Cleaning Up with Pride

How did you spend your weekend? Maybe some mulching, maybe some planting of flowers, maybe some raking? Did you do this at your house, or in downtown Dover? If both you are dedicated.

I spent Saturday morning leading a great group of volunteers outside of City Hall pruning, mulching and raking. There were probably 15 of so people at the height of involvement and the volunteers did a great job. Drive by the Central Ave side and check out their work. All involved should be proud.

Clean up day, or its proper title "Dover Pride Clean Up Day" is probably my favorite community day here in Dover. It is great to see so many people from all sections, sectors, and walks coming together for the common goal of sprucing up our downtown. As in years past this was a family affair, not just my family - my sweet wife lead a group of volunteers on the brick walk way from Washington Street to Orchard Street - but it seemed that almost everywhere you looked there was a family working side by side.

We (all volunteers) did a lot of work. The City looks great. Check out Henry Law Park, where plantings/trees were trimmed, flowers planted, and mulch freshened. Continue onto River Street, where the view was opened up tremendously and you can see the beautiful river that much clearer. Walk the Community Trail or Joe Parks Riverwalk and see the wonder of nature in the heart of downtown, and swing through the Transportation Center or Library, where visitors will now be met with spruced up plants and trees. All of it looks tremendous (If I missed your area, I apologize - truly).

I challenge us all to appreciate what has been completed here, and dig in and help next year. Better yet don't wait until next year. Take pride in your neighborhood and get together with your friends and families and pick a Saturday, clean up your neighborhood park or other amenity and then have a barbecue and get to know everyone you might pass by daily that much better. It doesn't have to be a 4 hour commitment, just get in and get it done.

You can take pride in your community every day and grow and become more connected to it, by just reaching out, even a little. Take a walk, and don't ignore that piece of trash or debris, pick it up. Let your kids - or dog - play at the park, and look for litter. Smile and be part of the community.

Taking ownership in the place you live is an important lesson that everyone can learn. We try to teach our children to be aware and educated about life, do we do the same about community? Hopefully. The more people are involved and the more people are aware of the community around them, the better that community will and can be.

The Gundalow is coming

I am on the Board of the Gundalow Company, which is a non-profit located in the Seacoast whose mission is to promote and protect the maritime history of the area.

Dover has a strong maritime tradition which is interlinked to our Milltown history. The goods created at the mill were shipped around the world via the Cochecho and the many types of boats that sailed on it; including gundalows.

A gundalow is a long flat shallow draft boat which sailed under wind power or with long oars. The majority of the propulsion came from the tides and currents. Gundalows were used around the Gulf of Maine and its river tributaries for much of the 18th century.

The Gundalow Company operates the Captain Adams a replica gundalow. This ship is used for educational purposes mainly and makes the rounds of seacoast communities during the summer. This week, the Captain Adams is docked in Dover. I had the pleasure of helping to crew the Adams up the Cochecho from Prescott Park in Portsmouth this Saturday. When I say crew, I use the term loosely.

The Adams is going to be docked at Henry Law Park from later today through the early part of next week. There are many activities planned onboard, including some that are coordinated with the Childrens Museum of New Hampshire.

Dover is lucky to have the Gundalow come visit for more than a few days. This luck also involves effort and time put in by the Chamber of Commerce who saw the value of the Gundalow as part of the upcoming Fourth of July activities. The gundalow is open to the public for a nominal donation and is well worth your time to come and visit. To see a list of activities, please click here.

What does all this have to do with planning? Well beyond the basic community history aspect, I believe that one of the best ways to plan for the future is to see what worked and what didn't in the past. Gundalows represent that effort. In the pre-oil time frame, transportation of goods was a much different activity. I believe it is one that we should become familiar with because in the long run we need to take advantage of the education we are getting from the Gulf oil catastrophe and other oil limitation cues to remember that we have a finite resource and that we need to plan for alternatives.