​Here's an alert that Tamara Gruber, author of a popular travel blog that caters to families, will be in Lindsborg Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
      The only other location in Kansas that Tamara will be visiting for her research is Wichita.
       Tamara writes the We3Travel blog, which is focused on families and road trips.  She also focuses on international family travel, especially Italy.  Tamara's belief is that with a little preparation, you can take your kids about anywhere in the world
      Our business community -- especially Lindsborg Vacation Rentals and our restaurants -- have joined with the Lindsborg CVB to show us to our best advantage.  If you have the chance, we hope you'll show Lindsborg to its best advantage, also.  Thanks to everyone who is helping.
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       A reminder:  Today is the final day to turn in forms to be part of the Official Kansas Travel Guide 2019.  This is the online and printed version of the material for visitors provided by the State of Kansas.  A substantial listing for our community makes it more likely Lindsborg will be a stop while visitors are in Kansas.  Contact Amy at the Lindsborg CVB with questions.  (You'll need to turn in a form and a check even if no changes are being requested.) 

​Three cheers went up this morning for the newly graduated Bethany College Class of 2018 and the SVHS teams competing in state finals. Nothing makes this community more proud than the quality of education here and successful students of any age.
       Cheers also went up for the second year of “We Care in the LBK,” a grassroots effort to deliver sack lunch meals to children this summer. Last year, about 25 children were fed.  This year, “We Care” has 45 names, meaning 90 lunches are delivered each Friday this summer.  If you’d like to sign up to donate prepared food items that can be purchased during your regular grocery shopping trips, go to the “We Care in the LBK” Facebook page and follow instructions or ask questions.  Deliveries of this items go to Nex-Tech Wireless downtown.  If you prefer to chip in cash instead so that supplementary supplies can be purchased by “We Care,” there is an account established at First Bank Kansas.  Warm thanks to all the volunteers and donors who make this effort possible. If questions, check in with Meg Dauer at Jay Jensen's American Family Insurance downtown or email mdauer@amfam.com.
       While our friends at Nex-Tech Wireless are serving up a customer appreciation BBQ from 11-2  Friday, June 1, they will also be collecting donations for Lindsborg's annual fireworks show. Thanks for that, Nex-Tech! Donations also are being accepted *at any time* by David Hay at First Bank Kansas. After many years away, fireworks came back  to Lindsborg again because you asked and because of local support.  (Also it happened because of important collaborations among David Hay, Bethany College Athletics, Robert Ahlstedt and Ahlstedt Fireworks, and the Kiwanis Club of Lindsborg.)  Let’s do this again in 2018, everyone!
       Ad Hoc finalized its goals for 2018-2019, to wit:
•   help the success of the J.O. Sundstrom Conference Center, especially with mid-week events.
•   encourage Bethany College connections as well as connections among larger local institutions.
•   create and support cost-effective ways to share word of living, learning and visiting Lindsborg.
•   expand the Ad Hoc Roundtable circle of involvement and information sharing.
•   improve the visual qualities of Lindsborg’s public spaces, including the amount of seating in commercial areas.
•   encourage positive energy and belief in the effectiveness of informal networks.
      Of course, Ad Hoc interests are often shaped by the people who are around the circle.  We always welcome you to sit in.

​Ad Hockers talked this morning of next steps. It’s almost six years now since we first met, and from that has flowed increasing levels of trust and collaboration. Still, there is much more to do.
      We discussed several next steps for Ad Hoc — helping to identify potential new businesses, helping to find ways to promote the Sundstrom Conference Center’s midweek availabilities, and cross pollinating audiences through social media. We also received an update on work well under way to provide more public seating.
      An intriguing issue came up toward the end of the discussion:  How can we best demonstrate that Ad Hoc is open to anyone who may be interested?
      In its last 5+ years, Ad Hoc has become an ever-larger crossroads — definitely not reserved just for ideas and people related to businesses, non-profits and institutions.  *Anyone* may sit in or be a part of Ad Hoc. Anyone may pop thoughts into the Monday morning circle (when forward-looking and positively framed, of course). The range of people involved will help define our focus, and the more range the better.
      Besides sitting in on any given Monday morning's gathering, here are other current ways to be in touch:
       •  Ad Hoc welcomes presentations about local community issues and projects (although we have tended to veer away promotions of particular products or services unless the group asks to receive them).  If questions, call David Hay at First Bank Kansas, dhay@firstbankkansas.com) or Kathy Richardson at Small World Gallery (smallworldgallery@mac.com). The more Ad Hoc knows about your objectives, the more our network can help with the buzz.  Do you have an issue or idea to share?
      •  Ad Hoc News and Notes is emailed roughly once a week   to 200 recipients; open rates vary from 30 to 65 percent  It also has its own public-facing Facebook page, “Lindsborg Ad Hoc Roundtable," for those who prefer keeping up with our notes that way. Anyone may sign up to receive direct emails by jotting a note to smallworldgallery@mac.com.  
      What else can/should we do? As with any vital and growing group, the question should persist: How can we better listen and hear new ideas and perspectives -- ideas and perceptions that may not have occurred before? Ideas that make us re-evaluate and act with new alertness?  
       One way to do that is for Ad Hoc to listen and share info with as many people as possible. We need your help with this.  What can we do as volunteers to be in touch with more voices?
       We will be talking about this subject of inclusion once again next week from 8-9 a.m. Monday, May 21, in the second floor city council chambers.  If you have ideas about how we can better listen and hear, please sit in, talk with an Ad Hocker, or send comments by email in reply.
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      Holy moly, what a summer media lineup for Lindsborg so far!  In June alone we have:
       • the Today Show in Lindsborg in June to interview English teacher and part-time professor, book author and blogger Dana Bowman of Lindsborg. Dana often writes from the perspective of a young mother in recovery with a focus on children and marriage, failures and successes.  She also presents workshops on writing and addiction.  See some of her work at www.momsieblog.com.  Big congrats to Dana. 
       • a popular blogger and video host who covers the international world of vacation rentals will be in Lindsborg to do a piece about living like a local in investor Jim Prugh’s historic renovations. We appreciate that Jim has made a sustained effort to educate others in his realm about what is in Lindsborg and how it compares quite favorably to, say, a neighborhood in a teeming Italian city or a countryside town. The blogger (and Jim) believe that a strong sense of place is the thing. We’ll look forward to helping Jim show this writer our distinctive sense of place.
       • a national travel writer coming to write about visiting Wichita and Lindsborg — a result, in part, of the Lindsborg CVB’s recent trip to New York with other travel specialists from Kansas. (Ad Hoc partnered with the City of Lindsborg on this trip.) The writer will be here in Lindsborg for *two overnights* so it’s not just a brief excursion from ICT we’ll receive.  Much better opportunity.

We’ve all heard that saying “better living through chemistry,” yes?  In its own way, Lindsborg is re-generating its own brand of new chemistry (although nobody is slinging test tubes or other materials just yet).  
       But we *are* attempting to fine-tune our community chemistry — the interaction of elements in our particular place — so that we can accomplish together more for our residents than we can working solo. That, it is hoped, will lead to better living for all. 
       Such is the work of the Ad Hoc Roundtable. More important, it’s also the work of the relatively new Lindsborg Strategic Alliance. The alliance is a mixing place for information and collaboration among organizations with resources in public, non-profit and private spheres. Right now, the alliance meets about twice a month as a whole and more often in subgroups.  It is focused on three specific areas that Lindsborg residents identified as needing work:

• early childhood education and after-school programs

• recreation/community center

• housing

       Multi-layered community challenges deserve more than silver-bullet thinking and working inside silos.  That’s why the Strategic Alliance is digging deeper now and sharing info.  What, exactly, do current and future residents envision when thinking of improved recreation and/or a shared recreation center with Bethany College?  What kind of housing, exactly, would Lindsborg need for the next 25-50 years?  What, exactly, will be early childhood and child care needs if Lindsborg is able to add to its housing stock and college faculty?
       When we brew on shared interests and possibilities, community chemistry undoubtedly changes for the better.  No magic elixir is guaranteed, however, and it’s not easy stuff.  But it’s a start — a good one. In the final analysis, boards, councils, members, and ownerships still have the decision-making power of the purse.  
       If you have thoughts or questions about these three areas or others, please contact anyone on the Strategic Alliance.  An FAQ is attached below. 
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Opportunities:
    •   It’s time to sweep, tidy and otherwise improve around    properties of all types. Front and back, folks. Grit and stains begone.  Consider that fresh coat of paint.  As baccalaureate ceremonies, graduations and Mother’s Day gatherings approach starting this week, freshness wears well and touches matter.  Please? Thanks.
      •  Thanks to Farley’s Bar and Grill, the Kiwanis Club of Lindsborg, and Liz Lahodny’s organization and promotion of the City-Wide Garage Sale, Lindsborg has garnered $1,000 in the kitty toward Community Fireworks on July 4 this year.  What a great start!  Contribution containers will be out soon at a counter near you.  If you’d like to write a sponsorship check that gets your name announced and published, put it in the hands of David Hay at First Bank Kansas, please.
      •  Circles of McPherson County will be graduating from its education program several participants from a range of ages —  high school, college and working adults.  Thanks to all the meal sponsors, child care providers and coaches working with Circles of Lindsborg who are helping neighbors orient away from poverty and toward more stable working and social lives.  If you or your organization would like to sponsor and serve a Monday night meal for 50 adults and children, please contact Circles director Christopher Carlson at 620-241-9011 or chris@circlesmcpherson.org.

•  Bethany College is very much part of the Ad Hoc Monday crew, sharing laughs and ideas and listening. That is why BC’s student development team has been working on an alternative to convening Lindsborg institutions on the campus to meet incoming freshmen and transfers.  Student Development has devised a scavenger hunt in which students will be encouraged to check off visits to participating locations between 3 and 5 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 18.  Phone photos probably will be the proof of visit.  To be a participating location, please go here to find registration and all details:  

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DHUqWSGpeurxgexUYKsDXWUgnRZiLhKj3JYLkGFwFkk/edit?ts=5ae9fa21

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​We have a couple of items coming to the Ad Hoc agenda Monday, May 7.  Please join us from 8:05 to 9 a.m. in city council chambers at City Hall.
      •  Bethany College would like to launch a Swede Scavenger Hunt for incoming freshmen ad transfer students.  It would be on Saturday, August 18.  Students would be "scavenging” at any local business or organization that pre-registers to participate.  See more here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DHUqWSGpeurxgexUYKsDXWUgnRZiLhKj3JYLkGFwFkk/edit?ts=5ae9fa21

     •  We also will discuss an idea for a new year-long Lindsborg promotion with monthly opportunities to participate and engagement for all ages. Some meat is already on the bones but, as always, the proposal will surely benefit from Ad Hoc review and comment. 
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      BTW: We have a few comments lately about News and Notes *not* appearing in email queues as usual. No mischief is afoot; no names have been removed from the Mail Chimp list.  We’d love to hear if someone is not receiving our mailings and misses them.  News and Notes is open to everyone.