A look in the rearview mirror: our first year

It’s hard to believe that Tuesday, December 15th, will be our first birthday.  Some of you may remember that blustery morning we gathered on Church Street last year to celebrate the arrival of car-sharing in Burlington with the unveiling of our fleet. Full of excitement and optimism, we hoped that our community would embrace car-sharing and that, together, we’d reduce our dependence on cars, save money and fuel, and improve the environment.  While we’re still young and continuously learning, we’re thrilled to report that we couldn’t be happier about our first year’s accomplishments. Please read on learn more about them, get a glimpse of where we’re headed, and also find out how we’ll be celebrating our birthday all week long. We hope you’ll join us in the festivities!  

• We've added almost 450 members in our first year, including residents, 12 local businesses, and more than 100 students from UVM and Champlain College!
• Every car in our fleet is used an average of five hours per day—that’s a lot of sharing and double our goal!
• With nine cars in our network, we estimate that we’ve helped remove 30 cars from the road as our members have gotten rid of second (and third) cars.
• More than 30 passionate volunteers have gotten involved with CarShare Vermont and helped us tremendously—from our beloved board and committee members to stellar interns, pod nannies, outreach gurus, graphic designers, attorneys, fleet assistants, and the like—we truly are an example of a community’s commitment to change.
• We participated in more than 50 events this past year, including parades, festivals, and conferences; and we’ve also spread the love about car-sharing by giving dozens of presentations all over Burlington and beyond.
• The Campus Area Transportation Management Association (CATMA), UVM, and Champlain College continue to champion car-sharing for students, faculty, and staff and have committed to sponsoring CarShare Vermont vehicles on campus for the next three years—way to go!
• The City of Burlington recently joined us in an effort to reduce car commuting among employees, save on transportation costs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. CEDO is the first city department to sign up, and others will be following suit in the coming year.
• Of course, we would not have been able to accomplish the above without the support of our members, volunteers, supporters, and partner organizations. There are too many of you to list, but please know that we share our success with you and look forward to achieving even more together.

Come celebrate with us all week long!

Tell us why you love us. . . and be entered to win free driving credits!

When you stop by anytime this week between Tuesday and Friday, you'll have a chance to confess to our video camera all the reasons you love car sharing.  Not only will you be rewarded with a birthday treat - you'll be entered to win free driving credits in our "i love sharing" birthday raffle!

We offer our sincere thanks for helping to make CarShare Vermont’s first year a success. We're looking forward continuing to build our services to help increase the transportation possiblities for folks in Vermont.

In the meantime, we wish you a peaceful and joyful holiday season.

Save the date, mark your calendar and head out to these community events!

Thursday, November 5, 7:00pm-9:00pm
Greek Orthodox Church, 600 South Willard Street
Ward 6 NPA meeting
Presentation on our community endeavors & feedback from Ward 6 residents.

Wednesday, November 11, 7:00pm-9:00pm
UVM's Waterman Building, Memorial Lounge
Ward 1 NPA meeting
Presentation on our community endeavors & feedback from Ward 1 residents.

Wednesday, November 18, 5:30pm-7:00pm
Keen's Crossing Community Room, 65 Winooski Falls Way, Winooski
Winooski Car-Sharing Expansion Project Community Open House
Open house to discuss Carshare Vermont's initiative to bring cars to Winooski in 2010. Come to learn more, provide insight into how car-sharing could work in Winooski, and enjoy snacks.

Thursday, November 26
Wherever you are
THANKSGIVING DAY! 
We'd like to give thanks to you all for your support and your willingness to try something new this year! If you are sharing cars this weekend, we'll still be there to help you if you need it. Just call us on the emergency line (the office will be closed).

Want to get involved and share your love of car-sharing with the rest of the community?  We're always looking for new volunteers to help with outreach, car-washing, snow shoveling, and more! To find out more, contact Karen at karen@carsharevt.org.

Starting November 16th, we’ll have a new downtown pod in the public parking lot at the corner of Main St. and S. Winooski Ave. Please join us in thanking the City of Burlington for making this prime parking space available to CarShare Vermont!
 
Unfortunately, this exciting news does come with a flipside. Since we do not currently have the capacity to add a new car to our fleet, we must temporarily close an existing pod to make a vehicle for this location.  We’ve decided to move Otto, a handsome gray Prius that currently lives at the corner of N. Williams and Brookes Ave., to the new downtown pod. This decision was based on Otto’s performance compared to the rest of the pack, as well as the fact that there are several cars nearby Otto’s former pod location. We made our best effort to move the car that would adversely impact the fewest members. That said, we’re working hard to add more vehicles in 2010, and we’ll try to return Otto to his N. Williams St. home when we do.
 
One final note on pods: as the snowy months draw near, please remember that a few of our pods have alternative winter parking locations that make on-street parking bans and snow removal easier to manage. We’ll share more details soon so please stay tuned. And if you live near a pod and want to volunteer to be a winter pod nanny (and receive a discounted membership), please email info@carsharevt.org for more information. Thank you!

The artists may be bound to their homes, but this month thanks to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and CarShare Vermont, their art won’t be! These two local non-profits have teamed up to bring the works of several homebound artists out from behind close doors in a show entitled “Art from Home: A Personal Journey”. This show was the inspiration of Alice Anton, homebound program coordinator for the Chittenden Food Shelf.  She realized that despite a profound sense of isolation and loneliness, several folks had special talents. “For many of the people showing their art pieces, it will be the first time their art will be hung on a wall and viewed by others,” says Anton. “The Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf is fostering a sense of community for the participants and giving the program participants a connection with the greater Burlington community.”

When Anton was looking for a space to show, she was looking for a business that attracts people from all walks of life, and one that is mindful of its connection with the region and the community.  That’s when she discovered CarShare Vermont. Community is a central component of the vision of CarShare Vermont. It is for this reason that CarShare Vermont is delighted to have the opportunity to share their walls with the Chittenden Food Shelf artists for the month. “Sharing is a fantastic way to encourage community awareness and health,” Karen McNeill Saielli, outreach coordinator at CarShare Vermont said. “While we generally reserve our wall space for our member-artists, sharing our walls with this group of artists seemed like a great opportunity to enhance our community.”

The upcoming show will feature about twenty art pieces, with a variety of styles and techniques including acrylic paintings, oil, charcoal drawing, and poetry. Most homebound individuals choose to represent scenes from memory or from their imagination, but portraits and abstracts are also among pieces the viewers will appreciate. Creating art is a way for clients to escape their daily routine. For homebound client Claire, poetry is a way “to live vicariously through other people and remember when I could walk”.

“Art from Home: A Personal Journey” will be showing from October 14^th to November 15^th at the CarShare Vermont office at 131 St. Paul Street in downtown Burlington. An opening reception will be held October 14^th from 4:30 to 6:30 pm. Drop by, see the works, and support these amazing folks! This is a free event.

The car needs a name!  

We're holding a naming contest to come up with a name for our newest arrival. If you think you have good idea, send it to info@carsharevt.org along with the reason why we should choose this name for the car. If our naming committee agrees that your name is the best choice, you'll win a free annual share-a-lot membership to CarShare Vermont ($150 value)!* 

Help us spread the word!

If you are a New North End neighbor, or have friends in the neighborhood, help us spread the word and make this pod a success! You can start a conversation on Front Porch Forum, hold a house party for your friends, or tell your neighbors about our naming contest. There are lots of ways to get involved and help make this pod a success, and we truly appreciate your help! If you'd like to get more involved, check out our volunteer opportunities!

Join us to celebrate!

We'll be hosting a launch party in the parking lot of Ace Hardware on October 17 from about 11-1 and would love it if you'll join us!  Ace Hardware is going to pull out their grill and a number of local businesses have offered to provide some good food for the day. Mark it on your calendars and bring your friends!

* The fine print: This award has no cash value. Membership is conditional on applicant approval, based on eligibility. You must be able to provide CarShare Vermont with a valid license number(s), as well as a valid debit or credit card number.  As a member, you are responsible for a one-time non-refundable $30 application fee, plus hourly and mileage charges & any other fees or penalties incurred during your membership.

We are proud to introduce Kevyn Cundiff as our newest artist-member displaying her works in our office.  Her works are gracing our walls this month, and we'd love for you to stop by and take a look anytime!  

Here's a little of what Kevyn has to say:

Originally trained as an archaeological illustrator, I have moved through a variety of careers. My interest in stained glass began in the early 1990’s, and after a 12-year break has been revived with a focus on pet portraits, of all things. With them I try to capture, in glass, the reasons our pets are an essential part of our happiness and wellbeing.

I am self-taught and learn daily. My designs mainly come from people who want to immortalize their pets—or someone else’s pet; a lot are given as gifts. Ideas also come from strolling everywhere from Church Street to Shelburne Farms, as well as observing Mr. Whatsit, my model I keep on retainer.

I have had shows in a myriad of venues, from coffee shops to office buildings to veterinarians, including The Village Wine and Coffee, Arts Alive Festival, Homeport, Vergennes Animal Hospital, Speeder and Earls, Allscripts, Art Hop, and Reflections at Basin Harbor and now CarShare Vermont

I have a perfectly good car, but it is 105 in dog years, and I have a box in the basement--a surprisingly large box--full of all the pieces that have fallen off--none of them being the motor. Yet. So CarShare Vermont is insurance for me, because when I have a carpool full of ballerinas to take to dance class, not going is not an option. I love knowing we can all pirouette down to Nora and get there safely and a heckofalot cheaper than renting a car for one day for just a one-hour trip.

I am delighted to show my artwork here because CarShare Vermont types are the kind of people who appreciate the finer things in life. My dream is that someone will come in off the street, lured by my artwork, and become a member. And, yes, maybe take home one of my pieces, too.

Kevyn Cundiff

Kevyn@cundiff.com • www.Thediff.biz • h: 802.864.6948  • c: 802.338.0436

55 Ledgemere St. Burlington, Vermont

Big Heavy World brings local music to CarShare Vermont

Have you looked in the glove box of your favorite CarShare car lately?  If so, you may have noticed a new addition! Thanks to Big Heavy World, a local non-profit dedicated to preserving and promoting Vermont music, we now have shared CDs full of local music in the cars! Check out "In Silver Light" and "Thrufters and Throughstones" next time you take a car out for a spin! 

 

Bonnie's show is entitled "Here and There: Paintings in acrylic and oil by Bonnie Anderson" She explains: "These are images from my travels, and some from Burlington, which I'm happy to be showing at Carshare Vermont, because smart transportation is good for all of us!

Bonnie says: "As a child, I drew horses incessantly, and had a grand plan for when I became a grownup... I'd have a horse, and no car. I'd never have to drive anywhere, and the horse would take me wherever I wanted to go.

"Well, that plan never materialized.  However, I have managed to go nearly 10 years now without owning a car, and the trusty horse is either my bicycle, the train, or the bus. (Happily, I've also become a member of CarShare Vermont!)

"The resulting savings allowed me to travel to Brazil 3 times over these last ten years, and I began to absorb the colors and rhythms of that amazing country into my art. It's the music, lively people and old, charismatic buildings that intrigue me, whether in Brazil, Burlington, or anywhere else. Here and there. It's the way people live in and connect with their surroundings and each other that colors our world."

Stop by our office and see her work. You can contact Bonnie directly with inquiries at bonella@burlingtontelecom.net

If you are an artist, and would like to show your work in our office, please contact karen@carsharevt.org.

Sarah & Patrick have been living car-less in Burlington for three years now. When they got engaged last November and started planning the wedding, the made sure to carry this decision through.  They even arrived at their wedding  on a bicycle taxi!  The dilemma came with their post-wedding plans. They wanted to escape the city for their honeymoon -- but how?
 
The newlyweds explained:

"Before Carshare Vermont came into our lives, we could only go places that were walkable or on the bus line, unless one of our few car-owning friends was willing to drive us. For our camping honeymoon at Lake Carmi (about an hour north of Burlington, near the Canadian border), none of those was an option. We debated renting a car, but quickly realized that since we are only 24, most companies wouldn't even rent to us. Others would charge an extra fee.

"In the end,  Carshare just made sense. A few clicks, and we had Nora reserved for four days. Instead of taking the bus to a rental company, we walked to the Carshare pod at the end of our block and away we went! Nora got us to Lake Carmi, and even hauled a trunk full of firewood. We made a few trips into Enosburg Falls for vital necessities (coffee!) and drove back to Burlington after four days of camping, grilling, swimming, and relaxing. Since Nora is a Prius, we ended up using less than half a tank of gas. In terms of cost, I believe Carshare Vermont, even with the share-a-little plan, was comparable to any rental company once you factor in the cost of gas & hidden fees -- not to mention much more convenient for us. Thanks for making our honeymoon happen, Carshare!"

Congratulations, Patrick and Sarah.  Glad we could help!