Hood Council Note: Calendar & Holidays

We had a need to establish a set holiday calendar-especially with the season's deal in place making keeping time much easier. We will have these holidays according to the time passed in the hood-international events-such as the Food Expo would be held concurrently with other hoods.

We go by season cycles and days, ie, Summer 1, Simday 3. These are the holidays the hood will observe:

Spring: Simday 3: Founder's Day
Celebrate the founding of Apple Valley by honoring the past founders of Apple Valley, Greymount. A day to celebrate the past by holding historical lectures, festivals and more.

Summer: Simday 3: Rememberance Day
Honor the residents of Apple Valley that lost thier lives in past crashes. The day will be marked with mourning and honoring the dead and those who have lost their lives to make ours better.

Fall: Simday 3: Blessed Harvest Day
Celebrate the harvest and family. Day will be marked with feasts and festivals.

Winter: Simday 4: Christmas
Celebrate the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ. Day will be marked with service projects, family gatherings and festivals.

Hood Council Note: Stock Market

Should Apple Valley create a local stock market? That was the question posed to me. It would help business owners with limited funds, but there is a loan program for them-which reminds me, should we manage business loans the same way as mortgages (using Monique's bill payer system). That would help in terms of new deals which have a tendency to wipe out old accounts and loans.


I'll did a survey amoung small business owners and found out the following:

-there are 5 community businesses owned by residents
--The Toy Shoppe
--CupaJava
--Herendez Art Gallery
--Tati's
--The Farmer's Market
--Fresh Flora



-there are 2 municipal businesses owned by the hood
--The Centre
--The Medical Centre


-there is 1 homebased businesses
--Apple Valley Historical Church Gift Shop


The municipal and home-based businesses had no desire for shareholders. Of the community lot businesses, there was little desire for shareholders. Mostly the businesses operate with business loans.

--The Toy Shoppe-$0 loan
--CupaJava-$0 loan
--Herendez Art Gallery-$0 loan
--Tati's-$10,000 loan
--The Farmer's Market-$3000 loan
--Fresh Flora-$12,000 loan

Total: $25,000 in business loans



At this time do not recommend a stock market, instead a simple listing of businesses and thier customer service scores and rank would suffice. This is done with the Yellow Pages service from Simmerville.

Archives/Technology Note: Website

Many residents have expressed confusion about the website and how often the website is updated and the difficulty in keeping up with updates. Not to mention the increased job duties of the Archives/Technology Officer (me).

As a result, the website will now be updated at least twice a month and at least one blog will be updated each day, however this will no longer be reflected be any special notation. Instead when the website is updated a list of blogs (by family) that have been updated will be listed.

This will be effective Dec 1, 2007

Hood Council Note: Publishing Hood Council Meetings

The online hood council meetings are not going well-residents are not visiting the online forum and there isn't much incentive to maintain the forum. Instead we're going to publish the notes of the hood council meetings. This will be done on the website-not a blog type posting-but actual minutes of the meetings and concerns raised.

Hood Council Note: Farming Rights

There's been a lot of discussion about farming rights and food produce for the hood, so I decided to do a formal report.

Number of households: 13 (not including house on BAP Campus-thier food source comes from national sources)

Current Number of Residential lots: 15

Number of ground plots needed to feed each lot: 5

Total number of ground plots needed: 75

Only one family has farm rights. These farm rights include:

• Must develop/harvest a minimum of 22 ground plots, 3 fruit trees or any combination of the two to equal 25 (ie 20 ground plots/5 fruit trees; 10 ground plots, 15 fruit trees, etc).
  
• Must develop at least one plot of each food: Tomatoes , Strawberries , Cucumbers , Pole Beans, Peppers , Eggplant.
  
• Must have at least two fruit trees variety: Apple, Lemon, Orange
  
• May reside on a 3x3 to a 4x3 lot
  
• $300 incentive each season

Mendenhall Farm: 30 plots (5 plots of each variety) + 6 fruit trees (2 trees of each variety) + 3 bee hives that each produce 4 jars of honey simdaily (12 jars (6 servings each (72 meals total)) simdaily)+ small pond with healthy fish population.

There are no grocery stores and Smokey Jane's reduced it's selection of fine wines and cheeses that can be purchased-thus families pay an additional $50 delivery fee for processed food. This is an incentive for families to buy fresh local produce from the Farmer's Market. As long as prices are kept reasonable, the hood council will be able to support the farm and local produce.

Hood Council Note: Hood Employees

The hood has several employees-most are paid according to a basic salary and fee, but others (like the pastor and teacher) are paid differently:

The Centre
Bank Teller (fair salary scaled based on skill/badges)
Newspaper Editor (fair salary scaled based on skill/badges)
Welcome Center Cashier/ Travel Guide (fair salary scaled based on skill/badges)

The Medical Centre
Medical Center Director (fair salary scaled based on skill/badges)
Nurse (fair salary scaled based on skill/badges)

AV Historical Church
Pastor (flat salary + benefits)

AV Secondary Academy
Principal/Administrator (flat salary + benefits)

The hood has numerous job openings-thinking about giving talks and assesment tests to the teenagers and university students to help them realize where they would fit into the hood's economy. Will talk to Rayne about this venture since it falls under her duties.

Hood Council Note: Musik Faire

The Musik Festival has been approved. It will be the last day of summer, a nice event for the teens, at The Foundry. It will be in the evening of the Summer Festival and we're importing special snack kiosks for the event, as well as making sure there is ample room and restrooms.


Performers
Sam Jones, Mayfair Plaza: pending
Selena Farrell, Mayfair Plaza: pending
Sergio Gitano, Harper's Cove: confirmed
The Fighters, Palatial Heights: confirmed

Special Guests
Chad Vanderburg, MC: confirmed


There will be a re-release of Alisa Crawston's CDs and concert tees; and the sales of the other performers CDs and tees. Tickets will be on sale for $50 and VIP tickets will be on sale for ~$150 and will feature access to the VIP lounge, meet and greet with performers and a special souvenior backstage pass. The profits will go towards the purchase of new computers for the school.