TEAM TILTON as introduced by TiltonProgress.com

The First Official Meeting! Brenda is to the left, Bob is second from right.

"I wanna help." - Brenda Finly, prime organizer and leader of Team Tilton.

The stated purpose of the organization that premiered at the Tilton Community Center after a supper of chili dogs and small talk was to "put the Community back in the the Town".
Several of the dozen or so people that attended, besides TheMediaDesk team, mentioned that they had grown up in the village, and 'back then' you knew "everybody". Not only your immediate neighbors, but people several blocks away. Now, as some of them said, they'd lived in town for years and didn't know anybody around them.
The group spearheaded by Village Board Member Bob/Robert/Bobby Finley and his wife, outfitted in their team T-shirts above, has the lofty goal of getting people out and about, working for the good of the village, and, as a byproduct, getting to know each other once again.

time out for commentary:
Yes. It is true. But it is also somewhat self inflicted.
When most of these people were 'growing up', in the fifties and sixties, and to some degree into the 1970s, Tilton was still a "bedroom" community of middle class families, the men of which worked in the factories in the area (some even still worked in local coal mines), as had their own fathers, their mothers were at home, or worked a day job in an office or classroom, and they all attended one of the TWO "neighborhood" schools.
That has ALL changed. The factories have, for the most part, gone the way of the coal mines, 'mom' now works as well, and the 'local school' now brings kids in from about a quarter of the heavily gerrymandered metropolitan area. There are a lot of new residents, the village boundary has expanded significantly, to the point that it is now possible to live in Tilton, but attend Westville schools.
Also, there is now a significant amount of rental property in the village, with some landlords that are not, as one of the gentlemen at the meeting pointed out, locals. He works at a Tilton business and owns some of the rentals in the village, and said that he knows for a fact that some of his tenants are interested in the group, and he'll see to it that they know about it. That's unusual. And while those that rent housing do live here, they make their home in the village, they lack that sense of 'permanence'. However, that needn't be the case. And the Finleys, with the rest of the group, intend to make an effort to change that.
end commentary, for now

Part of that effort to bring people more in touch with each other and the village itself is that they have now taken over the upkeep of the Tilton War Memorial site in Thomas Park on 5th Street in Tilton, across from the restaurant we profiled on their second day in business (link below).
They are also planning several community events such as family game and movie nights. And participating in cleanup days and supporting other community events such as the Senior Dinner before Christmas, and several other already scheduled Tilton events.

A couple of the more promising ideas were the distribution of "welcome packages" to new residents, and the publication of a quarterly (or so) village newsletter with features and promotions focusing on the community and those that live and serve in it. There was a prolonged discussion about the distribution of a printed, on real paper, and sent through the mail to every one of the 900 or so households in the village to make the seniors, and others, in the village who do not have a "social media" account, or in many cases, even Internet Access, get it.

time out for commentary, again:
This is a problem.
This website was started to promote local, primarily Tilton, but local nonetheless, businesses. And it was built to do it online. It only took a few weeks for the Desk, as primary 'mover and shaker' of the site to run into not only suspicion and disinterest, but actual hostility. More than one local business owner or manager told the Desk to "go and don't come back". So it went, and hasn't been back.
And then you have to deal with some of the local people who do not understand the difference between a registered, fully qualified, top level domain, Web Site, and a 'social media' page. Nor do some of them comprehend that it is the WORLD wide web, and that the Desk has books that it has written for sale in Euros and some of its non-fiction articles have been cited in academic papers posted on school sites in Asia.
But, so it goes. There are advantages to a printed document, especially one that has a local interest, is free, and perhaps has car wash coupons or a discount code for a pizza in it.
And, as the Desk Team are fully aware, there are other ways to get the word out besides printed papers that as likely as not will end up at the bottom of a bird cage, or a website that kills a lot of perfectly good electrons and in the end, nobody reads it either. You can put fliers on boards at the local burger shack (which was profiled on TiltonProgress! see below), and announce it on the local radio station (also profiled), and even have them on the counter at other local businesses (many have been done). And then, at the end of the day, some people will still claim they don't know about it.
You do what you can do, and those that want to, will get involved.
And, for what it's worth, Tilton Progress will do what it can to help. end commentary

The group is looking to really get moving after the first of the year. Some of the ideas mentioned, besides those we've discussed here, included supporting the animal shelter, the school, and possibly even the local food bank which also supports Tilton residents (profiled as part of Danville Township, which was in the feature linked below).

For now, the group only has a private Facebook Group. But if you have a reason to be in it, they will add you if you so request it.

Team Tilton on FB MUST be a FB member to see group page and to request group membership.

Links to other sites and information below:

The Village Of Tilton, official website (will open in new window/tab): http://www.tiltonil.com/

Profiles and features as mentioned:

.
Mike's Grill, "local burgers".
Local Radio Station.
the new Township office complex feature

and, the website that started it all, in 1998... https://www.themediadesk.com/

And, as mentioned above, the Desk's Non-Fiction and Mystery Series articles http://themediadesk.com/nonfiction.htm

That "social site" we mentioned is: (all will open in new window/tab)

Tilton Progress has two outlets on Facebook:
The group is https://www.facebook.com/groups/1787801107960009/

the page is: https://www.facebook.com/TiltonProgress/

To contact TiltonProgress please send an email to either:
TiltonProgress(at)gmail(dot)com

email scrambled to hopefully discourage spammer robots

And, as we've said it before elsewhere on the site, we'll say it again here and now:

NOTICE:
This Website and related content is NOT sponsored or approved by the Village of Tilton. The village's official webpage is: http://www.tiltonil.com/.
All material on the site is owned and maintained by themediadesk.com unless otherwise stated.
All Material on this website, including audio files, are copyrighted by the Desk as of the date of posting unless otherwise indicated.
See Intellectual Property and Copyright Statement (paragraphs 3, 5, 7, 10, and 23 (photos)) on http://www.themediadesk.com/files/copy.htm http://www.themediadesk.com/files/copy.htm

The URL of this website is: http://tiltonprogress.com

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