Revel.

Muskegon Chronicle: TEDxMuskegon volunteers prepare Frauenthal for day of exploring ideas

About 25 local volunteers have been working for nearly a year to produce Tuesday's TEDxMuskegon event dedicated to celebrating what's thriving in Muskegon and challenging the community to reach new heights.

The planning and production group gathered shortly after 8 a.m. under the Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts for a group picture. After the photo session, the planning, development and production team members moved to their areas of responsiblity for the day-long event associated with the global TED movement.

About 120 attendees plus the volunteers will experience TEDxMuskegon up close and personal. In receiving the TED license to put on a locally produced event, the organizers have agreed to limit the audience in the Frauenthal's Beardsley Theater, event Chairwoman Renae Hesselink said.

For those unable to attend the sold-out event, TEDxMuskegon organizers are putting the entire day online as a live stream. Find the video stream on the event website.

The volunteers were excited as the community began to gather for the day that will be broken into three sessions based on "place," "making" and "place making." The theme is a "thriving" community and short presenations will be made by 18 speakers.

"I'm excited to show the rest of the state what we already know in Muskegon," said volunteer Jason Piasecki of Revel. "Exciting things are going on in Muskegon and we are a thriving community. This is the right venue to spread the word and allow the speakers to have a global platform."

Volutneer Brian Clincy, a Healthy Communities coordinator, became involved with TEDxMuskegon to create action in the coming weeks, months and years.

"TEDx can be the start of some great things happening in Muskegon," Clincy said. "Half of what it takes to get something done is to communicate it to the right people. We need to implement these ideas. I'm more interested in what goes forward than what happens today."

Those wanting to watch the individual talks can do so through the TEDxMuskegon page on YouTube.com.

Muskegon Chronicle
September 20, 2011
Original Article