Cleveland

Dueling Pianos! Fun!

This is the seventh blog post I have written about a Cleveland.com TweetUp, and my wife, Julie, and I have attended many more. They are always about having fun in Cleveland while making new friends and meeting old Tweetup friends. I saw some people I had not seen in a while, so it was great to reconnect.

Like the February 5, 2015, Corner Alley - Uptown TweetUp, the September 24, 2015, Cleveland TweetUp at the The Big Bang Cleveland was about welcoming a new entertainment venue to Cleveland. It was again hosted by Kristel Hartshorn and Troy Smith. I suggest you follow them on Twitter, and read their Cleveland.com articles, since they write about Cleveland entertainment.

Every year, we enjoy viewing the artwork at the Chalk Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As in 2014, Stuart was glad he was able to participate by adding his chalk drawing to the weekend display.

The weather was beautiful, and there was a huge turnout of Cleveland artists. Please read on to learn about an act of kindness and generosity by some children at the festival.

My weekend plans went from nothing planned to really fun when I learned about two free events via Twitter.

I had not planned on writing this blog post about the weekend. I even told people I talked to at the events that I was not going to write about the weekend. However...

After the weekend was over, I decided I wanted to capture the information I learned about local adventures. I also wanted to thank NEO Cycle and the Cleveland Pops for the good time.

EASTSIDE GREENWAY 
The Eastside Greenway seeks to connect the east side of Cleveland with 18 Greater Cleveland municipalities through a unified trail network that will link neighborhoods to employment centers, transit and existing green spaces. The communities within the study area include East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, University Heights, Richmond Heights, Highland Heights, Highland Hills, North Randall, Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village, Euclid, South Euclid, Lyndhurst, Bratenahl, Orange Village and Warrensville Heights and eastern portions of Cleveland.

The Eastside Greenway project is a great idea, but in some ways I feel that it might be too early to write about it. Today it is just a great idea -- a concept for the future. I look forward to writing again about how the work of today's leaders made a difference in the quality of life.

Just imagine having bike paths that would tie the different eastside communities together! I think it could make a big difference in how the people there will live and interact.

On the evening of Tuesday, September 8, 2015, we knew we both needed to be on the second floor of the Terminal Tower. A grand opening was scheduled. The event by itself could have been just another gathering of talented people that we often attend in Cleveland, but what was opening represented much more -- the foundation for future Cleveland entrepreneurship in a centralized hub connecting startups to critical resources.

Cleveland StartMart Grand Opening

It was fascinating to meet and learn about the Flashstarts 2015 Accelerator Class at the Flashstarts' Demo Day, Wednesday, August 19, 2015 at House of Blues Cleveland. I find it very enjoyable to engage in conversation with such creative Cleveland entrepreneurs.

Flashstarts 2015 Accelerator Class:

1. Brilliency
2. Colign
3. Free-D
4. Gemma
5. inTouch
6. Schedulytics
7. Science United
8. Triple Analytics
9. Virtual Compass
10. We Can Code IT
11. Windrush

The Mission of Cleveland GiveCamp is to pair creative and technology talent with nonprofits in need.

The tech and design volunteers at Cleveland GiveCamp 2015 really "wowed" the nonprofit partners served this year with some incredible projects. The many tweets I embedded in this blog really give a flavor of the weekend. I recommend scanning through them and reading those that pique your interest.

I have been fortunate to be able to attend all six Cleveland GiveCamp weekends! Cleveland GiveCamp is believed to be the largest in the United States. Read on to learn how so many volunteers come together to make a huge difference in our community.

When we got to EarthFest 2015 on Sunday, April 19th, things were hopping!

We arrived in the afternoon, and thus missed the opening ceremony. After seeing the large number of displays, we wished we had come sooner. Even though the EarthFest was now being held at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, we did not know that it would be so big. We did not think that so many of the fairground buildings would be used. We were pleased to see so many people attending -- it was quite a crowd! -- and so many participating environmental organizations.

We were thrilled when the Digital Communications Manager Stephanie Anderson from PlayhouseSquare invited us to their big event announcing the 2015-2016 KeyBank Broadway Series! We have been attending many of the shows and events at the many theatres and surrounding venues of PlayhouseSquare, but have never attended a PlayhouseSquare Broadway Launch Party. We already knew that Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare is the second largest theater venue in the United States, but this evening we learned how Cleveland is the #1 city for touring Broadway shows, with 32,000 season ticket holders!