Home About VRAN VRAN Staff & Board Christopher's Blog
Christopher Parker's Blog on Vermont Rail Action Network

Fundraising Letters, Fundraising Letters!! And Meetings!

E-mail Print PDF

1.  FINANCE

I have been working with Dave Allaire in transitioning things over to him as new VRAN treasurer.  He is looking over the books as they exist (expenses in a spreadsheet, donations recorded in civiCRM).  I believe the next finance report to the board will come from him.

As part of getting everything ready, I put in some time overhauling the expense ledger so it is more understandable to someone besides me and includes validating sums.

2. FUNDRAISING

A lot of work in November and December was putting our annual appeal out the door.  We mailed 885 letters, down a bit from the past, but hopefully a more focused group.  I mailed everyone who ever donated, who ever came to a VRAN event and new addresses to the list.  Please help support our work!

3.  BENNINGTON STUDY

I was in Bennington, December 13th for the stakeholder and public meetings regarding the bi-state study of passenger trains to Bennington and Manchester.  The consultants are closing in on identifying a preferred alternative (looks like it's going to be a route from Albany to North Bennington via Schnectady on to Manchester in phase 1 and Rutland as phase 2, via Vermont Railway).  The option of re-routing the Ethan Allen instead remains in the mix.  The consultants have come up with a preliminary cost estimate of 89 - 200 million dollars for the project.  I am very concerned about this price tag.  I took a look at the numbers and nothing obvious seems unreasonable except for a 20% contingency for professional services - which will not stay because the FRA flagged it as unreasonable.  I was interviewed by VPR about things.

5.  GREAT AMERICAN STATION MEETING

Amtrak hosted a meeting in Burlington about resources for communities to develop their stations.  An impressive armada of Amtrak management staff attended.  I had dinner with a gang of Amtrak management.  Charlie Moore from the VRAN board was also there, as was Chris Cole from AOT.  The subject of bikes on trains came up and Chris Cole was forceful in telling Amtrak they needed to do better and it needed to be by accommodating bikes in coaches, not a separate baggage car (Good going, Chris!).  Made a number of good contacts from this meeting.  It left my head full - but helpfully, Amtrak gave everyone a thumb drive with all the power points of the day.  Most useful was a rundown of funding sources.

6. MEETINGS AND SUCH

On December 12th I spoke to the Windham Regional Commission.  We spoke about the need for more frequencies south of White River Junction.  I dropped in on the chamber mixer in Bennington on December 13th.  On December 14th, I went to Palmer Ma for the Central Corridor (on the southern end of NECR).  The meeting featured Bob Ardolino who specializes in transit oriented development.  I met him at the Passenger Trains on Freight Railroads conference and I wondered if there is scope for funding passenger train improvements through development tax increment financing districts.  Alas, this remains an interesting idea that I have a hard time seeing applied in Vermont.  On December 15th I participated in the Trainriders/Northeast board meeting.

 

CCMPO Excursion

E-mail Print PDF

I've heard some encouraging words about my updates, so I'm going to try to be better at sending them and posting more regularly and more widely.  This is my "inner circle" update for people who follow rail more closely.

CCMPO ANNUAL MEETING

On Wednesday afternoon VRAN Board members Brad Worthen, Charlie Moore and I attended and spoke at Chittendon County Metropolitan Planning Organization's annual meeting, which featured a train ride between Essex Junction and Burlington and a boat dinner cruise on Lake Champlain.  Also attending: Rick Moulton, a VRAN founder and rail council member, Secretary of Transportation Brian Searles, Deputy Secretary Sue Minter, House and Senate Transportation Committee Chairs, Pat Brennan and Sue Minter; Charles Hunter, Dave Wulfson and Mary Anne Micheals from the railroads, Jeff Munger and Brent Raymand from the delegation, David Crawford, Essex Junction Village Manager, Rail Director Joe Flynn, Dawn Francis from the Lake Champlain Chamber, and about 100 others.

Running a passenger train between Essex Junction and Burlington proved you could do it.  Not a week earlier, somebody in a position of influence had told me you couldn't.  I think it helpful to the future passenger commuter train service between Burlington and Essex Junction.

In his remarks, Joe Flynn mentioned that getting Amtrak to Montreal is now the agencies #1 priority and  the Western Corridor is the #2 priority.  He also noted that Vermont Rail System (especially on the Washington County RR Connecticut River line) had been hit hard by the floods and had 44 separate FEMA sites (for which restoration will be 75% paid for by FEMA).  He sounded impressed by how much work and how quickly Vermont Rail System had returned the lines to service.

Jeff Munger from Senator Sander's office spoke about continuing to try to get funding for the Western Corridor. I am really pleased to hear that he is thinking about this creatively.

Dave Wulfson announced that the Vermont Rail System is spending $750,000 on the Vermont portion of the CLP this summer to improve the track conditions, returning train speeds to the advertised timetable speed.  He also announced that the Vermont Rail System is launching a website, http://vtwesternrailcorridor.com that focuses on the Western Corridor

NECR TRACK WORK KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR

Tomorrow begins a new level of intensity with trackwork on the New England Central Railroad (which hosts the Vermonter) and with it, 67 days of busing (but not continuously - some days the train will run, some days the bus).  Vermont photographer Kevin Burkholder has been following the project and drove out to Indiana to photograph to making and loading of the rail.  His photo-blog is at: http://steelwheelsphotography.blogspot.com/2011/06/necr-arra-photo-project-commences.html and is worth a visit.  To the left is a sample -- this is the first view of rail now on it's way to be laid down in the White River Junction area.  (He sells prints, by the way)

AMTRAK MUSEUM TRAIN

Will visit Main Street Landing's Burlington Union Station August 20th and 21st.  (the station that is just waiting for a train!) I had the chance to walk through this train in Washington DC.  It's a fun walk down memory lane.  Most fun for the kids was a wall of push button operated air-horns.  The kids will love those!  I have committed VRAN to support the visit and I expect we will be able to use it as an outreach event.
Video of the train at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACaJlGgnS8

DANBY STATION DEMOLISHED

This week the Danby Station (between Rutland and Bennington on the Vermont Railway) was demolished.  I was told that there have been serious drainage problems in the area for years and that the station has essentially been sitting in a pool of water for many years, rotting out the foundation and floor.  The removal of the building is part of work to fix the situation.  The state was willing to give the building away, I was told, but was skeptical that the building had enough structural integrity left to be moved, let alone be worth anything.

AMTRAK PRIVATIZATION

Congressman Mica, chair of the US House Transportation Committee introduced a bill to privatize Amtrak.  For a good laugh, read Railway Age's take: http://www.railwayage.com/breaking-news/mica-shuster-eye-passenger-rail-competition-3234.html.  However on this, I think Railway Age may have it wrong, or at least there is more under the surface than is readily apparent.

 

National Train Day!

E-mail Print PDF

Events are being held to celebrate National Train Day in North Bennington, Brattleboro and White River Junction this Saturday, May 7th.  For more details click the link on upper right.  

National Train Day Flyer

 

 

FRA Funding Slow

E-mail Print PDF
1.  I attended Peter Shumlin's gubernatorial campaign kick-off on Monday and connected with him and all his staffers, reminding them of the importance of rail.  He spoke at length about the need for alternatives to oil, but didn't mention transportation at all, although he and his staffers assured me after he is a big friend to rail.

2. I understand that the Federal Railroad Administration has yet to release funds for the track grants on the route of the Vermonter.  In addition FRA is supposedly insisting on 100% buy-American requirements, which is absolutely crippling in a globally-sourced world.  The construction season could be slipping away from us.  In the news this week, the Agency of Transportation loudly trumpeted the biggest transportation budget ever with large increases for rail, but of course it is simply reflecting Federal stimulus funds, not state spending.  I guess it's good when somebody wants to take credit for increasing rail spending.

3. The Northeast Corridor master plan was released this week by Amtrak.  Although Vermont's name is on it, along with all the New England states, it covers only the spine of the corridor from Washington DC to New York to Boston.  There's a reference to how New Haven - Springfield could form the trunk of a high-speed route extending into Vermont (the Vermonter route).

4. I will spend some time this summer connecting with potential major donors.  VRAN has little money at this point, and I am personally financially nervous as I don't have any consulting gigs right now either.  Do you want to hire me?  Or know someone who would?  I can make a nice-looking website, or organize your project or event.

5. I continue to pursue possible volunteers and am grateful for you who are helping the cause of rail in Vermont.  I think I have a couple people to help with the mailing list (finally!!), with the web site, and with tabling at events this summer to promote rail.  Perhaps you have friends who also want to help?

6.  There will be a meeting in Brattleboro (which I'll attend) on June 10th (6pm at Brattleboro savings & Loan) about the New Haven CT - Hartford - Springfield MA commuter train project, and a vision for intercity train service from Montreal - WRJ  - Springfield - New Haven - New York.  Apparently this is part of positioning Connecticut to be seen as working collaboratively with other states so they look good to the FRA.  Which is a good thing, because improvements in Connecticut will benefit us in Vermont through faster trip times.
 

Web Site, Virus, Case For Support . . .

E-mail Print PDF

Over the Christm

 

as holiday I made a number of improvements to the VRAN website.   Most visible is the slide show promoting VRAN and rail on the home page.  It's the work of Christine, my girlfriend and is not finished yet.  There's still a list of improvements I have in mind, but it looks a lot better and is much more presentable to funders and legislators and anyone else we want to send to it!

The biggest change happened behind the scenes: I switched our web host to civiHosting.com, run by Hershel Robinson.  The most obvious change is that the website immediately got faster.  It's really nice dealing with one person who responds instead of outsourced Indian tech support (he's got outsourced support too, for when he's asleep - but they respond in 10 minutes!)  It's got a number of features that make it more reliable.

I'm working with Anna Masozera a web development professor from UVM.  Her class will be using the VRAN website as a case study and will be analyzing it and contributing improvements through the spring.

Last weekend my computer got hit with a nasty virus that stole FTP passwords which enabled it to hack the VRAN website to make it spread the virus to anyone who visited.  It took a couple of hours on Friday morning for me to realize what was going on and then I took it off line.  Getting off my computer has been a real struggle over the weekend and Monday and I think I still haven't got it and will have to reformat.  Thanks to the new host which keeps backups that I can access (which the old one didn't) replacing the VRAN site turned out to be a breeze.

Wednesday, and today I worked on revising the case for support, which should help us fundraise and focus.  Mike Coates gave a presentation in Essex Junction.  The house transportation committee heard from Dave Wulfson, Charles Hunter and Joe Flynn.

Thursday I traveled to Maine for the Trainriders/Northeast board meeting.  Also got a little bit of updating of the database done, but there is a mountain of it waiting.

 

Readying December Appeal

E-mail Print PDF

Last Friday's concert at Union Station was a huge undertaking.  I learned a lot.  The good news is that we got quite a lot of good press out of it.  The bad news is we sold far fewer tickets than we hoped.

WCAX, Fox44, VPR, Burlington Free Press, Rutland Herald, Times-Argus, Brattleboro Reformer ran stories.  The story was picked up by AP news and found it's way onto a number of other outlets.  Megan Smith from WCAX wants to do a follow up interview.

What we didn't get was sponsorship by Seven Days or a radio station (Lee tried) and I think this hurt our numbers significantly.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm hard at work getting our December appeal ready.  I've written a draft of the letter, but it needs more work.  The biggest piece of work is getting the mailing list up to date.  I haven't had any time to really do updates since spring.  I put in three days of solid work and Christine helped me by contributing another two.  Christine entered about 100 changed addresses and deleted about 100 addresses from the Annual Meeting postcard mailing.  She also entered addresses gathered at Friends of Rutland Rail meetings.  I've been plowing through hundreds of new addresses from various e-mails.  We're probably half way through the work at this point.  A lot more updates left and looking up incomplete Rutland addresses and adding in information Elizabeth Curtiss looked up for Burlington addresses.

Christine says I need an intern.  I think she's right.  Know any candidates?

I've had a temporary donation of a printer for this mailing.  I bought about $50 of envelopes and paper from Staples and will pay $25 for running the list through the National Change of Address database


I asked when we might get the board ready for a note-writing and envelope stuffing party and go no responses.  What times might be good for you?

---------------------------------------------------

On Tuesday I met with Alison Crowley Demage, the railroad lobbyist.  We talked about legislative priorities and the Mayor's reaction to the potential for increased trains through Montpelier.  After meeting Lee I went to Rutland where I dropped off 1,000 brochures to be included in giveaways on Catamount Radio's Saturday Santa Train.  They wanted me to be a volunteer conductor, which would have been fun, but I have dear friends visiting from Nova Scotia who I want to spend time with.  Was then supposed to meet Megan Fox from WCAX in Rutland, but she canceled.

Lee and I made some plans for December.  I'm going to work full-time for VRAN for three weeks, focusing on getting this appeal letter out, One week of work on the web site and planning for a big stakeholders meeting in February (shippers, environmental groups, railroads, colleges, resorts, etc.  Assembling a broader coalition of rail supporting organizations).

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I've been soliciting various people's advice about what our priorities should be this year.  Alison suggested this will be a short legislative year where not a lot will be accomplished as folks focus on upcoming elections.

This is what I'm hearing and feeling as our priorities:

1. Keep rail from the budget cutters
2. Build Our capacity and organizational effectiveness
3. Launch a volunteer marketing and outreach effort to promote rail

=====================================================================

Hope everybody had a lovely Thanksgiving Christopher

 

Interns, Fundraising, Annual Meeting

E-mail Print PDF
Tuesday morning I drove up to Burlington to pitch UVM students in an "environmental decision making" class in being interns for us.  After introductions, the class split and the students went swarming around all the other non-profit people while I was left alone.  All the others had hands-on projects actually working with the outdoors in some fashion. 

I don't think there was anything wrong with my presentation.  But transportation isn't very sexy.  I forget that because I love it.  And my girlfriend thinks it's sexy . . . But in the US government the Transportation Secretary has been the neglected position used for the token member of the opposition party while all the bright lights go elsewhere. 

So . . . how do we make railroads, and transportation in general, into a cause that engages at an emotional level?  We might not need to look for ideas on this beyond our circle, because that we are interested in the geeky elements of transport means we are not the target audience.  I'll be thinking about this.

---------------------

I also met with Dave Crawford, village manager of Essex Junction on Tuesday.  He is excited to get volunteers to look after the Essex Junction train station.  I said that it's important to first connect with the current station caretakers.  I haven't had a chance to do that yet.  This looks like the beginning of a local Essex Junction committee of rail advocates like the fledgling groups in Rutland, Bennington and Bellows Falls.  This is good . . .

Plans are underway for a late October or November dance/music event at Burlington Union Station, to be filmed to promote the Western Corridor project. Charles Hunter from the New England Central Railroad is working on providing a band.  It's still in discussion and we've been warned not to get too ambitious.  I don't have a lot of time in October as I have consulting projects working with the Portland light-rail and the port of LA.

Wednesday I met with Giesla Keller, a fundraising consultant who has been helping me think about how to take VRAN's fundraising and capacity to the next level.  She's been *very* helpful.  She suggests that first we complete a "Case For Support."  Writing this will probably help clarify what we are up to.  I need to make some quiet, creative writing time.  I'll circulate it for input including to potential funders.  Then we need to put a little polish on our website.  I know she's right, and I know it needs more of my time than I've given it. 

She says we need to strengthen our board further, including expectations of board members which include giving of $500 a year.  Is this appropriate for Vermont?  We've discussed splitting the board into a larger "advisory board" with members who have either prestige or fundraising capability and a smaller executive board of members who take on a more significant volunteer load.  Of course that means I have to support them, so I have to step up to the plate and be sure I'm communicating enough. 

This week I worked on the on-line registration process for our annual meeting (www.railvermont.org/annual-meeting) and sent a second e-mail about it to our e-mail newsletter list (now at 391 people).  Christine Texiera designed a beautiful postcard based on a David Laleme picture of Amtrak and VRS trains in Rutland and I sent it off to be mailed to 1829 names.  We have about 1,000 names (mostly in Rutland) for whom we do not have addresses.  I want to look them all up in the phone book, but that's not going to happen soon.

Next week and the week after I am teaching a course at Middlebury College.  On the 16th I am appearing on Melinda Moulton's Burlington Community Access call-in TV show at 5:30pm.  On September 23rd I'll be speaking at an environmental science class at Johnson State College.

Christopher
 

11 Hours, upgrading civiCRM

E-mail Print PDF

For all back-end functions, the Vermont rail action network uses civiCRM, an open-source constinuent management system.  It's very important to our functioning, but it's a complex and cantankourus piece of software (many times bigger than the rest of this website put toghether).

Two serious bugs cropped up this summer.  First I found I could not e-mail only people from Rutland or any specific geographic region.  Then people trying to register for our annual meeting found that the link to PayPal didn't work.  Serious problems.

I went to the civiCRM support forums and in both cases the problem seemed to be a bug in the existing version and the solution to upgrade to the next version.

Now the last time, upgrading took me 40 hours.  This is, as they say, "non-trivial".  I was a little bit quaking in my boots.  I did take comfort that they promised improvements in the upgrade process.

Now it's done.  Took 11 hours this time, and that included some hours at the begining backing the whole site up and cleaning up old files as I deleted the old civiCRM (which would not just simply uninstall, naturally).

The two front-end functions don't seem to work right.  I'll figure that out tomorrow.  But registering for the annual meeting seems to go right and successfully get to pay pal.

Below is the whole saga, recorded for the technically minded and anyone else using the same software with the same issues.  I posted this on the civiCRM forums, but thought I'd share this here too, so you can see what I go through some days!

 

I began by following the documentation <http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMUPCOMING/Upgrade+Joomla+Sites+to+3.0> and uploading the downloaded zip file into the tmp directory for Joomla to install, but immediately ran into a problems.

First of all it said it could not successfully uninstall. After that message I looked at where I would expect to see civiCRM files (the component directory and the component sub directory of the administrator director) and saw none, so I assumed I was fine to proceed.

On attempting the install I got a white screen of death. Based on past experience, I presumed this was a timeout the file (at 9MB) was too big to unzip (because of my hosts limits, I assume). I do not have access to error files, but my FTP program said it had been disconnected from the server. So I began again and unzipped the package file on my own local machine and FTP’ed it into the tmp directory and tried again.

This time I got the following errors:

· JFile::read: Unable to open file: '/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl'

· JFile::read: Unable to open file: '/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl'

Warning: zip_read() expects parameter 1 to be resource, integer given in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/archive/zip.php on line 234

Warning: zip_close() expects parameter 1 to be resource, integer given in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/archive/zip.php on line 250

Warning: fopen(/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 239

Warning: fopen(/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 239

CiviCRM component files have been UPGRADED succesfully.

 

 

I uninstalled and tried again for good measure, but got the same error. I went off searching the forums and found suggestions that this could be a permissions error, so I looked at the directories which were all owned by the right user and set to 755, so that didn’t seem to be an issue.

One of the threads suggested that using the alt zip file might work better, so I tried that, unzipping on my local machine and ftping into place on the server.

In the course of this I realized what could have caused the earlier problems: I hadn’t paid attention to failed transfers, and probably some files didn’t make it over.

After all 8,000 or so files were ftped up, I went to the installations screen and installed from directory. And got. A white screen of death. Oh.

Clicked refresh. And got. “installed successfully!”

Ran the database upgrade script. Another white screen. Click refresh and it says “your database has already been upgraded to civiCRM 3.0

Went to enable civiGrants, but got a could not find key error.

After ftping the two settings files back into place it seems to be good. Now to test it!

 

 

I'll Be Doing Other Things For A Few Weeks

E-mail Print PDF

Friday's event at the Rutland Train Station was great fun and a complete success!  Thanks to everyone in Rutland who made it happen and especially Herb and Roberto Font-Russell.

Friday was also the day for states to submit pre-applications to the FRA for high-speed rail stimulus funds.  As expected Vermont is applying for money to upgrade both the Western Corridor (Bennington-Burlington) and the Vermonter route.  Vermont has joined forces with other New England states in a joint application, which makes a lot of sense.

What's really missing in that joint application is the North-South rail link between North Station and South Station.  Alas this seems to have fallen victim to Massachusetts politics.  Too bad.

Nancy Remsen of the Burlington Free Press did a nice article about Vermont's application.  The Rutland Herald didn't do much more than print the press release recycled by AP, but perhaps a follow-up story will come?  I spent a good portion of yesterday writing and sending a press release to Vermont outlets - maybe it will get picked up.

A third event for me on Friday was meeting with advocates in the Bennington area.  First, at trackside, watching the Vermont Railway's B&R Extra in North Bennington (I finally got to meet Cully in person!) and then at Whitman's Feed with Dick Pembroke, Bob Stannard and others.

Last week and this week I've been working on a paid web site gig for the town of Wendell, Massachusetts.  Starting Thursday and covering the next two weeks after, I'll be working on a project for RSG consulting which will see me fly to Portland, Oregon for a week and spend a lot of time talking to truckers.  When I'm done with that, it's back to the Wendell project for a week or so.  Earning outside income is critical to subsidizing me to work on rail advocacy, but I see the effects when I'm away.  There's always too much to do!

On my plate right now is organizing an August board retreat and a September VRAN annual meeting, tentatively for September 24, helping local advocates committees around the state and starting up an on-board volunteer train-host program -- as well as the ongoing efforts of trying to communicate enough!

 

I've been away

E-mail Print PDF
This evening I returned from a week and a half away in North Carolina, consulting (for the sake of earning an income . . . ).  Vermont has had little of my attention while I've been gone, as I haven't had time or space.  I'll have a day of rest tomorrow and then will be back at it.
 
  • «
  •  Start 
  •  Prev 
  •  1 
  •  2 
  •  Next 
  •  End 
  • »


Page 1 of 2
getOnBoard

E-mail Updates

Be in the know!
Enter your e-mail for occasional updates.

Donate!

Click here to give by credit card (via PayPal) or check. Send checks to PO Box 75, Putney VT 05346
Thank You!

Volunteer!

You can contribute! Call Christopher Parker: (802) 579-3394
Overview. Sign Up Form
Train Host Program
Our Special 'Wish List'

Be Heard!

Your voice is critical to making sure that elected officials and the public know rail's importance.
Educate Your Legislator
Community Outreach
Letters to the Editor

Trainriders/Northeast Logo
We work in affiliation with Trainriders/Northeast, the regional rail advocates group which conceived and initiated the "Downeaster" Amtrak service from Boston to Maine.  To join Trainriders Northeast,click here.


Facebook Image

Environmental Benefits of Rail

 

44% of greenhouse gasses in Vermont are produced by transportation (nationally, it's 28%).  If we are serious about the environment we have to change transportation.

Shipping by rail instead of truck reduces pollution (on average) by two-thirds, noise by one half, uses only 29% of the fuel and produces only 23% as much greenhouse gasses.  Freight Rail Carbon Calculator

The U.S. transportation system is 96% petroleum dependent, accounts for 71% of the country’s oil use, and consumes 25% of the world’s net output. 

Passenger trains are 20-40% more efficient.  But consider: if the train is already going there, the carbon footprint of you  riding it is *zero* !  

Rail facilitates better land use, which may make the biggest difference.