Greetings and welcome to Friday. Some blue sky today after record rains! And the sunset off the Yaquina Bay bridge yesterday – breathtaking!!
Here’s our staff update for the week:
Broadband::
This week, I submitted comments to the Oregon Broadband Office on their most recent BEAD rules draft. The key item that seemed “out of whack” is a requirement that any BEAD-funded project address ALL unserved locations within an entire school district. For rural counties with large-area school districts, this creates potentially unsolvable logistical concerns (due to geographic area and incumbent ISPs). Klamath county is called out as the only exception, but it would make things so complex for Lincoln County as well. – Paul
Blue Economy::
We (myself, Sarah and Mark Farley) met with the ERG team for the official kick-off meeting for the NOAA Economic Impact study – which will look at the actual impact of the Pacific fleet being located in Newport – locally, regionally and state wide. It’s about a 5-6 month project, starting in earnest in January. – Paul
This week I sent the Central Coast Food Web a grant agreement for some O2IH funds and I attended the Central Coast Food Web board meeting on Wednesday. I also attended an Oregon Cluster Initiative and SBDC meeting discussing possible collaboration projects with youth entrepreneurship and attended the NOAA economic report planning meeting on Friday. – Sarah
Communication/Marketing::
I posted on the EDALC Facebook page about an upcoming Reinventing Rural business course and a promotional video for the SBDC’s Youth Entrepreneurship Program. I also worked on the holiday newsletter throughout the week. – Sarah
Community Connector::
Yesterday, Leslie and I formally submitted our “invited strategic grant” application to the Ford Family Foundation to relaunch the Community Connector position with EDALC and to also provide additional resources for that position. All told, it was a one year $123,000 application, with hopes of continuing it for several years into the future. It’s worth noting that this is the first-ever invited application for a 501c6 organization – FFF sees it as a valuable pilot program to see if they can open up their applicant pool to a wider array or organization types. Hats off to Leslie for the hard work on this and for her good work in the Community Connector position through FY2022-23 that inspired the FFF to take this rather remarkable step. We’ll keep you posted! – Paul
Community and Economic Development Grant Program::
We’ve had quite a few inquiries on potential projects for the 2023-24 round, and one completed application so far (most come in over the last few days of the submission window). The deadline is 5pm on Monday, December 18th. – Paul
Entrepreneurship::
I finished up the Youth Entrepreneurship Program promotional video and uploaded it onto our youtube page, if you would like to watch it here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhEdysoXVtQ – Sarah
Events::
I attended the Oregon Coast Visitor’s Association business social at the aquarium Monday evening. – Sarah
Newsletter::
We’re working on our year-end holiday newsletter, which will go out before the Christmas holiday. Please let us know if there’s anything you want to have included or promoted. – Paul
Organizational Development::
This week, Sarah and I met to go over vital projects and tasks we want to wrap up before the new year and also initial projects out of the gate in January. – Paul
I added our EDALC staff end of year tasks and Economic Summit planning to Monday.com. – Sarah
Project Work::
I finished the November board meeting minutes, began to work on editing the drinking water DEQ meeting video, and read the broadband Affordable Connectivity Program outreach toolkit. – Sarah
Supporting and Connecting with Partners::
SBDC YEP – This week, Leslie organized a collaborative meeting between us, the SBDC Youth Entrepreneurship Program facilitation team and the Oregon Cluster Initiative. It was a great opportunity to explore ways we can collaborate to help deliver some local focus for the program. Early next week, Sarah and I will be meeting with Gregory to talk about the pitch event and also ways we can enhance the course content with some video interviews of active entrepreneurs. – Paul
YBEF – This week, I ran the December YBEF meeting. We had a lively discussion on projects to focus on for the remainder of the fiscal year. It was great to see the members dial in on a few key projects and not take the “laundry list” approach. – Paul
Upcoming:
Completed and eligible grant applications will go out to board members before the end of December.
Jury duty – I’ve been tapped to be on-call for jury duty in January (luck me?). I’ll do my best to keep the work flowing and will let you know if I get sucked onto any actual juries. – Paul
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Starting next Tuesday, my mother-in-law will be in town for a 10 day pre-Xmas visit. When the schedule allows, I’ll be taking a few whole and half days off to spend time with her and Susan.
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all. Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂