Beach Cleanups Near Me

Volunteers & Beers: Rhodes Park Cleanup + ThunderWing Brewing!

Ready to get your hands dirty and reward yourself with some of the best local craft beer on the West Side? Join us for our next **Volunteers and Beers** outing! We’re heading to Rhodes Park to clear out litter, spruce up the green spaces, and keep Columbus beautiful. Once we’ve done the heavy lifting, we’re taking the short 4-minute drive over to **ThunderWing Brewing** to celebrate a job well done.

Happy Sand Volleyball club

Columbus OSINT and AI: Mining Data Insights

We are getting together to talk about the intersection of open source intelligence and machine learning. This meetup is designed for practitioners, researchers, and anyone curious about how AI tools are changing the way we collect, analyze, and verify data. The goal is to move past the theory and share practical approaches for mining insights in an increasingly noisy digital landscape. Whether you are a seasoned analyst or just starting to experiment with these technologies, this is a space to exchange ideas and troubleshoot common challenges. We will keep the format informal, focusing on open conversation and peer-to-peer learning rather than a formal presentation. If you have been working on a project or have a specific technique you have been testing, feel free to bring it up. We look forward to seeing everyone in person and building out our local community here in Columbus. If you think you can make it, please go ahead and RSVP so we can get an accurate headcount for the space.

Westgate Park & Taft's Brewpourium

Want to help keep our parks beautiful and grab a pint while you're at it? Join us for our very first **Volunteers & Beers** meetup! We’re spending a couple of hours cleaning up Westgate Park, and then we’re rewarding ourselves with cold drinks and New Haven-style pizza just down the road in Franklinton. Whether you're a long-time local or just looking to meet some good people, we’d love to have you. **The Game Plan:** * **When:** Sunday, October 4th * **The Work (4:00 PM - 6:00 PM):** Meet at Westgate Park. We’ll provide the trash bags—just bring comfortable shoes and some community spirit! * **The Reward (6:00 PM onward):** We’ll head over to **Taft’s Brewpourium** in Franklinton to grab some huge communal tables, share some incredible coal-fired pizza, and toast to a job well done. we will be meeting at the parking lot in the south of the park here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/DEqQwRw1sTJvjRAR8

Tour Rumple Recycling Center, take a walk, and dine at Scotty's Cafe!

This will be a very cool event! We will start with a tour of the Rumpke Recycling & Resource Center, the largest and most technically advanced recycling center in North America. The tour starts at 9 am so plan on arriving a few minutes early so our group can convene. There may be a few other people on our tour, which lasts an hour. From there we'll go to Nelson Park, which is about 1.4 miles from Rumpke, has parking and sits directly on Alum Creek Trail (which is paved). We'll walk about 3 miles (out and back) on Alum Creek and then head to Scotty's Cafe for lunch. Closed toe shoes with backs are required. https://www.rumpke.com/about-us/service-areas/oh/franklin-county/columbus/recycling-resource-center https://scottys-cafe.menu-world.com/#about Address: Nelson Park, 430 N. Nelson Rd., Columbus, OH Address: Scotty's Cafe, 2980 East Broad St., Columbus, OH

Ultimate Frisbee on Saturday

Ultimate Frisbee at Whetstone

Trails & Ales! Blacklick Woods Metro Park / Eastside Brewing Co

**History** The deep indigenous history of the land comprising [Blacklick Woods Metro Park](https://www.metroparks.net/parks-and-trails/blacklick-woods/) came to light in stages, beginning with a major discovery during the park's mid-century expansion. In 1961, the park district acquired a 100-acre parcel of land where a previous owner had stripped away topsoil and gravel from a five-acre section. Beneath the surface, workers uncovered 16 ancient fire rings buried roughly 30 inches underground. The park district promptly invited Dr. Raymond S. Baby, the respected Curator of Archaeology at the Ohio State Museum, to evaluate the site. After a thorough review, Dr. Baby confirmed the authenticity of the find and determined that the fire rings were the unmistakable remnants of a prehistoric Late Woodland period Indian village dating between AD 600 and AD 1200. This incredible area was proudly highlighted as the "Indian Village Site" on official Blacklick Woods park maps throughout the 1960s, anchoring the park's identity in Ohio's rich indigenous heritage. Decades later, the park's archaeological timeline expanded significantly when a completely separate, grander feature was discovered hidden just west of Blacklick Creek. In 2017, David Lamp, an eagle-eyed former archaeologist from Lancaster, was systematically analyzing historical aerial photographs kept by the USDA to locate undocumented native structures. While examining a photograph captured in 1954 -- back when the property was still a rural farm owned by the Ashton Lamp family -- he spied a massive, distinct dark circle. Because perfect circles are an extreme anomaly in the natural world, Lamp immediately recognized the shadow as the footprint of a forgotten indigenous monument. Before the land became a protected park, decades of heavy agricultural plowing and livestock grazing had flattened the ground, wearing the structure's physical height down to an easily overlooked 10 inches tall. To verify Lamp's incredible aerial find, a team from the Heartland Earthworks Conservancy partnered with park staff to clear away dense brush and trees covering the site. Renowned volunteer archaeologist Jarrod Burks led a sophisticated geophysical survey on September 24, 2017, inviting the public to watch the science unfold in real time. Burks pulled an array of highly sensitive magnetometers across the soil, measuring minuscule variations in the ground's magnetic content. Because topsoil holds a higher magnetic signature than deeper substrate layers, the instruments clearly mapped a massive, ancient ditch that had filled with topsoil over centuries of erosion. This advanced technology produced a stunning, flawless digital visualization of a hidden prehistoric circular earthwork buried right beneath the feet of unsuspecting park hikers. The data collected by Burks revealed that the Blacklick Circle originally featured a three-to-five-foot earthen embankment pairing with a distinct interior ditch. The structure is estimated to have a total diameter of just under 100 feet, and the magnetic imaging perfectly captured the precise location of the circle’s original eastern entranceway. Archaeologists attribute this monumental construction to the ancient Adena or Hopewell cultures, pushing the park’s human history back roughly 2,000 to 2,200 years. While the Adena and Hopewell peoples are famous throughout the Ohio River valley for building giant burial mounds, circular enclosures like this one served distinct communal purposes. Because these earthworks do not contain human remains, they are understood to be highly sacred, carefully engineered gathering spaces for spiritual ceremonies and social alignment. Today, the Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks system treats this miraculous discovery as a crown jewel of regional cultural heritage. Rather than excavating and disrupting the sacred ground, the park utilizes a creative technique known as interpretive mowing. By cutting the grass at strategic heights, rangers visually outline the exact contours and entrance of the ancient circle so visitors can appreciate its scale from the adjacent recreational trail. Educational signs and informative placards now stand near the site, teaching families about the advanced architectural and mathematical skills of the region's first inhabitants. The discovery stands as a powerful reminder that our local green spaces are not just nature preserves, but deeply sacred, historical landscapes that have drawn human communities together for millennia. **Map of the Park** Here is a [map of Blacklick Woods](https://www.metroparks.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/BLK-map-May-2025-with-extended-greenway_1980px.jpg). **Summary** For this event, we will hike about 4.5 miles by doing a couple loops of the Buttonbush, Tucker, Maple Loop, and Beech trails. Blacklick Woods is a very nice park, but it is generally flat and not strenuous, so this will be one of our easier hikes. **Where We'll Meet** Drive all the way to the back of the park to the parking lot that is nearest the Nature Center. There are restrooms here next to the [Canopy Walk](https://www.metroparks.net/parks-and-trails/blacklick-woods/#canopy-walk). We'll meet near these restrooms. **After the Hike** Afterward, we'll head over to [Eastside Brewing Co](https://www.eastsidebrewingco.com/) for drinks and [food](https://www.facebook.com/p/Smash-N-Eatz-61578406199442/). The actual address of the brewery is [1421 Davidson Dr, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068](https://www.google.com/maps/place/1421+Davidson+Dr,+Reynoldsburg,+OH+43068/@39.9541807,-82.8056303,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x8838648e132b4655:0x9d9c1d48e854e09b!8m2!3d39.9541807!4d-82.8056303!16s%2Fg%2F11bw49sw7m?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDkxMy4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D). We should be there by 5 if you can't make the hike and just want to join us for drinks.

Oscar Season Kickoff: DIGGER at the Drexel Theatre!

Join us for an Oscar Watch film as we get together to see the satirical-dark-comedy, DIGGER! The film is written/directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and stars Tom Cruise as the world’s most powerful man as he tries to save the world from the disaster he created. Here’s a description, trailer and our plan for this event: DESCRIPTION: The most powerful man in the world embarks on a frantic mission to prove he is humanity's savior before the disaster he unleashed destroys everything. The film is directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Babel, Biutiful, Birdman, The Revenant) and stars Tom Cruise, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman, Sandra Hüller, Michael Stuhlbarg and Jesse Plemons. TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORTe1wW3Wg EARLY BUZZ: DIGGER is generating some early award-season buzz, particularly for Tom Cruise. The film is bypassing the traditional Fall Festivals (Toronto, Venice, etc.) and will have its world premiere as the Royal Film Performance in September, just ahead of our Opening Night screening at the Drexel. PLAN: We’ll plan for a 7pm-ish showing and will meet inside the lobby area about 30 minutes before showtime. Advance ticket purchase not required for this theater but early arrival is advised! Be sure to mention you are with the Movie Group for admission and concession discounts! Possible bite before or after the show! Showtime and complete details will be confirmed/announced on the Tuesday before the event!

Vineyard Intermediate Volleyball (Fridays) 🏐

Ultimate Frisbee on Sunday at 4 pm

Columbus city aeration schedule