Carpooling. After getting my daughter off to school this morning, I carpooled with Andrew Baker (of the Hilltown CDC) to a meeting of the directors of various Western Massachusetts Community Development Corporations (CDCs). The meeting was in Ware, about 90 minutes from my home in Ashfield.

Presenting. I presented an overview of the common good bank project and made a strong case for CDCs to partner with us to make it happen. Andrew, who has been an active member of our Advisory Board for years now, was of course supportive. John Waite of the Franklin County CDC has also been a supporter of the project. The other CDC directors asked some good questions and expressed some reservations. I see this as a first step in several longer discussions. I will give each of them a call sometime soon.

Before driving the hour and a half back, I answered some emails and accepted the Quaboag CDC’s invitation to sit in on the meeting while we all had a tasty lunch. Andrew and I had some good conversations both coming and going.

The Day Shot. Getting back to my home office around 2:30, I handled a few more communications, spent a few minutes discussing a minor glitch in our solar hot water installation with Gary Clark (of Clark Sustainable Energy), threw the frisbee around with my daughter for a few minutes, then dashed off (in the car) again to make an evening presentation to the Warwick Select Board, in another far-flung corner of the Pioneer Valley.

Getting Lost. I followed my Google Map instructions easily until I got to “Turn right on Warwick Road” in Northfield. Each road had a sign. I stopped twice for directions, but the two locals I asked didn’t know. I drove all the way to New Hampshire, but no road was called “Warwick Road”.

I went back into town and asked where the nearest gas station was, because by this time I was running low and hadn’t seen one for half an hour. A kind person at the video rental place told me that Warwick’s station would be closed and Northfield’s had been sold to a corporation, which closed it last week because it was unprofitable (leaving Northfielders and me hoist(ed) with the very profit-motivated petard we’re working to defuse!). I had to backtrack all the way to Bernardston, which would mean being at least 45 minutes late for the Select Board meeting.

I was also starting to ask myself what the heck I was doing driving two hours to talk to people who see themselves (with some truth) as powerless public servants rather than as community leaders. I cut my losses and came home, arriving at 7:30pm, with apologies to Warwick’s town officials.

Lesson from the day: I will travel henceforth only to meet with potential investors. We have several strong partnerships already. Additional partnerships can be arranged by phone and email or not at all — the success rate is not worth the travel time it takes.