The Circus Is Coming To Town………..

….But instead of clowns and bearded ladies– it’s a BATTLE OF THE BANDS!

That’s right– Eccentric Circus is back, and will be going down Saturday, June 20th, at 4:00 p.m.  The fun will be held in Sechler Park in Northfield.  Admission is $4, but if you come dressed as a robot, admission is only $3.  Lots of Northfield-area bands will be playing, including this band called Detective Ventriloquist that I keep hearing so much about.

So please, come on down to the park next Saturday for a whole mess of fun.  And check out the poster that Dan Zenner designed.  ec2009poster

Healthy Community Iniative shoutouts

Two Key-related happenings have been mentioned on the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative website, and I just thought that I would mention that here.  The first mentions two graduating seniors from the Mayor’s Youth Council who also happen to be Youth Board Members at The Key– Hattie Ryan and Ruth Amerman.  Feel free to check out the full post here.

Secondly, the Global Youth Service Day/Semester of Service got a nice write up courtesy of the High School’s Promise Fellow Alyssa Jilek.  Alyssa, Jason Hallen at the Middle School, as well as myself spent the first five months of 2009 planning environmentally themed service projects and events for the youth at our sites, as well as for the community at large.  The final event was the recent tree planting at the Middle School that some of the kids from The Key assisted in.  Other events included: “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” which was an informational event at the High School in January, and featured presentations by representatives from Waste Management and the River Bend Nature Center; Buckthorn removal; The Key’s upcoming Community Bike Rental Program; and passing along information about waste reduction and recycling to members of the community and youth at the three sites.

AmeriCorps Promise Fellow Position Available

Fellowships available working with Northfield youth

Two openings available for full-time AmeriCorps Promise Fellows for the 2009-10 school year. Part of a select statewide network, the Promise Fellows each provide academic and social support to a group of 25-30 local youth. The two local placement sites are the Northfield High School & Northfield Union of Youth/The Key. Visit www.northfieldhci.org for position descriptions. Application review begins June 5, 2009.

Acoustic Punk Show on Friday– it’s FREE!!!!

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Perhaps, like Chris Tucker and Ice Cube, you have nothing to do this Friday evening.  Then you should consider coming down to The Key for a Free concert, headlined by Northfield’s own Riley McGillivary.  And if you like what you hear– he’ll be opening for the Kristoff Krane show the following night.

Just to reiterate– FREE SHOW ON FRIDAY NIGHT AT THE KEY.  Be there or be square.

And you know this…….MAN!

Upcoming Shows at The Key…..because we kinda do a bad job of promoting those on this website

It occurred to me today, as I was creating a poster for an upcoming show at The Key, that we never really promote upcoming concerts on this website.  Whoops.  Anyway, first and foremost, there’s a show FRIDAY MAY 29th (tomorrow) at The Cave.   Which is at Carleton College.  But the event is sponsored by The Key, and features everyone’s favorite rappers from the Twin Cities:  Kanser, St. Paul Slim and Prof & Rahzwell.  Admission is $5 at the door, and doors open at 7:00 p.m.  Here is a snazzy poster for the event, designed by Prof himself (I believe.)

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Prof and Slim are out promoting their new FREE album “Recession Music,” which is available to donwload on the world wide interweb.

Next week– SATURDAY JUNE 6TH– to be exact, The Key will welcome back Kristoff Krane for this third performance.  Krane is still riding high off of the release of his LP “This Will Work For Now,” which was released in the fall of 2008.  He’s a busy dude who plays a lot of shows in the Twin Cities, but genuinely seems to enjoy working with the youth in Northfield and playing at The Key.  This time out, he’s bringing with him Listener and Fienix.  If you have a free moment, check out some stuff by Listener— it’s like nothing I have ever heard before.

Admission for this show is $4, and the music starts at 7:00 p.m.  So the doors will probably open around 6:00 or 6:30.

Here is a slightly less snazzy poster that I designed earlier today.

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Also, look forward to A Night in the Box at the Key, date currently undetermined, but shooting for sometime in late summer. It’s going to be a night filled with stomping, clapping, cheering, accompanied by Minneapolis rock/bluegrass.

anyway, we hope to see you at these shows.  thanks for reading this post.

Two Days of Fun

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The Key kids have been busy the past two days with a wide variety of service projects and activities in the community.  On Tuesday, after surveying the usage of seat belts at the high school, we headed over to the middle school and assisted with tree planting.  The trees were purchased with money from a State Farm grant, and the planting was the final event in the Semester of Service that the three Promise Fellows in town organized throughout the last six months.

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The following day we helped at the PLUS program end of the year celebration.  As you can see from the pictures, face painting was a big hit.  There was also a tug-of-war, sack races, and quite a melee when the pinata was broken open.

Board Retreat!

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The Northfield Union of Youth went on their annual winter/spring board retreat this past week. On a sunny day the youth board met at the Key, ate at Chipotle, gamed it up at Grandslam, swam at the Holiday Inn pool, and had a slumber party at that very same Holiday Inn. The group spent about 2 hours discussing a wide variety of topics including fundraising, current and future programming and the future of the organization. The retreat minutes are loosely as follows:

Carleton Garage Sale: stressed how important it will be do help out with this collaborative fundraiser sale. This is a lot of work. Prep begins June 9th.

New Board Recruits wanted!! Youth Board said they would recruit and work on a poster. June 3 are elections.

Smoking on Riverwalk: though we are not the youth police, we are still trying to curb this. Talked about power struggle between staff and youth smokers; how some kids listen but how some youth rebel and have even thrown rocks at staffers. Best preventative measures are:
GETTING THESE YOUTH INVOLVED. How? Hip Hop Night! Starting soon. Basketball hoop on back deck Parker?). Sports checkout (basketballs, soccer balls, football and flags, bikes, cones, bases, etc.). Thursday sports night (Nolan tackle w/ Rachel and Addy)? Could host giant meeting for non involved youth to see what they want from Key. Wednesday the 20th? 4:30pm back deck? Food? Also, Robbie is working on foosball.

Fundraising – Spaghetti Supper and award ceremony. Bagging at Cub – Tim. Beg letter by June. EC. May 29 hip hop show. Youth and adults door to door.

Programs – ART – Rachel and Audrey next year? More guest instructors via colleges. Tie dye, boat race, practical things to teach, glass beads, may day stuff for DJJD.
WW – ask Olivia to renew. Audrey, Maisie, Andi said they would do a review. Recruit.
Movie – plain white sheet needed. Options may help. Key netflix account.
College Prep – U of M, MKat, Gustavus, McNally, etc. More visits.

The Key’s “Buckle Up Teens” Video

So earlier this year, we found out about a statewide contest sponsored by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.  They wanted youth from the state to create 30 second clips to raise awareness about how you should always wear your seat belt.  So Dan and I worked on this clip, and entered it into the contest.  It apparently was not good enough to make the final cut, however.  Which is too bad.  The videos that WERE good enough can be viewed on this website.

Anyway, just to show off how awesome we are, or at least how awesome we think we are, at making videos, I thought I’d post it on the site here.  I also want to draw attention to the fact that you should always wear your seat belt.  Seriously.  Every time.  Even if you’re just backing out of your driveway.  Just put the darn thing on.  It takes, like, 1 second to do.

I was attempting to embed the video in this post, but I am not computer savvy enough to do so.  How embarrassing.  So how about you click on THIS LINK, which will take you to everyone’s favorite website, You Tube, and you can check out the fun.