Hello men of Northampton!
I've wanted to start a Monoho blog for a while, and as I sit here homebound during Hurricane Irene it seems that there is no better time than the present. I think about how fortunate I am to live in a second-story condo in Northampton, relatively unscathed and without even having lost power, while our neighboring communities like Shelburne Falls and Brattleboro now have to deal with the fallout of flooded streets or worse. This makes me reflect how the name of the Monoho has become something of a misnomer over the years. While the group may have originated to connect the men of Northampton, its reach has now spread to include large swathes of western Massachusetts, northern Connecticut, parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and even has fans outside of New England. We are a group of men with a strong Northampton core, and lucky enough to have extended our "social network" to include a wide array of great men from all over.
I became active in the community in the summer of 2010 by joining the Tuesday night "Dune Boys" volleyball group. I quickly felt welcomed, making many new friends, and was excited to give back to the community somehow. A couple months ago I worked with Ken Molnar to start taking over the monoho.com website, and am still working through a long queue of updates I've been meaning to make. Sorry for the procrastination Ken! I can only hope that my contributions to the Monoho crowd will further the work you've done over the years. I also hope that with this blog I can put something of an individual voice behind Monoho, while more quickly getting out some smaller news updates without you having to wait for me to make the time to crank out larger website updates.
Speaking of which, there's a lot coming up. September promises to be a busy month with the 15th annual 5k walk/run for the AIDS Foundation of Western Massachusetts (check it out at http://www.aidsfoundationwm.org/), the third anniversary of the Northampton Gay Men's Social on Friday, September 23 (Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136063706486290), and the next King of Northampton event later on that night. Also exciting - openly gay Alex Morse is running in Holyoke's 2011 mayoral race! If we're lucky, maybe we can grab some of Alex's time for a guest post or interview on monoho.com (though I suspect we'll have to wait until after the election and before inauguration). Anyone have a direct line to the aspirant candidate?
Well, the rain stopped a while ago, the wind has died down, and if I'm not mistaken it looks like the sun is starting to peek out a bit. I think I've rambled enough for monoho.com's first blog post, and so I shall leave you all to try to enjoy the remainder of your weekend, rake up fallen leaves from your yards, and bail out your basements.
Until next time,
-will
I've wanted to start a Monoho blog for a while, and as I sit here homebound during Hurricane Irene it seems that there is no better time than the present. I think about how fortunate I am to live in a second-story condo in Northampton, relatively unscathed and without even having lost power, while our neighboring communities like Shelburne Falls and Brattleboro now have to deal with the fallout of flooded streets or worse. This makes me reflect how the name of the Monoho has become something of a misnomer over the years. While the group may have originated to connect the men of Northampton, its reach has now spread to include large swathes of western Massachusetts, northern Connecticut, parts of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and even has fans outside of New England. We are a group of men with a strong Northampton core, and lucky enough to have extended our "social network" to include a wide array of great men from all over.
I became active in the community in the summer of 2010 by joining the Tuesday night "Dune Boys" volleyball group. I quickly felt welcomed, making many new friends, and was excited to give back to the community somehow. A couple months ago I worked with Ken Molnar to start taking over the monoho.com website, and am still working through a long queue of updates I've been meaning to make. Sorry for the procrastination Ken! I can only hope that my contributions to the Monoho crowd will further the work you've done over the years. I also hope that with this blog I can put something of an individual voice behind Monoho, while more quickly getting out some smaller news updates without you having to wait for me to make the time to crank out larger website updates.
Speaking of which, there's a lot coming up. September promises to be a busy month with the 15th annual 5k walk/run for the AIDS Foundation of Western Massachusetts (check it out at http://www.aidsfoundationwm.org/), the third anniversary of the Northampton Gay Men's Social on Friday, September 23 (Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=136063706486290), and the next King of Northampton event later on that night. Also exciting - openly gay Alex Morse is running in Holyoke's 2011 mayoral race! If we're lucky, maybe we can grab some of Alex's time for a guest post or interview on monoho.com (though I suspect we'll have to wait until after the election and before inauguration). Anyone have a direct line to the aspirant candidate?
Well, the rain stopped a while ago, the wind has died down, and if I'm not mistaken it looks like the sun is starting to peek out a bit. I think I've rambled enough for monoho.com's first blog post, and so I shall leave you all to try to enjoy the remainder of your weekend, rake up fallen leaves from your yards, and bail out your basements.
Until next time,
-will
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