falconbridge.org falconbridgeHOA.org BridgeThe DECEMBER 2020 FALCONBRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS WHAT’S HAPPENING Message from the Alliance Board DECEMBER 2020 New Falconbridge Listserv Coming Every Monday • 10-11:15am GENTLE YOGA (VIA ZOOM) to transfer the current list over [email protected] to a new service. As soon as we Every Saturday • 10-11:00am have set up the new service, (VIA ZOOM) we will send instructions out to FIT FOR LIFE [email protected] everyone on the email list about how to access it. This listserv Tues Dec 1 • 6:30/7:00pm provides a vital communications FCA/ALLIANCE BOARD MEETING (VIA ZOOM) link and is very important to our [email protected] neighborhood. We appreciate Wed Dec 2 • 7:00pm having Naveed step up to help BOOK CLUB (VIA ZOOM) keep it going. [email protected] With Naveed volunteering, Wed Dec 9 • 7:15pm WOMEN’S BOOK CLUB (VIA ZOOM) Jim Carroll is able to retire from [email protected] managing the listserv – after NO FHA BOARD MEETING 11 years! The neighborhood is grateful for Jim’s efforts over At the end of October, we had a Sat Dec 12 • 5:30pm that time, along with his many other fantastic Pumpkin Carving Contest. LUMINARY LIGHTING contributions. [email protected] This event not only attracted quite a few talented pumpkin carvers, it was Despite the challenges of the pan- Wed Dec 16 • 7:00pm demic, we are planning to finish the EXPLORING RACISM BOOK CLUB covid-friendly. The Alliance would (VIA ZOOM) love to host more events like this in year strong. Please stay safe during [email protected] the near future, so if you have any the holiday season and enjoy all Thurs Dec 31 • Time TBD ideas on how this might be done, your holiday activities either online GOURMET DINING GROUP please pass them along to any Board or while practicing safe preventive (VIA ZOOM) actions. [email protected] Member. As many of you may know, our listserv platform, Yahoo! Groups, will Watch for Pop-up Announcements WOMEN’S COFFEE KLATCH cease operations in December. We are [email protected] currently discussing which system Watch for Pop-up Announcements to move to. Although we received TRAVELING PUB great ideas for using social media, text [email protected] messaging, and other possibilities, we have decided to try to keep the same functionality as our previous system, with a listserv format. We will let you know soon about a new service. We also will have a new moderator, —Walt DeGrange Naveed Moeed. He has volunteered Alliance Co-Chair INSIDE: • Luminary Lighting Details • Falconbridge Participates in INC • Special Birthday Celebrated • Who is Visiting over Holidays • Townhome Volunteers Needed • 2 New Neighbors • PUMPKIN CONTEST WINNERS! • Book Lovers Rejoiced Letter from the Editor Let’s All Do Our Part for a Healthy Neighborhood able to stay at least six feet away It seems like this covid from people who are not members pandemic will never end, and while of your household. So if you are we are hearing good news about an out walking, playing, or exercis- eventual vaccine, we are also hearing ing in the neighborhood, it’s a about increasing infections in NC. good idea to carry a mask even if Durham has not yet joined the parts a mask no matter how far apart you don’t think you’ll need it. Be of the state considered red zones you are. For my family, this came prepared! up during recent plumbing ad- (critical spread), but we are still see- As you go about your daily life, ventures. We had to get another ing significant infections, and restric- especially within the neighborhood, plumber when our regular one tions have been tightened again. Two please remember to take care of your- refused to wear a mask because he important points: selves and each other. believes covid is a hoax! ◆ If you are inside with others who ◆ Even when you are outside, are not in your household, wear —Marian Cannell, Editor masks are required if you are not ● ● CommunityNews & Events News & Events Join Our 2020 Luminary Lighting: Saturday, December 12 at 5:30 p.m. We look forward to a joyful night, on candles, 10 small plastic candlehold- them, and also prevent our usual December 12th, as we meander our ers, ten white paper bags and one post-lighting party. We do not want to beautiful neighborhood, enjoying the small bag of sand. You assemble the leave flames unattended. lights. luminaries by putting a handful of Do you love luminaries? Do you The Ronald McDonald House of sand in each bag and a candle sitting want to contribute by helping with Chapel Hill is grateful to Falconbridge in the little cup in the sand. Every a short-term project? We are looking for its generous contributions over participating household will place for volunteers to plan to make Falcon- many years. In this 27th year of Lu- their luminary bags in the street along bridge Luminaries happen again in minary Lighting we all look forward the curb near their home, about 5-8 2021. We will make sure you have all to the evening of lights, knowing our feet apart, and light them at 5:30. We of the information you need to take contributions bring so much help ask, for safety reasons, that you extin- this on and will work with you every to families whose lives have been guish the candles before you retire for step of the way! Now is a good time changed by illness or accident. Please the night, and do not put them in a to contact our group so you can see remind your friends and neighbors grassy area or area with pine mulch. the process from the inside, while it about this wonderful fundraiser. This year, due to the coronavirus, kits happens. Order your kits here by December will be delivered (contactless) to your For more information, contact 6th. Feel free to order multiple kits, or home a few days before the lighting. [email protected]. add an additional donation if you can. We are not lighting in the common —Robin Schwartz, Stephanie Shipman, areas this year, since covid precautions Each luminary kit contains 10 small Phil Travers, Pam Richey, and restrict gathering to prepare and place Alex Lichtler falconbridge.org falconbridgeHOA.org Join Falconbridge Alliance December 2020 The Bridge Newsletter Editor: FALCONBRIDGE NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS The Bridge - Falconbridge Neighborhood News Marian Cannell • [email protected] Would you like to advertise your business or an event in our monthly newsletter? is distributed monthly to all Falconbridge Newsletter Designer: Reasonable rates. Click here for more information. residents as a neighborhood service. Mia Prior • [email protected] 2 ● ● CommunityNews & Events News & Events Falconbridge Listserv is Changing! New Book Group Invites You to Join Our current listserv was created At its November 11 Zoom meet- by then-resident Alan Sellers in ing, the Exploring Racism Book 2006. The purpose was to harness Group discussed Robin DiAngelos’s email to help neighbors commu- best-seller White Fragility, an explo- nicate. Jim Carroll volunteered to ration of “why it’s so hard for white take over as moderator when Alan people to talk about racism.” We ap- moved in 2009 and has continued preciated the way the book challeng- in that role ever since! es and informs the reader, as well as It has mostly been a success. We the suggestions in the final chapter, currently have 270 members. We “Where Do We Go From Here,” for have been averaging around 900 how to approach this topic openly, messages per year for the last few with a willingness to listen. years. Some topics have been over- done, but hundreds of helpful mes- Someone was giving away these seeds on our sages have helped us find things, neighborhood listserv! get rid of things, share information, recommend vendors, and enhance the feeling of community. What you need to know: Yahoo will terminate our current ◆ If you are currently a member of listserv platform effective Dec. 15, the listserv, you do not need to 2020, so we are setting up a new do anything. You will automat- listserv. We expect to have the new ically be subscribed to the new service operational by December listserv. 13th. Our goals for the new service are: ◆ The former listserv email ad- dress will no longer work. You ◆ A service similar to Yahoo will receive an email from the ◆ A relatively seamless transition new service notifying you when ◆ The least amount of disruption the service starts operating and After working through two fairly heavy-duty pieces of non-fiction, the ◆ No need for users to learn a new advising you of the new list- group’s next book will be Let the Dead platform or technology serv’s email address. Bury Their Dead, a collection of short ◆ The new listserv manager is stories by acclaimed Black North Naveed Moeed Carolinian, Randall Kenan, who After 11 years, Jim has decided to ([email protected]). writes of a fictitious rural community retire as moderator of the Falcon- ◆ bridge listserv. We thank him for If you are not on the current in eastern North Carolina. The next this tireless and significant contri- Falconbridge listserv, but want virtual meeting will be on Wednes- bution to the community. Naveed to join the new one, contact Nav- day, December 16 at 7:00 pm. eed and he will put you on a list Moeed (resident of Bloomsbury Please contact Pam Richey at to be added to the new listserv. Court, and currently serving as [email protected] if you would secretary to the townhome HOA) like to be included on the book group has agreed to step forward as list We’ll see you on the new listserv! list or Zoom call for the meeting.