Charlottesville Community Engagement

More than 30 years have now passed since I began work as an intern for WVTF Public Radio, beginning a professional career that has at times included the production of audio stories. When Town Crier Productions first began putting out the Charlottesville Quarantine Report in March 2020, I finally returned back to having a sonic element as part of my work routine. The first 650 editions of this news...

It’s beginning to look a lot like a holiday break with Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and festive fixtures in the Barclays Premiership. Until then, there’s still some business to attend to such as a sonic recap of stories from last week in this podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. I’m Sean Tubbs, always interested in finding new ways to get the information out. On this penultima...

Welcome to a new era of the podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement with an experiment in sending these out on a Monday morning as opposed to a Saturday afternoon. I’m Sean Tubbs, the host and producer and employee-of-the-month at Town Crier Productions. The reality is that most people who experience this information do so by scanning words arranged into paragraphs which works out...

And now we find ourselves on December 7, 2024 or at least that’s where I find myself when I’m putting together the latest sonic edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. I’m Sean Tubbs, the only person currently working for Town Crier Productions unless you count two feline partners who occasionally make an appearance in the narrations but so far have not appeared in a recording. Is today t...

As promised four weeks ago , this is the fifth Saturday of November. Or at least, this podcast edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement is being produced on November 30. Every week I write over two dozen stories but only some of them are converted into audio versions both for this feed and for WTJU-FM. Most of those stories also end up being added to Information Charlottesville, the archiva...

Eighty percent of Saturdays in this month of November have already occurred if you include the one in which this edition of the Charlottesville Community Engagement podcast is released into the world. At one point, there was a podcast for every newsletter. When you’re done listening to today’s edition, why not go back to 2020 ? Thanks to paid subscriptions, I’ve been able to develop a body of work...

Exactly twenty percent of the days in this November are a Saturday, and this is the one in the middle. This marks the third consecutive week in which the audio version of Charlottesville Community Engagement goes out on the first full day of the American weekend. Could it be that a routine is in place? I’m Sean Tubbs, and you’ll just have to wait.  On the program today:  * Charlottesville continue...

We are now at the second Saturday of the 11th month of the 2024th year of this naming system. It appears that it may become somewhat routine to target the podcast version of Charlottesville Community Engagement to go out on this day named after a planet. Like interplanetary probes, sometimes they’ll make it. Sometimes they won’t. I’m Sean Tubbs, still trying to get a hang out of gravity.  In this...

Some time has passed since the last audio edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and now it is finally time. This one goes out on the first Saturday of November 2024 and if you don’t like this one, there are four others you can try out when the time comes. I’m Sean Tubbs, and there is no new content in here unless you count my entry in a local contest!  This edition also doubles as a run-...

Different human beings have different ways of receiving and processing information. Charlottesville Community Engagement is able to provide narratives of civic happenings using text as well as audio. This particular edition for October 23, 2024 is a podcast version with several recent stories. Why do two versions? In the words Bill Siemering wrote to breathe life into National Public Radio , my ai...

There are written versions of Charlottesville Community Engagement and then are the ones where there are voices that can be heard. This is the latter kind, a collection of recent stories that have gone out in print form. The prophecy foretells of a time when the two strains will weave together once again, but for now it’s October 17, 2024 and here’s what you will hear if you hit play above: In thi...

What’s brown and sounds like a bell? Certainly not rhubarb, which can be deep burgundy, light pink, crimson red, or light green. Rhubarb and doesn’t really have a sound unless it’s had a few drinks. In any case, perhaps it’s not appropriate to utilize non-sequiturs to frame podcast versions of this newsletter, but a lot of things aren’t appropriate and this one is hopefully fairly innocuous. This...

For the last seven years, the Commonwealth of Virginia has recognized the fourth Saturday of September as Public Lands Day. That’s as good as any to consider taking a trip to one of Virginia’s 43 State Parks. That’s six more than in 2017 when the General Assembly passed legislation marking September 28 as a day to celebrate places that are owned by everyone . At one point, the future Biscuit Run P...

Before I can write the new set of stories, I must first process all of the ones written in the past week or so. That means producing the audio for the WTJU radio version of Charlottesville Community Engagement which airs every Saturday at 6 a.m. as well as posting as many as possible to the Information Charlottesville website. These are habits that have emerged from the last four years of being an...

There are many advantages to producing audio versions of the stories that go out in the Charlottesville Community Engagement newsletter. The most important is that about a tenth of the audience chooses to receive the information that way. Another reason is the ability to hear the voices of decision-makers and those hired to implement the work of government. I’m Sean Tubbs, and my job is to write a...

Today is day three of the Local Independent Online News publisher’s sustainability summit in Chicago. I’ve taken a few days off to learn more about the business end of providing information to the public and meeting so many other people who are passionate about their work. However, I can’t clear all of the deadlines I have and one of them is the weekly radio show on WTJU that airs at 6 a.m. This w...

We are at the last day of August for 2024, and there are 335 days until the next time we call the current month after that particular Roman emperor. Fans of adulation toward long-gone dictators shouldn’t fret, though. There are 304 days until July 1, a factual statement that should also please Canadians.  This is the final audio podcast of Charlottesville Community Engagement for this month, the s...

Before additional new stories can be written for Charlottesville Community Engagement, it is necessary to complete work on previous ones. That is the purpose of this edition of the newsletter which includes audio versions for recent stories. I’m Sean Tubbs, ever aware that the treadmill is speeding up.  In this sonic edition: * Two dozen apartments planned for land next to Meadowbrook Shopping Cen...

There are Fridays and then there’s this Friday, August 23, 2024. This is a podcast version of Charlottesville Community Engagement with audio versions of stories of material sent out earlier this week. Some of the stories have been updated with additional information. Which ones? You’ll have to study closely to find out. I’m Sean Tubbs, encouraging you to listen if you’ve not done so before.  In t...

Good morning and welcome to another edition of the audio version of Charlottesville Community Engagement this time for August 17, 2024. This particular edition of the podcast originally aired on WTJU this morning at 6 a.m. This is the 230th day of the year meaning we are 62.8 percent of the way to 2025. A lot will happen between now and then, but here is some of what has happened in the last two w...

Sometimes when there are too many loose threads, the way out is to sort them all into lines that make sense. That’s the basic theme behind this audio version of Charlottesville Community Edition collecting stories from editions #714 and #715 so work can get underway on #716. I’m Sean Tubbs, and there is madness to this madness.  On this audio program: * Charlottesville City Hall has reopened for b...

Pliable. Stretchable. Bendabe. Malleable. Whippy.  These are all synonyms for flexible, a word that describes the production nature of Charlottesville Community Engagement, a newsletter and occasional podcast that for most of the past four years was both at the same time. Over time, though, it was necessary to become more limber, plastic, elastic, and workable.  For this August 3, 2024 podcast edi...

Good morning and welcome to the July 27, 2024 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. Today is the National Day of the Cowboy , something officially sanctioned by the General Assembly in 2015. Nothing in this edition pertains to that, but somehow this ended up in the show notes anyway. In this edition:  * Habitat for Humanity will make a counter-offer of at least $7 million to purchase th...

This being a leap year, July 18 is the 200th day of the year. Will knowing that piece of information have any effect on how this day flows for you? Is there any significance to this being the 707th edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement? If so, can it be found by listening to endless covers of the song Seven and Seven Is? I’m Sean Tubbs, and while that’s unlikely I’m going to keep trying....

Yesterday my copy of Tuesday’s Charlottesville Daily Progress arrived via mail and it was a thrill to smell the paper and to remember my early days as a journalist. Though I was never an employee, I had stories appear for nine years from 2009 to 2018 and I’m glad to have been part of the first rough draft of history.  I am grateful there are many sources of information about what happens in this c...