Art Director Dave Bastille has been participating in a group art show at Lasell College in Newton. The show, entiled "F1RST", features works by twenty five visual artists considering their first time experiences.

Dave's contribution, a water-based oil painting, depicts a scene from his first airplane flight in 1959. According to Dave, at one point during the evening it was not at all clear whether the plane's engine was on fire!

• Click here for information about the show.
• Visit Dave's web site for more samples of his work.

Two Smiles One Hope, Inc. is a Syracuse-based not-for-profit foundation charged with raising research funding for treatment alternatives and increasing community awareness for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). The Foundation was founded by Allison Willis, a mom to twin boys with DMD, and a high school friend of Kristin's husband, Steve.

As you may know, finding a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy - a fatal genetic disorder that to date remains the number one genetic killer of children worldwide – is a cause that is close to our hearts. Since 2003 we have supported the activities of Ryan's Hope Foundation, an organization founded by Carol's daughter Linda after her son Ryan was diagnosed with DMD.

So, when Allison called asking for help creating a new web site for Two Smiles One Hope, we had to say yes.

While developing the site our challenge was to use as many free, or low-cost tools, as we could to keep the web site overhead low. We also wanted to make it easy for Allison and her husband Matt to make updates to the site, as well as to give visitors the opportunity to make contributions online.

The new site - www.TwoSmilesOneHope.com - is hosted at Yahoo and includes the required functionality using the following tools:

• Online donation through PayPal
• Two Smiles Blog through WordPress (included with their Yahoo hosting service)
• Photo sharing through Flickr
• CafePress
• Smilelines e-newsletter through Constant Contact
  

Wednesday was a busy day with clients from Newton, Massachusetts to Converse, Indiana holding photo and video shoots for upcoming projects.

Carol, Bill and Ed joined our production partner John Goodale and his crew at a studio in Newton to record new cable spots for our client, St. Anne's Credit Union. Commercial photographer Bruno Debas also joined the party to take photos of the talent for use in supporting print materials.

Kristin spent the day in Connecticut with Diana Rose from Jewett City Savings Bank supervising the photo shoot for the Bank's first Annual Report. Working with local commercial photographer Jim Monahan, we spent the day taking pictures of the Bank's staff, senior management and board of directors (picture above is the Bank's senior credit officer keeping things light after a long morning).

At the same time, Tade Powell was pulling together the troops at First Farmers Bank & Trust for their Annual Report. Joined by photographer Eric Marshall, Tade was also capturing photos of staff, senior management and the board of directors.

It's always such a happy surprise when our work is featured in an industry publication. So you can imagine how pleased we were to see First Farmers Bank & Trust's "Mortgage Monster" campaign included on the back page of this month's Community Banker magazine, in an article entitled "An Ounce of Prevention."

In the article, author Melanie Scarborough, wrote:
"Although most community banks are not seeing a significant increase in foreclosures, many consider it wise nonetheless to wage a prevention campaign. First Farmers Bank & Trust, Converse, Ind., uses a mortgage-monster logo to warn its clients to "beware of predators" when mortgage-shopping. "We have never had a problem, but we want our customers to understand the jeopardy they can place themselves in if they do business with disreputable lenders," explained Tade Powell, vice president and director of marketing."

For us, the Mortgage Monster was a way to differentiate the Bank by putting a humorous spin on a serious situation. And, serves as a reminder that  bankers CAN have a little fun!