Hi Chip,

Welcome to Location19.  As chief of communications in the Rochester City School District, you will probably find plenty of interesting things to get involved with on this site. 

In the fall of 2010 Location19 broadened its geographical focus from the 19th Ward to all neighborhoods in the SW Quadrant.  We did this to improve communications between the neighborhoods since we share a lot of services.  That led to my participation in the SW Common Council, at Eleanor Colman's urging, and in turn to the formation of the Location19 groups, SW Common Council (SWCC) and SWCC Communications Committee.  Things really heated up on the site in early July 2012 when the School District closed School 16 on Post and decided to ship kids across town to Freddie Thomas.  That motivated the SW Common Council to reactivate its Education Committee.  The Location19 SW Education Forum group was set up to serve as a prominent location in which to document our fight to protect and improve our schools.  It looks like our efforts to keep people informed and organized is paying off.  School 16 is eventually to return to a renovated building on Post,  School 10 is to stay on Congress, and a genuine effort is being made to turn School 44 around and and keep it open.   Also, the 19th Ward Community Association has revived its Schools Committee to work closely with Schools 10, 16, 29 and 44 which are all in the 19th Ward.   You can see what the Education Committee's most recent focus is by looking at SWCC Education Committee Minutes - January 15, 2014 at the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence.

Now that you are a member of Location19, when you sign-in, you can post to the main Discussion Forum, Events calendar and Blog section or the site and you can join any of the various groups to participate in the discussions there.  Check out A Brief Overview on Location19 Structure to get familiar with what's where.  In the tabs, Be sure to check out the "All Groups - Icons" sub-tab.  We are currently up to 67 groups.  Only the most recently added 20 groups are shown in the column to the right.

To join a group such as SW Education Forum, click on the group, then in the upper right of the group page just under the banner picture, next to your name click on +Join SW Education Forum and you are a member!  Being a group member lets you post to the group and also permits you to receive email notifications from that group about events and other info that may not be posted on Location19 itself.   I look forward to you contributions to the postings in this group.

There is a ton of information you can search for and read through on Location19.  Be sure you make use of the search options.  

Please post your picture.  Step by step instructions can be found here How to Post Your Picture - It's easy!

It' a good idea to subscribe to the Daily Email Digest so you receive an update of new activity on the site even if you don't check Location19 every day.  You can also find a list of new information posted by looking at the Latest Activity column on the Main page.