Welcome to the Milwood Neighborhood Association - Austin, Texas 78727

If you are interested in volunteering for our July 4th festivities, we’ll be having a planning meeting on Thursday at 7:30 in the park by the playscape. Please come by and let’s get the plan in order. If you would like to volunteer, but can’t come out on Thursday, please email egarana at gmail.com.

See you then!

Do you want to help us make the food line fantastic? Let us know if you can donate supplies of food goods towards a successful event. Food donations should either be of a generic variety (hamburger buns, etc) or some sort of baked good for desert (i.e. cookies).

Do you have a business that you want to promote at July 4th? We have an easy solution for you – donate a gift card towards something of general interest to help us make the July 4th raffle a sucess. In the past our prizes have ranged from the simple food gift card, to hardware store gift cards supplies by realtors, to sponsoring the water bottles for the parade. If you are willing to help, we usually turn 250+ people, last year substantially more than that.

send a note to dustin at milwoodna.com with ideas.

Can you lend a hand getting the word out about the neighborhood July 4th parade and picnic?

We always make sure to get info out to every house in the neighborhood before the 4th so that new and old residents know they are welcome to share some neighborhood spirit.

If you can walk a street or two, and just drop off the flyers on the stoop, it is super easy: come to 4103 Dauphine Drive, the flyers are on the porch, already broken out by street. Take flyers for a street, sign up on the clipboard, and deliver in the next several days.

Calling all volunteers!  You’re help is needed to make this year’s Parade and Picnic the best ever!

This 2009 Picnic is already shaping up to be one of the best as we have just coordinated a special appearance by the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble.  Very exciting stuff!!

As usual we will be holding our neighborhood parade (starting at 10:30am at the Milwood Baptist Church Parking lot) and grilling hot dogs and hamburgers at Balcones District Park where everyone is invited to come out and meet your neighbors and help celebrate the birth of our nation.

In order to ensure a good time for all our friends and neighbors we need your help. The following is what we need to make this a successful event.

1. Volunteers to help with “Day of” setup, Grilling, Food Line Supervision, Clean Up and Tear Down
2. Easy to assemble shade covers or canopies.  The more the better
3. Fold out tables.  Long ones or short ones… we could use both sizes.
4. Large capacity water jugs.
5. Ice chests.
6. 3 barbecue grills. Propane would work best

If you are willing to volunteer for any length of time (if you only have 30mins. to spare we can find something for you to do in that time) or if you are willing to help bring any of the above listed items please use our contact form and select “July 4th Volunteer” and tell us where you can help or call Ed Garaña at 719-4920.

More details to come as we get closer to our celebration.

received this by email:

CAPITAL METRORAIL PROGRESS REPORT – JUNE 19, 2009
Capital Metro has made significant progress on the MetroRail project since last month’s report. We are much closer to announcing a new opening date for the Red Line. However, we will complete the remaining milestones and ensure proper safety and operation of all systems prior to selecting a date to open the service to passengers. Safety has and will continue to be the top priority.

Milestones Completed Since May 13
• The Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) signal system is in full operation and Rail Dispatchers are utilizing it to direct train operations.
• The signal system, including new work added to the original scope of the project is complete and final crossings adjustments are underway.
• The installation of traffic signal preemption equipment at several crossings adjacent to intersections is complete and final adjustments are underway.
• All MetroRail, freight and Austin Steam Train engineers and supervisors are now certified on the use of the CTC signal system.
• MetroRail trains have begun operating under full-service conditions in the morning – to meet the timelines and stops according to the proposed service schedule but with no passengers aboard.
• MetroRail engineers have begun comprehensive contingency training to prepare and train for unforeseen challenges.

Remaining Milestones
• Complete adjustments to crossings and complete final testing for full-service operation.
• Complete full-service test runs to finalize schedules.
• Complete Engineer contingency training.

When will service begin?
Capital Metro will announce an opening date when the entire rail system is demonstrated to be operating in a consistent, reliable and safe manner. We will report back to the community in mid-July if not before.

Tonight the City is coming North to present on the proposed plans to meet a 30 million dollar general funds shortfall. They will be at the Northwest Recreation Center from 6:30 to 8, which is located at 2913 Northland (2222 east of Mopac). I’ll be there with a short list of items towards the middle depending on when I get out of something else. Come and listen, contribute.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2913+Northland+austin+tx&sll=30.266582,-97.736922&sspn=0.01427,0.027895&g=600+East+6th+Street,+Austin,+TX&ie=UTF8&ll=30.33362,-97.751884&spn=0.114084,0.22316&z=13&iwloc=A

Folks, July 4th is rapidly approaching, and sa you probably know is the most important event for our neighborhood all year. We’ll have a more specific schedule coming up shortly, but here are the things we need to help make the event a success (in no particular order):

volunteers to distribute flyers in the neighborhood to make sure new residents know about the event
volunteers to grill/serve food/etc
Contributions of gift cards or services for our fund raising raffle
Contributions of groceries or home cooked items to let us keep the food line free and bountiful.

Send me an email at dustin at milwoodna.com if you can contibute, and more informatio to come.

As an FYI to folks who may have missed the CapMetro report to the community in mid-May, I linkit below, and not the commitment for another update in “mid-June”

http://allsystemsgo.capmetro.org/capital-metrorail-update.shtml