A POLICE AND CITIZEN PARTNERSHIP TO

Make a Difference In Our Neighborhoods

The Fort Worth Police Department Presents:

A PARTNERSHIP FOR A SAFER COMMUNITY

May 20, 2008

7:00 pm-8:00 pm

(Police and volunteers will stay until 9:00 pm to answer any questions)

North Fort Worth Baptist Church

6600 N. Frwy

Fort Worth, TX 76137

COME LEARN ABOUT THE CITIZENS ON PATROL PROGRAM AND HOW YOU CAN BE A PART OF A PROVEN SOLUTION TO KEEP A LID ON CRIME. THIS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PROGRAM HAS BEEN NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED AND HAS PROVEN VERY EFFECTIVE IN REDUCING CRIME. THE POLICE TRAIN AND EQUIP YOU TO BE ADDITIONAL EYES AND EARS FOR THEM AS YOU PATROL IN YOUR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD AND CALL IN SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY ON A NON-CONFRONTATIONAL BASIS.

For More Information Contact

North Policing District 4 @ 817-392-4690

Thank you!

Today, Woodland Spring Elementary sent home information to address staph infection (MRSA) concerns. They are posted here:

Staph Infection

Please check back to that site for updates.

Early voting begins Monday, October 22 at 34 locations throughout Tarrant County and continues through Friday, November 2. For early voting, you may vote at any location. The closest to VOWS are Keller Town Hall, Watauga City Hall, and the Southlake Sub-Courthouse. To see a complete list of locations, a sample ballot or for more information, click on the VOTEXAS image to the right

We will be voting on 16 state constitutional amendments. The details of the propositions are available on the Texas Secretary of State website. In addition, City of Fort Worth will have a ballot question on establishing collective bargaining for firefighters. Go to www.fortworthgov.org and click on “Elections” under Quick Links for details on this proposition.

It's been a long week for me work-wise and I've gotten a little behind with the site. I've activated the Classified links. The code had a few more problems than I originally thought and there are a few remaining bugs. One I noticed was the "Recent Ads" page is not working. I will continue to work on these bugs. However, I've tested the Classifieds and I noticed a few of you posted some ads. They seem to be working.

It occurred to me that I needed a way for site users to report bugs in a way where I can track them so I added a forum where you can report bugs. If you find a problem on this site, please report it there. Be specific. For example, if you simply write, "It doesn't work," I may not be able to find the root cause.

Again, thanks for your support and kind words.

As this site continues to grow, I would like to expand the content offerings. Specifically, I would like to call on Woodland Springs residents who are also bloggers to contribute to this site. As you probably noticed, I've added social networking tools to the site's articles. Very shortly, I will be merging comments from stories with the forums. This article, in fact, is the first to be copied to the forums for that purpose.

Requirements: Bloggers are invited to contact the Website administrator by sending a private message to vwsadmin or an email to webmaster at woodlandsprings dot com. The blogger must be a verifiable resident of the Villages of Woodland Springs. Blog articles on this site must be related to living in the community, social activities, lifestyles residents can relate to, parenting/children, local (i.e. Fort Worth & Keller) government, or other community-relevant topics. Subjects that will not be published will be those that violate the terms of service and forum rules; in other words if you stay away from religion, sex, and politics your article will most certainly be safe. Bloggers must also commit to publishing regularly on this site, the more the better.

Site Updates

I just about have the classifieds completed. There are some formatting issues that I need to resolve. I hope to have them complete in the next few days. Many of you have already found the new avatars. The old content is being ported over and should be complete this weekend. I am also continuing on forum formatting as I'm sure some of you have noticed some improvements in the forums.

Thanks for your patience and support.

The site administrators decided to require registration to view the forums. This was the way the site was before the recent update. Requiring registration will prevent Internet programs that harvest emails and other private information from getting to forum posts. This was a technical decision to protect forum users. Registration is a simple process and only takes a few minutes. No information you submit on this site is used in any way other than for your access to this site. Our updated privacy policy and terms of service are forthcoming.

Thanks

As I'm working on getting the site completely updated, I am making changes as I have time. As a result, you might see strange things when you go to a page like an error message or funky formatting. If you just refresh your browser, chances are it will fix itself right away. I try not to have any particular update take more than a few minutes. When I break something and it will take a while to fix, I revert back to the way it was.

Things to look for in the next few days:

• A brand spanking new classified ads module
• More user-friendly formatting in the forums
• All of the old content migrated over to searchable pages
• A new menu on the left side to take you to said old and new content
• New fresh articles from community members
• A bunch of new avatars you can assign to yourself or even upload your own (an avatar is an icon you can assign to yourself so you look really cool in the forums)

Also, up at the top menu, there is a link called "User Pages". This is an experimental function that gives this site "MySpace" like functionality. It is experimental in several ways. First, the module itself is in beta, which means it doesn't have all of its features. I will be in contact with the module author to see what his plans are and if I need to enhance it. Also, it's experimental in that I can see where it will have the potential to be abused. I haven't written up the terms of use for it yet, but the forum terms of use should apply. In other words, this whole site is rated PG, at the highest. If it's not family friendly, don't post it. Period.

With that said, feel free to upload pictures, create a blog, and put your profile out there. Please report bugs to me at webmaster at woodlandsprings dot com. I will try to address them. I think User Pages will be great once we work the kinks out, but I need users to help me do that.

Have fun.

Okay, the site is finally switched over. The important function of the forums is back online (see my previous post). 

There are still some functions I'm working on like the new classified ads, new content, and migrating the old content over. I did feel since the forums were ready, I'd launch the new site. I will be tweaking the look and feel of the forums, too. I'm not fond of the default buttons.

Anyway, feel free to start posting again. Look for new links to be added. Keep coming back and most importantly, support our sponsors. This site has been a labor of love for myself and the volunteers who moderate the forums. However, the hosting, software licensing, and development does cost. Supporting our sponsors is the best way to show you support this site.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor yourself, please send an email to webmaster at woodlandsprings dot com.

Welcome to the new Woodlandsprings.com Web site. It's still a work in progress. However, as promised, the first thing I focused on was converting the old forums over. I didn't want to lose all of that history. In fact, I got a little obsessive about it. Most all of the old data came over. 

There was an issue, however, with usernames. In the old forum system, it was possible to have a different username in the forum than what you registered with on the site. This made the transfer of old postings and their original poster difficult. We had to get those old posts and associate them with the email that matched the username from the list of registered site users. This should not be a problem for most posts, but about 140 posts came up as not associated with a registered user and those posts were assigned to the nearest match.

 Your usernames still have the number of postings, but I'm afraid that user rankings did not come over. That means you can see how many posts you made. When you make your first post in the new system, it may give you an accurate ranking. I'm not sure how that will work.

 Finally, the old rules about being nice to each other still applies. Remember that these are your neighbors too.

Code Blue Training Class
Saturday October 13th
8a.m. to 4p.m.
Police Academy
1000 Calvert St. Fort Worth

Please contact Rick or Cathy Pepper at code.blue@txpepper.com

As the fastest growing neighborhood in North Fort Worth, volunteers are always welcome and needed to ensure our safe, family friendly community for all homeowners and their guests. The Fort Worth Citizens on Patrol (Code Blue) program allows private citizens to be the "eyes and ears" of the Fort Worth police.

Code Blue members are issued special Code Blue identification (shirts, hats, jackets and badges) as well as police radios. The time spent patrolling our neighborhood is completely voluntary. For more information visit the:

Crime Watch / Code Blue

section on our website.

The 2007 Citizen on Patrol Training Classes

Training classes are held in the auditorium at the Police Training Center at 1000 Calvert. All classes are held on a Saturday from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.


October 13, 2007

Courtesy of the City of Fort Worth Communications Department

Fort Worth Neighborhoods receive honors at 2007 Neighborhoods, USA Conference

Fort Worth, Texas - Three Fort Worth neighborhood associations walked away with honors at the 32nd annual conference of Neighborhoods, USA (NUSA), in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Friday, May 25. Oakhurst Neighborhood Association was named the 1st Place Winner in the category of Multi-Neighborhood Project Partnerships; while the Lake Worth Alliance received 3rd place honors. Historic Carver Heights was recognized with 3rd place honors in the category of Physical Revitalization-Beautification in a Single Neighborhood. The Garden of Eden Neighborhood Association, 2006 national "Neighborhood of the Year", was also a finalist in this category.

In the category of Multi-Neighborhood Project Partnerships, the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association received 1st place honors at NUSA for its 19th Annual Oakhurst Code Blue Police and Firefighters Dinner, a community meal organized by Oakhurst's Neighborhood Patrol (Code Blue) to honor the work of police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel who respond to emergencies in Oakhurst and the north sector of Fort Worth. Lake Worth Alliance received 3rd place honors for its project to heighten community awareness of Lake Worth as an endangered water resource and successfully advocate for the implementation of the city's pilot dredging project.

In the category of Physical Revitalization/Beautification in a Single Neighborhood, Historic Carver Heights, was awarded 3rd place for its Wildcat Creek Clean-Up project, which focused on improving safety, beautifying a park area and revitalizing a neighborhood corridor by partnering with city departments. Fort Worth's Garden of Eden Neighborhood Association was a finalist in this category for its project to completely renovate a home that had been unoccupied for ten years due to a hate crime committed there in 1996.

Neighborhoods, USA, a national non-profit committed to building and strengthening neighborhood organizations, annually presents these awards, which are the only national awards given on an ongoing basis to neighborhood organizations in recognition of their outstanding projects.