Cambridge Local First

• — Frances Moore Lappe on power and happiness

  There's no question that "fighting the good fight", in terms of small businesses, is an uphill battle right now. Even the most successful independent businesses are feeling the pinch, and some of our less successful members are facing real and immediate worries about survival. With the bottom line looming large in everyone's mind, it can be tempting to narrow our focus, concentrating on the bad news and on the things we can't seem to change. 

  
  
  Frances Moore Lappe (author of Diet For a Small Planet and founder of the Small Planet Institute, right here in Cambridge), presents another alternative:

• — Good news for independent businesses around the country

  As my Somerville Local First colleague Joe put it recently, "Go ahead and look, the sky really isn't falling."
  
  The bad news is that the economy is in trouble--we all know that. The good news is that, thanks to Local First and Buy Local campaigns, and a gradual increase in consumer awareness, locally-owned businesses actually did better than their big-box counterparts in many cities this holiday season. Here's an article from our friends at the Minneapolis-based Institute For Local Self-Reliance:
  
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  Independent Retailers Outperform Chains Over Holidays, National Survey Finds
  
  MINNEAPOLIS, MN (Jan. 15, 2009)...

• — CLF comes to Facebook!

  CLF has now joined the Facebook generation with our very own group on everyone's favorite social networking site. If you're already on Facebook, simply search for "Cambridge Local First", and then join our group to receive updates, via your Facebook newsfeed, on all the latest local news. If you're not a Facebook member yet, now is a perfect time to join (though I'll warn you, it's dangerously addictive). If you want an easy way to keep your finger on the pulse of local business in Cambridge, there's no better way to do it than through our Facebook page.
  
  See...

• — The power of a united front

  Frank and I spent a good portion of last Friday morning delivering the new 2009 Member Directories to our member businesses. This year, most of the deliveries have been accomplished by volunteers--an impressive achievement, given the stresses of a holiday season that, for most business owners (and consumers) is even more financially tenuous than usual. As we went around to our member businesses, though, we noticed that very few people actually had their directories on display. Some folks had a display case in a drawer, some of them had put it in a basement or stockroom, and some said "Well,...

• — CLF Neighborhood Event in December

  We know that the holiday season is a busy time for most of our members, but if you have time to take a break, join CLF at the Harvard Museum of Natural History on Friday! This month's Neighborhood Event is being sponsored by Blue Magruder and HMNH, and we'll have refreshments provided by The Fishmonger, Savenor's, and Darwin's. Take a few minutes to catch up with your CLF colleagues, have a glass of wine, and enjoy the holidays. As an added bonus, admission to the HMNH is free until 8 p.m.; if you've never seen the Museum before, this...