Stories, Tips and Application.

What makes parks and trails projects successful? Is it design? Is it the type of amenities? Of course good design matters and of course having the right amenities that are responsive to the community matter. There are many factors that make a trail or park project successful but my interview with Carol Evans at the Urban Wilderness in Knoxville revealed 6 factors that have made and continue to make The Urban Wilderness in Knoxville, TN successful and they are having massive success.

I want to talk today about a new type of project that is smaller, perhaps not as sexy, and it may not capture headlines. However, it is something you can do today! Maybe you can even do it within your current budget! These small but critical projects can have generational impact on your communities. What if you could complete an impactful project within 3-6 months? What if you could complete a project that connects residents to their local park within the current Mayoral administration?

It is time to Celebrate! Well..actually, I realize it is hard to even think about celebrations right now. But I want to challenge you to think about Celebrations differently! In this blog I offer 5 things you should do with every celebration. These 5 things can make your Park Department or your Non-profit organization stronger.

This is going to sound so elementary, so I apologize for this in advance, but you need to get the elected official in early and often. I cannot say this enough: elected officials do not like being surprised. They want to know what is going on,especially in their district!

I highly recommend creating an advisory team around specific projects. By team I do not necessarily mean formal committees with formal minutes. By team I mean critical people that are in place to help you accomplish the mission. Who should be on your team?

Have you ever gotten a “NO” from a landowner? This is a quick story where I was able to get the landowner to move from a hard NO to a supportive YES and a donation of an easement. Hopefully,you will find a few principles that you can use as you are negotiating and dealing with landowners.

My renewed appreciation for parks This is really my introduction to my blog. My hope for this blog is pretty simple: that you will find stories and information that you can relate to, find applicable, and be encouraged so that you can build more parks for more people. The timing of me starting this blog is no coincidence. Ive got a lot of stories and a lot of lessons that Ive wanted to share for awhile, but what motivated me to start is my new found appreciation for parks was them being closed.