Greetings and welcome to Friday! We hope you all survived ice-mageddon. I bet some of you (Susan and I included) have stories to share of white-knuckled driving horrors. We have also started, in earnest, putting together a basic survival kit for a much longer duration – just in case!
This past week, we worked remotely for part of Tuesday (until the power went out again) and Wednesday. Yesterday, all three of us were in the office.
Here’s our staff update for the week – a little shorter than normal, for obvious reasons:
Blue Economy::
Next weekend is the Big Blue Film Festival at Hatfield and the PAC in Newport – full info is here: https://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/big-blue-film-fest
Winter Waters is at the Yaquina Lab on Friday, February 2: Both Sarah and Leslie will be at the event to help out, so I’d love to signal-boost this bragworthy event in the Blue Economy world. Tickets are $35 as it’s also a fundraiser for The Central Coast Food Web. Let’s help get the word out through our board’s networks! Please see and share the online info/invite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/winter-waters-at-the-yaquina-lab-tickets-788633051687
Broadband::
This Thursday was the monthly Broadband Action Team meeting. The Broadband Technical Assistance Program is now open for applications and Rural Prosperity Partners is working on an application for Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties (with EDALC as the applicant) – that application is due February 2nd. Next week, we’ll be pulling together some letters of support for that effort. – Paul
Communication/Marketing ::
I posted on Facebook this week thanking all the hardworking crews working to restore power and clean the roads! – Sarah
Community and Economic Development Grant Program::
We’re already getting a few scoring sheets in. If you can shoot to have your completed scoring to me no later than EoD on Monday the 29th, that would be awesome! As a reminder, here is the link to the grant applications, scoring spreadsheet and scoring rubric:
Community Connecting (from Leslie)::
Coastal Drinking Water Protection Workshop Series: Next sessions in early February
In partnership with DEQ’s Drinking Water Protection Team and the Coalition of Oregon Land Trusts, I’ve been on the design team planning a series of coastal workshops to help rural communities build relationships and understanding with drinking water providers, technical support agencies, grant-giving agencies, land trusts, and anyone else who has an interest or overlap in drinking watershed land protection and restoration.
Our next hybrid workshops are coming up in early February. If you’d like to learn more or register, contact me (leslie@businesslincolncounty.com) or see the flier at: http://tinyurl.com/febwaterwrkshp
Arcoíris Cultural’s New Lincoln City Office: Open House Celebration –
Felicidades to the Olalla Center and their Arcoíris Cultural team on their new office at the Lincoln City Cultural Center! They’re throwing a family-friendly Open House celebration with free appetizers and drinks, music, and dance performances on Friday, January 26th, from 4-7 PM.
Creative Economies::
This week I reviewed and made suggestions on the ART Toledo bylaws for becoming a nonprofit and looked into establishing a PO box in Toledo for the organization. – Sarah
Economic Summit::
Paul, Leslie and I did some Economic Summit planning together and then worked on some initial tasks to get the event plan solidified. – Sarah
Entrepreneurship::
This week I had to reschedule all my interviews and send questions out for the Youth Entrepreneur Program business highlight videos. I also created the introduction and outro for those videos. – Sarah
Organizational Management::
This week, we finished off the first rounds of Zoom interviews for our half-time Organizational Coordinator position. We ended up receiving just under 30 applicants and most of them qualified (there are always some crazy outliers, especially on Indeed). Leslie, Sarah and I met at the office yesterday to review the top candidate resumes and interviews (we recorded the Zooms). We are coordinating with our top four first round interviewees for in-person interviews with the team. Sarah and I also started work on putting together a 2023 EDALC year-in-review document that we can share with our funding partners. – Paul
Project Work::
I worked on building a list of EDALC’s projects and accomplishments in 2023, updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider, and created a YouTube playlist for the Drinking Water Workshop videos. – Sarah
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
I’m STILL on jury duty call – my next check in is on Tuesday evening to see if I have to serve on Wednesday the 24th.
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 🙂