Ridgerunner Consulting

Visit my Infringement Festival site!

I am very excited about a new project I'm working on: a photography exhibit for the Buffalo Infringement Festival.

What is the Infringement Festival?

Art Under the Radar

Every summer, the streets of the Allentown neighborhood of Buffalo, NY come alive with scores of events by local and visiting theatre and dance companies, puppeteers, media artists, poets, comics, musicians, cabaret acts, digital designers, and miscellaneous insurrectionists. The annual Buffalo Infringement Festival provides artists and audiences of all backgrounds the chance to come together, take chances, push boundaries, and explore uncharted territory because exciting art can happen anywhere, anytime, without a blockbuster budget. (Or any budget at all, for that matter.)

What is my project?

A photography exhibit - my first! The exhibit, titled "Between" shows bits of my life living between Buffalo, N.Y., and Blossburg, Pa.

Details?

Opening event: On the Fringe: 464 Multimedia Extravaganza for IF '10, Friday July 23, 6:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.

464 Gallery on Amherst Street announces "On the Fringe" a multimedia celebration of the 2010 Infringement Festival with local art, live music, outdoor djs and vjs and much more.464 will be featuring artwork from young artists; Maria Bonsignore, Andrea Brough, Melissa Campbell, Heidi I. Jones, Shasti Oleary Soudant, David Pierro with his Robot Art as well as retail and works from the Gallery's scores of member artists.

Live Performance schedule:
6:30-9:30: Buffalo Busker
7:45-9:00: Michael Sheffield and Three Degrees of Separation
9:00-11:30: PROJEX: Artist Keith Harrington performing under the alias PROJEX (also known as DJ Flip of the Fractal Project) will be transforming the exterior landscape of 464 into an audio visual urban installation utilizing multiple projections, sound and music. Utilizing a hybrid traditional DJ setup and computer, this audio visual mixologist will be taking you on a journey of site and sound beginning in experimental ambience and ending in a high energy indie-electro dance party.

Where: 464 Gallery, 464 Amherst St., Buffalo, NY (map)

Here's my current resume [pdf] - updated to include the successful "Save North Penn High School!" campaign.

And here's my spiffy consulting brochure [pdf].

Contact info
570-638-2486
heidi.i.jones @ gmail.com < take out the spaces

I've been writing so much elsewhere that I've been neglecting this blog, mostly because I don't think anyone reads it.

What I've been up to recently:

• Save North Penn High School campaign. Southern Tioga School District administration is proposing to shut down North Penn, ship the kids in grades 9-12 to Liberty High School and Mansfield High School, and turn the elementary school into a kindergarten-through-eighth grade facility. Obviously, I'm opposed to this.
  • I did some research on effects of school consolidation/closing on students and communities and on the state regulations about school facilities construction. (The district administration is not providing the school board with sufficient information to make a huge, permanent decision like this.)
  • I created an ad for the Penny Saver (weekly classified ad rag based in Mansfield, Pa.). PDF here.
  • I created and update the FaceBook fan page "Save North Penn High School!." I update the NPHS alumni myspace but I think the FB page is more valuable.
  • I created the specs for a letter-writing machine that my brother Josh implemented.
  • I helped Jill Nickerson write a speech and handout for the November school board meeting.
  • I helped Jill draft a letter for Blossburg Borough Council to send to the school board.
  • I wrote a letter to the editor of the Williamsport Sun Gazette in response to an article about the November school board meeting.
  • I wrote a letter for Blossburg Improvement Association to send to the school board. PDF here.
  • I'm learning more about hands-on community organizing. I need this book: Tools for Radical Democracy, if anyone would like to buy it for me. (To get supersaver shipping at Amazon, you could add in Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals).
  • I have two real clients through the University at Buffalo Law School Community Economic Development Clinic. I'm doing some nice stuff with them.
  • I'm treasurer of the Alternative Dispute Resolution group at UB Law. We host a mediation (negotiation, really) competition each year - it's this Saturday. We also coordinate and subsidize a 30-hour basic mediation training in January, which I took last year.
  • I'm a facilitator with the Alternatives to Violence Project.
  • I'm still working with Westminster Economic Development Initiative, currently focusing on the West Side Bazaar, a retail incubator project. Bonnie Smith and I are also working on developing a relationship with a local credit union to create a microbusiness lending program using the Small Business Administration's Micro-Loan Program. There's a real need for microbusiness lending in Buffalo. The two current SBA lenders in Erie County are not currently lending anything.
  • I'm still working with Blossburg V.I.B.E. We should be publishing our annual newsletter/business directory/place mat soon.
  • I updated my resume to apply for an externship with the IRS. I have no expectation of getting the externship because they favor third-year students and only take three. Maybe next year after I've taken Taxation of Individual Income I and II, Exempt Organizations, State & Local Taxation...
  • I have a new logo/business cards and a gorgeous brochure. (Yes, I now desperately need to update this website. Maybe January.) Thanks, Krysta!

    

  • AND I'm still working with clients. I have a few in Buffalo and many in Blossburg. I'm scheduling stuff for January. If you need QuickBooks installation, setup or tutoring, let's schedule it now!
    

    To comment or contact me, email me at heidi (at) ridgerunnerconsulting.com.

    Save North Penn High School! on Facebook

    One more link - Liz Berkowitz of Wild Asaph Outfitters keeps a blog about natural gas drilling issues. This is important stuff that's going to affect Tioga County for a long time - probably as significantly as the coal mining era of the 1850s to 1980s.

    Tags:

    • school
    • V.I.B.E.
    • volunteering
    • work

Blossburg residents are opposed to the proposed rezoning of the land between the Kwik Fill and the Tabor Townhouses, primarily over worries of the potential environmental impact. Those who are in favor of the proposed rezoning feel that the potential jobs and potential tax revenue for Blossburg are important.

Here's the PDF of all the results with my commentary:
Download file

Thank you to all who responded!!

Tonight, 6 p.m. Blossburg Fire Hall: Borough Council will hold a public hearing on the rezoning proposal.

Sept. 30, 7:00 p.m. DEP hearing for a frac water recycling plant near Williamsport.