The Camp House

Public Art Chattanooga has been responsible for some of the largest and most beautiful projects in our city over the past few years. Katelyn Kirnie is the Director of Public Art Chattanooga and in this episode shares some of the exciting projects coming up in the next few weeks including the Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit, the Wilcox Tunnel Mural, and the new sculpture being installed at the Blue Goose Hollow entrance to the Riverwalk. With so much going on in the coming weeks, Katelyn also announces Artburst, a month long event celebrating Chattanooga's city wide explosion of color in April.

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The APEX (Action Plan for Educational Excellence) Project is the latest initiative of Unifi-Ed that seeks to engage the community and pull everyone into the conversation on public education. Over the past six months they have been engaging and listening to the community and the result is the APEX Policy Platform, a synthesis of the ten most popular solutions to improve our community and our public education system. Joining us to discuss the results of the APEX Project are Unifi-Ed’s Alexa LeBeouf and Ashley Conrad as well as APEX steering committee members Samantha Boucher and Cary Garrett.

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Metro Ideas Project is a local policy think tank that is focused on the challenges of mid-sized cities. Their Executive Director, Joda Thongnopnua, joins us to discuss their latest research project exploring the challenges that communities face when dealing with predatory lenders.

As an industry, predatory lending was virtually non-existent thirty years ago, yet today brick-and-mortar payday lenders are more common than McDonalds. So in this episode we explore how this industry became so ubiquitous, who are they targeting with their high-interest financial loans, and, finally, what best practices or policy recommendations empower communities to curb these predatory institutions that take advantage of our neighbors?

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Today's episode is a rerelease of one of our first episodes with Christian Rushing, one of the most radiant individuals I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Christian passed away a year ago today, February 1, 2017, and today's rerelease is to honor a man whose life, joy, and wisdom we should never forget.

Original episode description:

Ask Christian Rushing how he is doing and I can promise you he will say "Living the dream!".

Seventeen months ago Christian was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer. Despite that, Christian is one of the most radiant people you will ever have the pleasure to meet. And so far Christian has defied the odds. The doctors gave him a year to live and up to this point Christian has pushed the limits and is a statistical outlier.

This conversation gets deeply personal. It is a conversation about life, death, prayer, and family.

Thank you again to Christian for sitting down for this conversation, it is one that I will be forever grateful for and will always remember.

Learn more about Christian's story and follow his journey on his blog: http://christianrushing.blogspot.com/

A public library is a great resource for a community. But how do libraries respond when the world around them changes? In today's episode we talk with the Chattanooga Public Library's Mary Barnett and explore how our public library is a progressive, responsive institution ready to serve our community in the 21st century.

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Entrepreneurship is certainly a term associated with Chattanooga and even a common theme on this podcast. In our interview today guest Kevin Cherrick helps de-mystify entrepreneurship and, being a newcomer to Chattanooga, gives an outsider's perspective on the unique attributes of Chattanooga that make it such a great place for entrepreneurship.

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Whiteboard is a digital agency focused on working with purposeful companies and is Chattanooga's only B-Corporation certified company. In this episode we are joined by Whiteboard founders Taylor Jones & Eric Brown to discuss the significance of the certification, the purpose of business, and the ethics of operating a company in our digital 21st century.

~ PART 2 OF 2 ~

Lauri Moyle, creator of Thankful Gleaner, focuses on helping businesses connect with their ethical core and joins this episode as a co-host.

Referenced in this episode:

Whiteboard is a digital agency focused on working with purposeful companies and is Chattanooga's only B-Corporation certified company. In this episode we are joined by Whiteboard founders Taylor Jones & Eric Brown to discuss the significance of the certification, the purpose of business, and the ethics of operating a company in our digital 21st century.

~ PART 1 OF 2 ~

Lauri Moyle, creator of Thankful Gleaner, focuses on helping businesses connect with their ethical core and joins this episode as a co-host.

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This special episode is from our new Theology on Tap Podcast. Dr. Greg Thompson was our guest for Theology on Tap during Chattanooga's 2017 Startup Week. As our city continues to grow an innovation and entrepreneurship economy, what will be the markers of our success? How will we evaluate our success in creating a community in which all of our neighbors are thriving and enjoying this new economy? Dr. Thompson's lecture is timely for our city and our community as we wrestle with these questions.

As I said in the intro, this being a "Theology On Tap" lecture it will obviously have a theological bend to it. However, I think it is a lecture that everyone will benefit from and, if you are not a person of faith, then will be at the very least encouraged by the fact that there are Christians and people of faith engaging innovation and their communities in the way that Dr. Thompson shares here.

Recorded live at The Camp House in Chattanooga, TN on October 17.

What is the end of innovation? Why do we even innovate to begin with and how will we know if we are successful in such an endeavor? Dr. Greg Thompson seeks to pull our imaginations to the deeper questions of why innovation will matter for our communities in the 21st century.

Greg Thompson is the Director of Research and Strategy at Clayborn Reborn, a historic Civil Rights site in Memphis Tennessee. He is also a Senior Advisor for the Tom Tom Founders Festival in Charlottesville, Virginia. Before joining Clayborn and Tom Tom Greg served as the CEO of the Thriving Cities Group, a Civic Design firm based in Charlottesville, Virginia and as the Executive Director of New City Commons, a consulting team that supports faith-based communities in the work of serving their cities. Greg is also active in national conversations surrounding race and equity in America and holds a PhD from the University of Virginia where he wrote his dissertation on Martin Luther King, Jr.

Other talks by Dr. Greg Thompson on Qideas.org - http://qideas.org/contributors/greg-thompson/

In this episode we have the privilege of introducing you to new Chattanooga Police Chief David Roddy. In many ways this conversation is a continuation of my conversation with his predecessor, former Chief Fred Fletcher. We discuss the process of looking for a new Chief, the department's work to recruit a more diverse force, and continue the conversation on community policing in Chattanooga.

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