TGE SG Directory 2025

4 2025 | Tower Grove East & South Grand Community Directory Welcome to Tower Grove East and South Grand! Dear Tower Grove East Neighbors, It is my pleasure to serve you as Tower Grove East Neighborhood Association President for the 2024 -2025 term. I have lived in the neighborhood for about nine or 10 years with my cat, Gravy. My wife, Emily, and her cat, Pepper, joined us a few years back. I run a small real estate and construction firm, Heritage Properties, at the corner of Shenandoah and Louisiana, with my business partner, Warren. We all love living and working here – the wonderful neighbors we have are a big part of that! Here are some things I am eager to work on during my term: • Boost Community Engagement: Let’s bring more neighbors into our conversations and activities. Whether it’s fun events, informative meetings, or casual get- togethers, there’s a place for everyone. • Simplify Board Work: As a purely volunteer position, the job of a TGENA officer or board member should be made as easy as possible. I’d like to explore using new software designed to help with the needs of a small non-profit organization. • Revitalize Our Bylaws: Updating our guidelines to reflect what works best for us will streamline our efforts and encourage more participation. We would love to see some new faces at our monthly meetings. If you are a regular attendee, just letting your neighbors know when the meeting is and that you intend to go keeps it on folks’ radar. We meet to address quality-of-life issues and to be a part of city government transparency, but we also meet to get to know our neighbors and enjoy social time with each other. Beyond engagement, most of my goals for my term are rather internally focused at the TGENA Board level. Volunteering at an organization is a generous commitment, and I want to make sure we are doing everything we can to make the job of a TGENA officer or board member as easy as possible. To that end, looking into different software and IT possibilities is on my agenda. This includes the possibility of a platform to track membership, collect dues, run email communications and other tasks useful to a small non-profit organization. Another area I would like to spend some time working on is a review of our bylaws to make sure they are clear, concise and consistent. If the customs of the organization are different from the bylaws, it’s important to capture in the rules what is working and think about why the current rules aren’t. This relates back to engagement and recruiting willing candidates and nominees for officer and board positions. If we can’t find enough people, let’s figure out why, or think of a different way of doing things. Lastly, I am here to learn. I’m new to the leadership of the organization and compared to some, I’m pretty new to the neighborhood. I’m eager to find out more about the organization, the neighborhood and the people who live and work here. Tristan Mackenzie President Tower Grove East Neighborhood Association