Housekeeping

Looking for an internship? Well that's excellent - because we're looking for interns! We've got two internships open and we're ready for your resumes. Our Civic Health Index Program Internship starts ASAP, and we're accepting resumes for our 2011 Community Matters Campaign Internship, which will begin in the summer. See below for more info!

  Civic Health Index Program Intern

CityClub recently published Civic Health Index (CHI). This groundbreaking study (click the link to read!) reports six metrics of community engagement in Pierce, King and Snohomish counties: volunteering, neighborliness, belonging to groups, philanthropy, political voice and voting.

 We're seeking an outgoing and detail oriented intern to help market - and educate the community about - our findings. Our CHI Intern will assist the Executive Director in designing and implementing a marketing plan and tools (e.g. power point presentation, speakers bureau, etc) to publicize the study and its results in the greater community with the goal of building commitment to continue tracking civic health and boosting civic engagement.

Internship will begin as soon as possible! A full job description is attached in PDF form. To learn more and apply contact Sara Neppl at sneppl@seattlecityclub.org.  

Community Matters Campaign Internship

Each year, beginning with United Way’s Day of Caring (mid-to-late September) and ending with Election Day (early November), CityClub hosts an annual fall campaign called the Community Matters Campaign. Each year we chose a timely theme and explore it through forums, election debates, community dialogues, web resources and an online living voters guide. Past themes include community engagement, education & economic opportunity, and public trust. Visit our website (http://seattlecityclub.org/node/415) to learn more about the campaign.

Our CMC Internship begins in the summer and lasts through November. This is a part-time, unpaid internship. The intern assists the Program & Operations Manager on all aspects of the campaign, and takes the lead on coordinating community dialogues, a critical component for the campaign. Applications are accepted starting in January for the summer/fall ahead.

We are currently accepting applications for a 2011 CMC Intern! A full job description is attached in PDF form.  To learn more and apply contact Jessica Jones at cityclub@seattlecityclub.org.

We're thrilled to announce we've been named a finalist for the Best Use of Technology in the Government, Non-profit or Education Sector as part of the Washington Technology Association (WTIA)’s 16th annual Industry Achievement Awards!

This nomination is for CityClub's launch of the Living Voters Guide, in collaboration with the University of Washington's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Center for Communications and Civic Engagement and Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering.

This morning our Executive Director, Diane Douglas, joined a representative from the University of Washington to film a segment about Living Voters Guide - if we get a link to video, we'll share it!

From WTIA's press release:

The awards recognize Washington State companies, organizations and individuals who best demonstrate technology and service innovation and excellence. For more information and to register for the event, go to: www.washingtontechnology.org/IAA.

"These finalists represent the most creative and innovative companies and individuals in our industry and deserve the highest congratulations," said Susan Sigl, president and CEO of the WTIA. "We’re fortunate to live and work in a state with such a diverse and vibrant technology community. I wish each finalist the best and look forward to revealing the winners in February."

See all finalists in all categories in the WTIA press release about the awards. To learn more about the Washington Technology Industry Association, go to www.washingtontechnology.org.

I don't know about you, but I find that I see a sort of wall at the end of December - not a bad kind of wall, mind you - but a wall nonetheless. A relaxing end, a goal I'm smoothly sailing toward: the end of another year. The side effect of this sort of calming completion is, of course, the complete lack of forethought into January! Even as we're preparing to launch the 2011 Jefferson Awards nominations (an event that happens in April) and even as we're having planning committee meetings for our anniversary gala (which falls in the summer), these are still abstract concepts for me - because I'm smoothly sailing toward December 31.

In that spirit, this blog is here to remind both myself and you about our events, just past that "calming completion", in January!

Legislative Preview: Friday, January 7

Every year we're joined by the top leadership to talk about the upcoming legislative session, and 2011 will be no exception: Senator Lisa Brown, Rep. Frank Chopp, Rep. Richard DeBolt and Senator Mike Hewitt will take the stage to talk about the priorities. After a clear anti-tax message from voters at the ballot box, how will the legislature make up an ever growing budget shortfall? Is education still a top concern for next year? Has transportation been lost in the shuffle? Statewide, we will only see a small net gain of GOP seats in the Legislature, but how will national trends impact local politics?

The session is sure to be packed with competing goals. What are the Governor's priorities? Are they in line with what the legislature hopes to accomplish? 

(Click here to register!)

A Conversation with Dr. Phyllis Wise, Interim President, University of Washington: Monday, January 24

Phyllis Wise took over the reins as Interim President of the University of Washington in September 2010. Provost and Executive Vice President since 2005, she served as the University's chief academic and budgetary officer. One of her chief accomplishments was launching a new College of the Environment in 2009. Dr. Wise also has a distinguished career as an academic. A member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, she is considered a leading researcher in women's health and biology.

How is Dr. Wise helping UW weather the state's budget crisis--short-term and long-term? How will UW continue its national leadership as a pioneer in biological and medical research? What do changing financial structures mean for undergraduate admissions and tuitions? How is the curriculum changing to prepare students for their place in a global economy?

(Click here to register!)

Also in the coming months-- check out these co-presented events:

• Thursday, December 16, 2010 - PubliCola Presents: Tunnel Forum
• Thursday, January 13, 2011 - enterpriseSeattle and Washington Global Health Alliance present: 39th Annual Economic Forecast Conference
• Thursday, January 20, 2011 - Women's Funding Alliance presents: In Our Own Backyard: A Closer Look at the Sex Trafficking of Local Girls
• Wednesday, January 26, 2011 - Trade Development Alliance of Greater Seattle presents: Winter Schmooze 2011 
• Through 2010 - The Seattle Center Foundation presents: The Next Fifty

See you in January!
Sara @ CityClub

From everyone at CityClub, here's to a warm, safe, happy Thanksgiving weekend!

Our office will be closed Thursday, November 25 and Friday, November 26 for the holiday. We'll be back to our regular schedule on Monday morning (November 29) and ready to take your reservations for the December 2 Network Only event! :) Join us for our holiday party with live music from local band The Thoughts - more info here.

Thanks for your interest in working for CityClub! We are no longer accepting applications for these positions.

Join Team CityClub! We're looking for a Development & Marketing Manager... is it you? Lead CityClub’s event sponsorship, membership, marketing and communications efforts in partnership with CityClub’s Executive Director, Fund Development and Communications Committees. And also: get really informed about your community while you're at it!

Click here to open the PDF job description, and send us your resume today.

We've been pretty quiet on the blog front this week - our Community Matters Campaign launches next week! I assure you, however, I never forgot about CityBlog. Here's a brief update with what we're working on:

• Yesterday was our Health Care Series event "Global Health: The Local Impact". Click here for our Twitter feed from the event, and stay tuned for video from Seattle Channel!
• Today we've got our heads down, working hard and very excited about next week's conversation with David Gregory, moderator of "Meet the Press". Tickets are still available, so don't be shy: share on your Facebook page or Twitter stream, send to your neighbors, register away!
  
• Can you believe it's almost time for our next Seattle Speaks program? On September 30th with tackle "Income Tax in Washington State?" - you can click the link to register or just for more information. Don't forget to take our poll and let us know your thoughts on I-1098!
• We just announced two more of our Community Matters campaign programs: "Education Series: Repaving the Road to Higher Education" and "Environment & Sustainability Series: Energy We Can Trust?" Panels are being finalized as we speak!

Many, many exciting things going on at CityClub - and more to be announced next week! Stay tuned, and we'll see you at an event soon!

Whew! We knew internships at CityClub provided valuable experience, but we didn't expect our Marketing & Events intern to be hired off so soon - her brief experience played a role in getting the job!

As we wish her congratulations and say sayonara, we also go back to the beginning and start searching for another intern.

The Marketing & Events Intern will be at the heart of CityClub and what we do - helping us stay involved in the community, and keep the community involved with us! The full description - including how to apply - is attached at the bottom of this blog entry. If you're interested, or know someone who is, by all means proceed post-haste! Fill out, send in, share with your friends!

Edit: ...and we're back!

It would appear our technology is having a case of the Mondays! We are working on the website issues (i.e. the giant pink box of error messages on the top of every page!) and we very much appreciate your patience while we work things out.

In the meantime, event registration is still functional. If you have any issues, or are just having trouble getting around, please call us at 206-682-7395 and we are more than happy to take your registration over the phone.

People in IT and tech support often tell me they solve many problems by "knowing how to Google". Often, just typing the problem into a Google search box pulls up dozens of results - people who have had the problem before, who are asking about it and having their questions answered on bulletin boards and community tech support pages of all varieties. (Of course, you also have to understand what they're saying on these bulletin boards - which is where good IT knowledge comes in handy!) CityClub recently tapped into one of these communities for some website assistance - Elliott Bangs, our Membership & IT Coordinator, shares a bit about the adventure:

Drupal, the software that runs our website, is the product of a vast, ongoing, highly collaborative, and largely volunteer effort, made possible by the contributions of thousands of users, designers and programmers around the world. The global Drupal community includes many regional communities, one of which is the Seattle Drupal Users' Group (also known as SEADUG - http://groups.drupal.org/seattle). When CityClub needed a small but technically complex change made to the code of our website, we posted a volunteer request there. Within days, we had the help we needed - from a developer who actually resides in Chicago, but who was nonetheless glad to lend his expertise to our project.

Our massive thanks go out to Sean Fitzpatrick, our long-distance tech-support, for his information and guidance all the way from Chicago. On the homefront, Elliott hopes to get involved in SEADUG himself, once he feels more confident in his Drupal abilities (We know he has them! We've seen it!) in order to give a little something back to an incredibly helpful community!