To register, click here.

Patterns In Nature
The Details:

Sunday, July 17
10:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
We are inviting the whole family to spend the day at Pine Lake Environmental Campus. Grown-ups and teens can relax by the lake, swim, boat and hike while the kids participate in the Patterns in Nature with classes taught by locally, nationally and world reknown artists and scientists. Children will participate in a nature walk, art class, dance class and a photography class taught by world reknown photographer, Michael Forster Rothbart. Younger children may need to be accompanied by an adult. The cost of this day is $25 for the first child, $10 for each additional child and free for teens and adults. Lunch is included for all children. Entrance to Pine Lake is included with the registration fee for the children their all grown-ups and family members.
* Classes appropriate for children ages 3 and up.
* Bring a camera. A limited number of cameras will be available for those who do not have them.
* Don’t forget sunscreen, appropriate footwear for the nature walk, bathing suits and towels.
Events are scheduled for 11:00am to 3:30pm at Pine Lake (1894 Charlotte Creek Road, Davenport NY) but participating families are encouraged to spend the entire day enjoying the Pine Lake Environmental Campus. Dine at the nearby Tally Ho Restaurant on July 17th and if you mention OWL, 10% of your purchase will be donated to OWL.

This post is for all Oneonta businesses:

Welcome to April. Things are really picking up in Oneonta;  the weather is warm and downtown is  bustling even though the students are on break.  At www.OneontaOnTheMap.com we’re noticing more traffic on our website.  People are looking for coupons as well as information about lodging, restaurants, events and Oneonta children’s events.

Here’s a heads-up — try our free Create Coupon feature today. You will find the button on the white bar just below the OneontaOnTheMap header.  I’ll bet it will take you less than 5 minutes to create a coupon using our automated feature.

The beauty of our coupon feature is customers will click on your coupon link and the coupon can be sent to their cell phones (there is a print coupon alternative). Then they just show you the cell phone screen and voila, you will know that they found you here on www.OneontaOntheMap.com. Both you and OneontaOnTheMap will benefit — you’ll find new customers excited to check out your business and we’ll gain return web visitors looking for more coupons.

We don’t want to disappoint people who arrive at OneontaOnTheMap.com website because they searched using the keywords “coupons Oneonta.”   If your business doesn’t ordinarily use coupons, you may use our CREATE COUPON feature to leave info about a daily special or in store sale.

More coupon benefits for you: coupons mean VISIBILITY on our OneontaOnTheMap website. Your listing will appear in a special COUPON category (top of our business listing bar) and your business will automatically “float” to the top of all categories where it appears. That’s right, we break our alphabetic order code to make way for businesses leaving coupons.  We’re currently programming more features to call attention to Oneonta businesses leaving coupons; and should have them ready shortly.

Stay tuned for further Oneonta promotions,

Mary Robinson
www.OneontaOnTheMap.com

e-mail mr@OneontaOnTheMap.com with any comments or suggestions about  our CREATE COUPON feature.

This past Saturday (July 18, 2009) was a fun day — Holistic Health Day at the Oneonta Farmers’ Market, then the Leatherstocking Buzzards Remote Control Aircraft Mini-Fest Hospice Fundraiser (they do some crazy flying!) and in the evening the new B. Sharp Gallery Art Exhibit Opening where we met some interesting artists in a close personal setting.  I usually have to coax Rick to attend art openings, but after this experience his interest in art is piqued.

It’s been a year since we launched* www.OneontaOnTheMap.com; each week as I reflect on developments: businesses adding listings and events, local Tweets from Twitter, photograph entries for July’s contest, and stats and feedback from people who’ve found our database of Oneonta happenings helpful … of course I see so much more that could be done. One of my favorite proverbs, “All beginnings are hard” aptly applies and most computer people will second that notion. I feel overwhelmed by the lofty goals of creating an online community in concert with the Oneonta NY business community, and trying to provide the elusive interactive Internet experience that will keep visitors returning. When I’m in an overwhelmed state, just reading about the numerous exciting events taking place in Oneonta stresses me out.

But Rick, being the pragmatic programmer, brings me back to reality and our original goals: to help people find business and event information and directions quickly, and support the  Oneonta business community by enhancing their web presence (free listings, exposure, social media marketing). I think we’re on the right path, so I’ll relax and enjoy — have fun with our website and around Oneonta.

Rick enjoyed mingling with artists at the B. Sharp Gallery Exhibition Opening.

So yes, we are having fun with this, and hope you’ll hang in with us as we tend our database and watch it grow.  If you’ve found our website and information helpful, let businesses or event organizers know you found them here. Now it’s back to work as we have some new features we’ll be announcing soon.

Thanks for listening,

Mary Robinson

www.OneontaOnTheMap.com — Telling you what you want to know & where to go!

*OneontaOnTheMap.com has been up and running for over a year; however, we officially launched it in Dec. 2008.

Hope everyone had a happy Mother’s Day weekend.

On Sat., thanks to a Twitter Tweet from Harmony Hill Retreat Center, I was reminded that May 9 was the Annual East Meredith Fire Dept. Frank Briggs Pancake Day. Off we drove to our old neighborhood hamlet (we lived in E. Meredith for ten years), and had the most delicious pancake lunch. E. Meredith Fire Dept. is known for their home made sausage, which did not disappoint us.

As we were driving down Main Street Oneonta, we noticed a car wash sponsored by the Oneonta Stallions, a semi-professional football team. Who are these Oneonta Stallions? I gave them a donation and a card and said I’d like to know more; hope they check in and add their listing and also future events. Talk to me! Here’s a pic.

Although we missed the opening night (May 9) reception for the B. Sharp Gallery art exhibition, we stopped by Sunday to view the artwork and talk with gallery owner Bobby Sharp. This exhibition of local artists will be at the B. Sharp Gallery until the end of this month. Check OneontaOnTheMap event calendar for days and times.  Here’s a few pics.

Bobby Sharp and Joe LaBruzzo talking about the art and future show plans.

Taking in the artwork

Photography: a Catskills sunset took my breath away.

And it wasn’t all food and play this weekend (although we did stop in at the Latte Lounge for a gelato treat) — I finished painting our sign and Rick put it up!

Rick hangs our website sign!

Thanks for listening,
Mary Robinson
www.OneontaOnTheMap.com
The business directory with the personal note

Business Model, Part I

As we’re traversing Oneonta and stopping in at businesses to introduce ourselves and promote our directory website, we’re frequently asked, “Why are you doing this?” or “How are you going to make money from www.OneontaOnTheMap.com?”  Two very good questions, I would say!

Rick has been working on this website for so long that he’s probably forgotten why he started it:)  I think it had something to do with Google Maps making their software available and also his happening upon the business model presented in a book, The Four Hour Work Week.  (Ha, we’ve spent countless hours, not four hours, every week on this site.) But I’ll save the details of the synchronicity that lead to the creation of our site, and instead blog about how we plan to serve businesses, visitors and residents in our area and beyond.

I’ll begin with the three C’s: Community, Coupons and Contests.  Oneonta on the Map is community focused, being for LOCALS, published by LOCALS, and we want the business community to play a starring role by adding and editing their own listings, publicizing events, giving coupons or announcing sales —we want customers to say they  “heard it first at Oneonta On The Map.”

To keep everything in real time — we’ve made business listings DYNAMIC — they can be easily changed, and the changes announced as soon as a restaurant changes a menu or store announces specials or sales. We’re more than just a website, we’re a web presence for your business; if you provide a web page link, we send customers to your page.  If your business does not have a web page,  your listing on Oneonta On The Map can contain your photo, hours of operation and what makes you unique and exciting — your web presence is here. People will find you through Oneonta On The Map. We’ll be talking more about coupons in the near future.

The contest part is about fun and reasons for our audience to return to Oneonta On The Map.  Our first contest — The Gift Certificate Give Aways (to Elena’s and Green Toad Books) ends on April 15.  We’ve got more ideas brewing, so keep following this blog for updates. By the way, if you haven’t entered the contest yet, the odds right now of winning are phenomenal. Tell your friends and customers about Oneonta On The Map and send them our way.

Thanks for listening.