Greetings and welcome to Friday and welcome to March!

 

A huge thank you to the Directors that could make it to our March in-person Board meeting at the PAC (and to Marshall for Zooming in from Salem!). The food, created by the Raised by Wolves food truck, was amazing. And thanks to Jason for showing us around the renovations at the PAC – the team already has some interesting event ideas for the Black Box theatre space! Also a very loud Huzzah! goes out to Stacie for setting *everything* up for the BoD meeting!

 

We also had a frank and necessary conversation on our fund development efforts as we plan for the next fiscal year in this time of unprecedented volatility. Carrie suggested that we try to schedule a virtual conversation with the Directors who couldn’t make it yesterday to get everyone up to speed.

 

This week, the EDALC team moved the team back to the OCCC south campus in Waldport. The repairs (after the hot water heater flooding) make it look like nothing ever happened. It took us a few days to get everything put back together and operational. A huge THANK YOU to OCCC for finding EDALC some temporary space in Newport for our 14-week relocation!

 

As a reminder – we’ll be hosting our third annual Lincoln County Economic Summit next Thursday (March 13th) at Spryglass (at the Inn at Otter Crest). As of this afternoon, we’ve got 84 attendees signed up. Directors can use promo code EDALCBoard to reserve their spot for FREE at tinyurl.com/2025LCSummit.

 

As a heads up, we won’t have a weekly update next Friday – or rather, we can provide that update right now: “The entire team worked this week on our economic summit.” We’ll see you back here on March 21st.

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • CWEDD – Paul led the spring Board meeting for the Cascades West Economic Development District on Thursday morning, held at the offices of the Lane Council of Governments in Eugene. Paul was also elected to a second term as the chair of the EDD. The next CWEDD Board meeting will be in June on the coast.
  • Entrepreneurship
      • Business Support – Paul met with Eric Bohne, the (relatively new) owner of the Eagles Club in Toledo to discuss possible approaches to making it a profitable event space. Paul also met Greg Ervin of United ACA solutions to discuss ways in which the CWIH could support their expansion needs.
      • Cascades West Innovation Hub (CWIH) – Paul presented an update on the CWIH to the full CWEDD Board meeting. It was also agreed that the CWIH should be considered a “working group” within CWEDD going forward.
  • Core Economic Development Services
  • Lincoln County Economic Summit – Stacie and Sarah sent a final registration push via email and social media. Stacie began working on the web page for summit materials, did an inventory check on supplies, tested badge creation, and reached out to confirm an attendee request for accommodations. Sarah led the team through prep and day of brainstorming to ensure our checklist is complete going into next week. Sarah finished up the pillars of the local economy videos. She also sent the agenda and additional logistics to the speakers and moderators and put together packet materials. 
  • Community & Economic Development Grant Program – Press release was edited per county PIO feedback. 
  • Community Connecting
  • Born This Way; The Trans Experience Lecture – After this week’s EDALC Board Meeting, Leslie and Stacie attended the final lecture in the Newport Recreation Center’s Winter Lecture Series, given by Marci Grace Frederic. Not only did Marci’s lecture bring the largest in-person turnout of the entire series, but she poignantly shared her life journey in Lincoln County, including her experiences, advocacy work, recommendations, and the positive impacts she’s made on many lives of all ages and all gender identities in our area. Thank you to Marci for having the bravery to speak out, to Newport Parks & Recreation for hosting and posting this session, and to all the community members who joined for the respectful dialogue and Q&A session. Leslie can’t recommend watching this lecture recording enough. You will likely learn answers to questions you didn’t realize you had, as well as the current state of the country’s treatment of trans and gender-expansive folks. 
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication
  • Stacie posted Friday community roundup and shared relevant partner/regional posts on various social media channels.
  • Admin
  • Fund Development – Paul and Leslie met on Wednesday to discuss some supplementary funding to support her Community Connector position. Paul and Carrie also met to discuss overall EDALC funding for FY25-26, in preparation for yesterday’s BoD meeting.
      • The team spent the majority of Monday moving back into the Waldport office.
      • Stacie prepped and set up for the 3/6 board meeting and drafted the 3/6 minutes before she forgets what was said. She also attended the SBDC’s  “A Day in the Life of Disability Workshop” on Thursday evening to improve her own awareness as well as EDALC’s ability to provide accommodations in meetings and events.

 

That’s it for this week. Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Keep us posted if you have anything you want us to share, and don’t be stingy with your ideas – we love hearing from you!

 

Cheers,

 

-The EDALC Team (Paul, Sarah, Leslie and Stacie)