Check out the video of the CommuniTee Party held earlier this month at Gallery XIV, in the South End!
done
Once again, thanks to everyone who made this possible and be on the lookout for the shirts on sale at local businesses starting in just a few days!
Categories: Campaigns · Contests · Events · Videos
Tagged: Boston, communitee, gallery xiv, south end, video
Amended 7/22/08: New version of the animation posted, with a new ending.
A couple of months ago we had an idea to put a bit of an animation together that demonstrates how we feel about traditional print media, specifically the phone book and local newspapers. We didn’t want it to be too serious or lengthy, so Jason, Amber, and myself put a storyboard together and found someone who could help us get it done. We’re really happy with the final result, and we hope you are too. It’s only a minute and a half long. Check it out!
done
You can find the original Flash version of the movie here on CitySquares.com. We also threw it up on YouTube and the CitySquares Facebook page.
What do you think?
– Ben
Categories: Campaigns · General · Opinions · Videos
Tagged: animation, brookline, flash, movie, print media, the fireplace, traditional media, video
Buying local is what CitySquares is all about. We talk about buying local with our customers and with community members daily. Earlier this month, we gave ourselves a challenge, to buy only from local businesses for the month of June. While there have been some mishaps (it’s called a challenge for a reason) I’m happy to report that everyone on staff (all 14 of us) is still trying to practice what we preach.
The easiest part of this challenge has been the restaurants. From Pescatore and Redbones BBQ in Somerville, Union Oyster House in Faneuil Hall, even all the way to Barnacle Billy’s in Maine, we’ve had an unlimited supply of local spots to dine. Downtown Wine and Spirits and local bars like The Draft (which just opened their new outdoor patio, by the way) and The Fours next to the Garden (Go Celts!) were obvious choices for entertainment. Groceries have been relatively easy as well with markets like Foodies in the South End. Farmer’s Markets like the Union Square Farmer’s Market have also been a big help during our buy local challenge.
Aside from a few blunders; a flat screen from Best Buy, a window air conditioner from Home Depot and some last minute Father’s Day cards at CVS we’ve made some major improvements. We’ve kicked our Dunkin Donuts habit and in exchange we’ve been frequenting places like the Buttery. We’ve replaced our Exxon Stations for neighborhood gas stations like Teele Square Auto. One of us even went so far as to drive to Hampstead New Hampshire to buy a power tool from East Coast Lumber! It hasn’t been an easy few weeks, but it’s definitely been a learning experience. We’ve got two more weeks to go and many more lessons to learn. Be sure to check back for more updates this month.
How about you? Do you feel like you try to shop locally when you have the choice? If so, why and if not, why? There’s no right or wrong answer either, so please, be candid!
– Julie
Categories: General · company · consumerism
Tagged: citysquares, downtown wine and spirits, local, local business, pescatore, redbones, teele square auto, the buttery, the draft bar, the fours, union oyster house, union square farmer's market
Following the exciting South End CommuniTee Party and the T-shirt unveiling last Thursday, the stylish T-shirts are now available for purchase on the CitySquares website!
These hip t-shirts, designed by students from the Joseph J Hurley and the McKinley public schools in Boston’s South End, are available in two styles and various sizes. They can be yours for the low price of $20 + shipping and
handling. Your $20 goes to the CommuniTee Art Project. In September we intend to cut a large check to the South End’s McKinley and Joseph J. Hurley School art programs so they can buy supplies and materials for their students! Please, buy a T-shirt, represent the South End, and spread the word!
– Caitlin
Categories: Campaigns · Contests
Tagged: Art, art education, Boston, communitee, public schools, shirt, south end
As pointed on on several blogs and in the print media, CitySquares has expanded our website beyond the Metro Boston area and into the rest of New England as well as the Metro NYC area! This is a big and exciting step for us! This expansion of the website brings the total number of businesses from about 64,000 to 1.4 million! Thats a 22x increase!
With this expansion we’ve had to build a new home page at the root of CitySquares.com. Historically, when you go to CitySquares.com you’d be brought directly to the Boston page on the site, or to your favorite neighborhood, if you’ve saved one. Now, the new home page will bring users to the very top of the site, and allow the drill down by state, region, city, and neighborhood. The home page is very dynamic too, with a clever Top Cities and Quick Look feature.
The real objective behind this expansion is to meet the demand we’re seeing in communities outside of metro Boston to bring our Buy Local message, local search solution there. Both businesses and consumers have made themselves heard loud and clear, and this is just a first step in meeting their needs.
With this expansion we’re following our original model of taking a bottoms-up approach to building an online community based on neighborhood and community locales. With so much data, it’s a challenge, but that’s why the product team (Bob, Justin, and Michael) has literally slept in the office to accomplish this, and they did a fantastic job! We’re very proud of those guys for their efforts and for going above and beyond to get this done.
We’re excited to see the search engines sink their teeth into this data and ultimately bring the value of CitySquares.com to consumers across the northeast! If anyone has any questions about this expansion, or about advertising, or anything else, please don’t hesitate to email me or call me at (617) 459-4922. There are some small wrinkles we need to iron out too, so expect to see some nice little tweaks over the coming days and weeks.
– Ben
Categories: General · Product
Tagged: bronx, brooklyn, connecticut, expansion, localeze, long island, maine, manhattan, maponics, massachusetts, new england, new hampshire, new york, new york city, queens, rhode island, rockland county, staten island, vermont, westchester county
At CitySquares we do a lot of talking about buying local. In fact, that’s part of our brand. Everyone on staff here really has a heart for local businesses. We work with them each and every day, hundreds of them. They’re the life-blood of our local economies, and of our neighborhoods. But how many of us here at CitySquares practice what we preach? It doesn’t take long for a new employee to get the big picture and start being more aware of where they spend their consumer dollars, and while we all try hard to keep up with that, it’s easy to forget and go to a big chain for groceries, or for hardware, or home goods. Buying locally really does take practice. Well, this is a topic we’ve been discussing a lot and so we’ve decided it’s time to start practicing what we preach.
So while we all do try to buy local we’ve decided to make it an official company-wide challenge for the month of June. This month, starting last week, everyone on staff here (14 of us) is participating in what we call the “Buy Local Challenge.” (This effort is partly inspired by our friend Joe Grafton, Executive Director for Somerville Local First, and his “Lokavore Experiment.”) Sure some things will be easy, but we understand there will be challenges along the way, like buying gasoline, grocery shopping, and in some cases we may have to pay a premium. We also know we’ll have some slip-ups but what we’re mainly aiming for is the lessons learned along the way. Below are the guidelines we will follow. Be sure to check back for weekly updates.
Rule 1) If we spend money, it must be at a locally owned business.
Rule 2) When given the option, we will favor locally made products.
Rule 3) As usual we will try to give our business to CitySquares customers.
Rule 4) Take notes! Throughout the week we will all be noting our successes and our struggles in trying to buy only locally. We will update the blog weekly on what we’ve learned.
What do you think of this? Have you tried something similar?
Categories: consumerism
Tagged: citysquares, Somerville Local First
Last night’s CommuniTee Art Project celebration was a huge success! The event got rolling at about 6:00 at Gallery XIV and guests just kept pouring in, each one of them donating at least $20 to the CommuniTee Art Project, with the proceeds going to fund local school art programs in the South End. That $20 got each guest a blue ticket which entitled them to a CommuniTee shirt. Some people donated well over $20, giving cash, cutting checks and handing over their credit cards for $40, $50, $60, even more!
And speaking of tee shirts, how about the winning designs? Well, we’ve got two winners for you, and they were unveiled last night. So here you are!
With 590 votes, we have a winning design from Yanniel, a talented student at the McKinley School! Her design, depicted here to the right, is printed on a black tee shirt. We sold a bunch of them last night and the staff at The Red Fez wore them with pride all evening, and they’ll be wearing them for a full week!
The second winning design, with a whopping 616 votes,
from student artist Dashawn with the McKinley school, is shown here to the right! We sold a ton of these last night too.
(Click the pictures to see a larger view.)
All the student art submissions were fantastic. One thing that really struck us all at CitySquares was just how each and every piece of art really captured the essence of the South End, and neighborhood life there. Congratulations to all the students, from both schools, for raking in well over a thousand votes from the community! This was a very competitive contest and every student was a winner.
That’s just the beginning too, because last nights event raised nearly $3000! All that money is going to the McKinley and the Joseph J Hurley school art programs! That’s money for construction paper, for scissors, for paint brushes, and finger paint, and for clay, and crayons, markers. That money also came from the silent auction, which was a big success! We had dozens of local businesses donate all sorts of goods, from wine, to wine tastings, to art work, puzzles, and even a pair of Red Sox tickets! It was a huge success, and it even got a little competitive!
Many have asked and the answer is yes, we will do this again in another neighborhood. This was just the first, and we learned a lot. We’re ready to apply those lessons to the next CommuniTee Art Project. We’re hearing calls from Roslindale, from Cambridge, and now from Somerville. It’s so great to know that there is such excitement around this project.
Also, please know that these shirts will be on sale at local stores in the South End very soon! They’ll also be on sale on CitySquares too! That all starts next week, so be on the lookout. We’ll update the blog, so stay tuned.
We have pictures from last night if you’d like to see them. Most of the pics were taken by my father, Joel Saren, who was kind enough to spend most of his time last night behind the viewfinder in his Nikon, and also a few from me, and from Julie Edwards, our Community Liaison. We’ll have a video up soon too, once it’s been edited. That should be great!
Once again we want to thank everyone who helped make this first CommuniTee Art Project a success…
Stay tuned for more!
– Ben
Categories: Uncategorized
This Thursday, June 5th, at 5:30 CitySquares is having our first Official CommuniTee Art Project Party. As you probably already know, the CommuniTee Art Project (CAP) is about generating funds for public school art programs. We’re about to wrap up the first CAP for the South End and it’s Joseph J Hurley and McKinley Public Schools. The results have been fantastic, with dozens and dozens of students submitting art work and with hundreds of people voting for their favorite designs. We hope to do this again in other communities!
This Thursday at the CommuniTee party we’re unveiling the winning designs on tee shirts, which will also be for sale at the party and thereafter around town. The proceeds of the tee shirt sales will go to those schools and their art programs to help purchase art supplies. Also at the party, which will be emceed by WCVB’s Bianca de la Garza, we’re going to have a silent auction, of which proceeds go to the school art programs as well. There’s actually quite a bit of valuable items going up for auction too!
You can check out the party on the CitySquares Facebook page, or right here:
When: June 5th, 2008 @ 5:30pm
Where: Gallery XIV, 37 Thayer Street, in Boston’s South End.
Featuring: Cocktails, bites from Red Fez, silent auction!
Please RSVP to Caitlin Sullivan by email at csullivan@citysquares.com. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!
And check out the CommuniTee Art Project on Boston’s WCVB Channel 5 a couple weeks ago…
Categories: Campaigns · Contests · Events
Tagged: south end, communitee, party, bianca de la garza, gallery xiv
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Ben Saren
Amber Killingsworth
Justin Leider
Michael LeBarron
bleland
kimmyh
Phillip
caitsully
juliecaroline
chehadej
