Hello and happy weekend!

I’d like to start by expressing my appreciation to Mother Nature for making the snow so light and fluffy. There was a lot of it, but at least it was easy to move. Thank you, weather!

Weekend Wisdom

Okay, I don’t usually see myself as particularly wise. But something keeps coming up as I talk with people and attend meetings, and I feel like now is the right time to bring it up. So here it is.

Come with curiosity.

It’s too easy to make assumptions or snap judgments in today’s world of high stress and low frustration tolerance. I truly believe we would live in a much kinder, safer place if we all felt OK asking and answering genuine questions.

Yeah, I said genuine questions. Not gotcha questions or multi-part whoppers with pre-defined answers. Questions whose answers we’ll listen to with a desire to understand instead of rebut.

The desire to understand where someone is coming from, even if we think we already know, is one of the most powerful tools for coming together.

And we are community. Coming together is what we do.

Something to Celebrate

Burlington Buzz is less than a week old. In that week, we’ve managed to get 6 daily posts and 2 “podcasts” (not sure I want to call them that quite yet  ) on the books.

We also have a Twitter account and a Facebook page (which Facebook tells me has reached almost 900 people in the couple days since it went live!  ). I’m energized and amazed by the support of community members, many of whom I’ve never met or interacted with. It’s truly amazing.

I set a big huge ambitious goal this week. I was debating whether or not to tell you about it, but there’s this saying about a dream without a plan and honestly you’re part of my plan, so here goes.

I want to grow this newsletter to 2500 subscribers.

By April 9.

That’s not an arbitrary date, and it’s not that far into the future. Why April 9? Because that’s Election Day. Why 2500? Because that’s just under the turnout for the last few local elections.

Why any of this? Because we as a community could benefit from more connection and more awareness.

It’s going to be a haul, but I have faith we can do it. I’ve already started putting up flyers. If any of you want to join me to get the word out, I would welcome the help. Apartment complexes?   Places of business?   Town offices that will have me? ✅ Your place of worship?    Or email or Facebook or Twitter or however else you make the hottest recommendations to your local friends and family.

Oh - and we’ll talk more about this, but there’s one more thing to celebrate in the coming days: Burlington’s birthday!!! Our lovely town will be 223 years old on Monday!

I’ll be back tomorrow with a look ahead to the first week of *gulp* March!

Until then,

Nicci