that time will likely be up.

So I simply ask: What in your life would you describe as important? What are you passionate about? What could you rearrange, to spend your last days here (3 months or 50 years) focused on those important things you're passionate about? What worry and petty preoccupations that make life harder could be washed away by answering these simple questions? 

At Surgance we're all about community transformation. Transformation doesn't happen by accident. It happens when people decide to be passionate about what's important, and to do what it takes to spend the rest of their time here focused on that passion.

Thanks for making a difference,
Andy Milligan
Director
The Almus Project

Community Garden Taking Shape in Colorado Springs

LifeRoots Community Gardens: this is the name of the Pike's Peak Region's newest community garden project.  As the name LifeRoots crosses the mind, ideas of sustainability, organic growth, and true community involvement are conjoured up.  Imagery of  life truly lived together, and the depth of that involvement at the most intimate of levels, flood the mind causing one to dream of how this could happen in the context of a garden benefiting an entire region. Excitement seems to be exponentially growing within the area as the project continues to unfold.  Various members of this diverse region have assembled and are diligently working together to see this sustainable oasis grow and blossom.  These are some of the key team members:  Jeff Lackey, liason to Heart of the Springs Church and organic gardener; Jeff Haley, the landscape architect who first envisioned and put to paper the dream of what this garden could look like; Robert Jacobsen, Junior at nearby Colorado College, geology major, and student organizer at the campus level; and John Wheeler, the wisdom behind the layout and design of the garden, architect and project construction manager.  This team, with its communal knowledge, is a representation of what can happen when the community comes together to accomplish dreams and goals.

As individuals have begun to approach this team and ask, "Why are you doing this project?", the answer is always very simple:  to see the city of Colorado Springs made even better by this garden's existence.  That is the vision behind the project: to see Colorado Springs improved by people working together; to beautify the land, grow vegetables, and talk together; to live life, if only for a few minutes a day, as if we all had something valuable to contribute.  The simple truth is that we all have something to add, as this team has already demonstrated.  The community of Colorado Springs is far more valuable together than we ever could be living in isolation.  We exist to encourage one another, to spur each other on to really good work, and to live in a selfless manner.  It is so exciting to think that this garden could stand as a representation of that ideal in action.  The future is indeed growing bright as the seeds of LifeRoots Community Garden begin to grow.

Flutes and Old Songs

There is nothing innovative at all about a flute. The flute has been in existence for thousands of years, and even the modern adaptations of the flute have left the basic form and function of the flute unchanged.  And don't get me started about rehashed old songs. I shake my head in disbelief every time I hear a "new" song on the radio that is nothing but a total rip on an old song. 

Although flutes and old songs are not remotely innovative, something amazing can happen when you put the two together. Case in point:

The missing ingredient, obviously, is the person. This guy has put in who knows how many hours of work to develop his skill, and has applied a great deal of creative thinking into how to execute his skill with incredible originality.  And with only the tool of a flute and the model of a couple of old songs, he makes MAGIC! 

What are the flutes and old songs in your life - the same old tools and models?  How can you apply hard work and creativity to make them more than what they could possibly be on their own? That is the essence of innovation. 

The Surgance Database in Development: A Shout Out for a Help Out

Hattie Moore is really working hard integrating Surgance networks and the Salesforce web-based databank. If you have someone in your circle of influence that could assist her (pro bono) with some technical items in constructing the database properly for long term health, please let us know!
 
brian AUDIA
President and CEO
www.surgance.com
702.309.7874

Posted via email from Brian D. Audia

gLove story going to Creekview

On Tuesday evening, February 24, at the Creekview Grizzles Baseball Field, the visiting Sequoyah Chiefs come to take on the Grizzles in the season opening game for both high schools.  Coach Joe Jones of Sequoyah is a former star center fielder and pitcher of mine.  Normally I would be pulling only for Sequoyah, but Coach Nayman of Creekview has been a leader in helping us with our glove program.  Now how could I pull against such a friend as that?

And finally, the point to this post is:

This game is billed as "gLove story Night", with both teams working to get teammates, students, teachers, parents, feeder programs and other fans to bring gloves for our program.  Bob North, Wes Lecroy and I will set up to repair gloves free for anyone in the community during the game.  We will publicize our program with fliers for all and do anything to assist at the game short of leading the National Anthem.  I'd rather chase foul balls than sing loud enough for people to hear me.

This night will be a great one.  I believe it will serve as a kickoff for us and a model for other schools that have signed up to gather donated gloves for gLove story.  And, on March 7, we will debut at Shaw Park for our first set up at a recreation baseball field.  What a day that will be also.

Dave

Surgance Hats and T-shirts

I saw this hatworld.com display in a store the other day. It would be great if we had hats and T-shirts for our Surgance volunteers around the country.

Who’s feeling creative?


brian AUDIA
President and CEO
Surgance, Inc.
www.surgance.com
702.309.SURG (7874)

Posted via email from Brian D. Audia

Surgance Partners with Elementary School to Establish Parent Resource Cottage

I just left an incredibly inspiring meeting with the administration of Sewell Elementary in Henderson, NV, along with Brian Audia, Surgance President & CEO, and rejuveNATION National Project Foreman Roy Mallory.  The ladies at Sewell have a HUGE vision for their school and community, and Surgance is honored to be partnering with them in an exciting new project to bring that vision to fruition.

Part of their vision for transforming the declining community that surrounds the school is to open a Parent Resource Cottage on the campus from which to provide the school's families with services such as literacy development, GED resources, training in marketable job skills, and providing technology for basic life necessities.  They also want to invite other social service organizations to keep regular office hours at the facility in order to better provide their services to the community.  

A local businessman has donated a mobile office "cottage" for the facility, and the school has secured a grant from the city of Henderson to cover the cost of moving the unit and setting up the basic infrastructure.  Clark County School District will set the unit up on the property and install electricity and HVAC. And that's where Surgance, through rejuveNATION, comes in.

As you can see from the above photos, the cottage needs a significant makeover, inside and out, to create the positive and empowering environment that the Sewell teams envisions.  As I said during our brief meeting to inspect the cottage, "It's a bit like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree... It just needs a lot of love!"  The building will be relocated to the school property in a month or so, after which we'll immediately begin setting up teams of volunteers to begin working on the renovation project. We are already working to secure partners from the business community to provide resources and services for the project, as well as mobilizing the community at large to get involved.

What is most exciting to me about this project is that it has the potential to become a model that is scalable and reproducible on a national level.  Imagine that, Surgance helping to expand these ladies' vision by helping other schools across the country to set up similar centers!  That, my friends, is turning ideas into impact!

Selling Your Passion

There is a buzz coming out of the TED Conference in California, and it is not a metaphor.  Bill Gates, billionaire founder of Microsoft and philanthropist extraordinaire, shocked the audience by releasing live mosquitoes into the arena during his talk about malaria prevention, saying, "There's no reason only poor people should get malaria."  This apparently made some people, including the founder of eBay, very uncomfortable. 

All I can say is: absolutely brilliant!  The fact that it made some folks uncomfortable is what makes it so brilliant.  Here's why: in a simple, yet bold, act, Bill Gates made a largely "out of sight" issue VERY personal for his audience.  With the buzz that this has generated in the media, I dare say that more people care about the issue of malaria prevention today than even knew it was a problem yesterday!  Gates has created enormous energy around this issue he is passionate about.

What issue are you passionate about? What problem do you see in the world that MUST be fixed?  Now, what simple, yet bold, thing can you do to make that issue personal to others who aren't even aware there is a problem?  You may not have access to a main-stage slot at TED, but with a little creativity you can effectively persuade those around you to join you in solving your big problem.