Cleveland

Congratulations to the Brite Winter 2019 organizers! Ten outstanding years of outdoor winter fun -- music and arts in Cleveland!

On Saturday, February 23, 2019, we had a great time at the tenth annual Brite Winter. We arrived a bit earlier than in the past to have more time to enjoy the outdoor activities.

In this blog post we share two videos that do a great job of capturing the environment, and our 154 @sos_jr tweets and retweets show photos/videos from this outstanding day in Cleveland!

On this 10th anniversary, we want to thank the Brite Winter organizers for the many years of winter outdoor fun!!! We have very fond memories of attending our first Brite Winter when it was just a small event in 2011, and have watched it grow into the huge event it is now!

On Thursday, February 21, PechaKucha Night Cleveland will be live on stage at The Music Box in the Flats West Bank.

Japanese for “the sound of conversation,” PechaKucha features a rapid succession of 8-10 speakers, each sharing new ideas about topics ranging from visual art, architecture, and technology to food, film, music, photography and furniture design through a vibrant 400 second long presentation (20 slides X 20 seconds each). . . .

#PKNCLE33
@PKNCLE

I always enjoy attending (and writing about) PechaKucha Night events in Cleveland and Akron. Therefore, I was glad to be able to go to Cleveland's Music Box Supper Club on Thursday, February 21, 2019, for PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 33.

After Michael Christoff's PechaKucha Night Cleveland - Volume 33 talk, he made the BIGGEST announcement in the ten+ years of the organization:

The next event, Global PechaKucha Night: Waterways, will be an international event spotlighting the importance of water and sustainability.

This blog post can't capture all the exciting implications of the Wednesday, January 23, 2019, Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access announcement!

Open Access at the Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art announced on January 23, 2019, that it is an Open Access institution, using the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) designation for high-resolution images and data as related to its collection. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, Open Access means the public now has the ability to  share, collaborate, remix, and reuse images of many as 30,000 public-domain artworks from the CMA’s world-renowned collection of art for commercial and non-commercial purposes. In addition, portions of collections information (metadata) for more than 61,000 artworks, both in the public domain and those works with copyright or other restrictions, works are now available. 

This announcement that I will share information about in this post is just the beginning. It is only a hint of what is to come.

The Open Access partners of the Cleveland Museum of Art at the event showed some intitial uses for the all the Open Access artwork, but the potential for the future goes beyond what was presented on this first day. As the Creative Commons Chief Executive Officer Ryan Merkley said, "...this is a big deal."

Thank you, Cleveland Museum of Art, or bringing both Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries and Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern to Cleveland! I look forward to coming back to the museum to see the exhibitions again with Julie, my co-blogger and wife.

On Friday, January 18, 2019, Stuart returned with Julie to show her these two major exhibitions. Both Wednesday and Friday nights are good weeknights to go to the Cleveland Museum of Art, since they are open later than other nights -- until 9:00 pm. Visiting the museum makes for a very enjoyable evening.

The Mission of Cleveland GiveCamp is to pair creative and technology talent with nonprofits in need.

Stuart did not have time to write this blog post at the end of July, since he was preparing for a backpacking trip and writing blog posts about FRONT International, but we still wanted to share our experiences at Cleveland GiveCamp 2018.

On July 20-22, 2018, Cleveland GiveCamp Weekend marked the ninth year of serving nonprofits in the Cleveland and Akron areas. The Smiths (Stuart, Kevin, and Mike) want to share with you the following tweets, photos, and information about Cleveland GiveCamp 2018.

Stuart has attended Cleveland GiveCamp weekend for all of its nine years, and in 2018 served on the Cleveland GiveCamp Steering Committee for his eighth year. He continues to manage both the ClevelandGiveCamp.org website and the @CleGiveCamp Twitter feed year-round, and serves on the Social Media Team during Cleveland GiveCamp weekend. This was Kevin's fifth year working on the Cleveland GiveCamp social media team. Mike returned this year to work on a Wordpress project for Hope for Kids Geauga (HopeForKidsGeauga.org) at his seventh GiveCamp. Cleveland GiveCamp continues to be one of the largest GiveCamps in the nation.

I was very fortunate to receive an email invitation to arrive early for the November 29, 2018, Cleveland Museum of Art's preview event. There is a lot of interest in the newly opened exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art! The tickets for the weekend following the preview ended up selling out, and the night I attended brought in a good-sized crowd of Museum members to see the two major fall 2018 exhibitions:

• Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries

• Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern

In this blog post, I will share what I and others observed and shared on Twitter (including photos of the artwork), along with some other comments and resources about these two exhibitions. I like that the museum is featuring both their Renaissance Splendor: Catherine de’ Medici’s Valois Tapestries and Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern exhibitions together, and offering special combined ticket pricing for the public (museum members get free tickets and their guests get discounted tickets).

Traditionally, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, Cleveland kicks off the holiday season! On Saturday and Sunday, November 24 and 25, 2018, we took part in some great holiday celebrations!

We wrote this blog post as our way of saying thank you to PlayhouseSquare and Cleveland Play House for Holidazzle 2018, and to Downtown Cleveland Alliance and Cleveland Public Square for Cleveland Winterfest 2018.

We also want to mention the great Cleveland Foundation skating rink on Cleveland Public Square! The Foundation has been sponsoring a winter skating program since 2016 as a great addition to the year-round programming that takes place at the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Plaza.

In addition to Holidazzle and Cleveland Winterfest, we have included in this blog post tweets with photos and videos from this year's TubaChristmas Cleveland. Julie performs in TubaChristmas concerts in either Cleveland or Akron every year.

On the afternoon of Saturday, November 3, 2018, I attended the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire. 2018 marks the sixth year for the Cleveland Public Library - "The People's University" - as a sponsor and host of the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire, and I have attended and written blog posts about three of the previous years' events.

Also, I am excited that my sons had a booth at the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire this year, featuring their tabletop game, PerMUTATIONS. This is the first time they have been invited to share their game with the public at the Library. They have demonstrated their PerMUTATIONS game at the last two Ingenuity Cleveland's IngenuityFest events, which you can read about in our blog posts.

What follows are my 100 @sos_jr tweets and retweets, so you can see photos from the event, and learn how the Cleveland Public Library uses the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire to bring together area makers and creatives to share their knowledge and to encourage others to join them.

I recently learned that the Cleveland Foundation has launched the new Ctrl + Alt + CLE group. Although I missed the first meeting on September 6, 2018, #CtrlAltCLE Convenes: Tech & Digital Equity, it dealt with a topic that I am very interested in, so I knew I should make it a point to attend future meetings. Fortunately, I was able to attend the second #CtrlAltCLE meeting, and a special #CtrlAltCLE blockchain training for nonprofits/government.

In this blog post, I will share:

• Some of the background information from the Launch of Ctrl + Alt + CLE.

• Information about the two #CtrlAltCLE meetings I attended on the topics of Digital Equity and Blockchain for Social Good.

• Funding opportunities announced for Digital Equity and Blockchain for Social Good.

I am also including information about Lynda.com classes that relate to the work of #CtrlAltCLE. The classes are available FREE with your library card!

This is just the beginning of the new #CtrlAltCLE program, and I recommend you join with me in learning how Ctrl + Alt + CLE will evolve.

I knew of Hack Cleveland from reading their @HackCleveland tweets, but I had never attended any of their events. When I read that the Hack Cleveland leadership team had scheduled a #Fix216: Criminal Justice Reform Scope-A-Thon for Friday evening, October 26, 2018, and Saturday, October 27, 2018, I signed up. I figured it was a good time to not only learn about the group, but also learn by participating in the methods they used to develop a social justice technology solution. I also liked the idea of a "Scope-A-Thon," with its emphasis on investing the time to find the right plan to succeed on the issue that would give the greatest benefit.

1. Bail Reform

2. Re-Entry Skills Alignment 

3. Collateral Consequences/Sanctions