Greetings and welcome to Friday! Holy cow, what a busy week! I had two days where I was literally sucked into a Zoom wormhole – popping onto one meeting and actually asking “what meeting is this?” Out in the larger world, not all that much going on – a new president was sworn in. Compared to the last 45 weeks or so, I’d call that a slow news cycle!
Here’s our update for the week –
====
Suzan’s week:
* Daily/ weekly routine tasks
* Buy office supplies
* Search for tax docs
* Prepare/write doc for staff mini-retreat
* Staff meeting – mini-retreat
* Pay bills in bill pay
* Update QBO
* Read documents
* Minutes
* Complete/mail forms
====
Paul’s week:
Digital Marketing Test – We wrapped up our digital marketing test earlier this week – I haven’t yet had a chance to deep dive into the data, but the basics are we that achieved 9,573 ad views based on our keywords. Those ad views lead to 276 clicks through to our “Remote Work in Lincoln County” landing page. The total cost of the test campaign was $597.51 (remember, $500 of that was money I won at the OregonRAIN pitch competition). I’ll unpack the data more deeply next week to see what we can learn.
Trekking to Yachats – I had a chance this week to trek down to Yachats and meet Kerry in person (he’s taller than I imagined!). We talked short term rentals, and he also took me on a drive through the Waldport industrial park, showing me the opportunities and challenges (and our potential role) in moving that park forward and getting it truly shovel ready. Thanks a ton, Kerry!
Newport 2040 – I was asked to serve on the Newport 2040 Creating New Businesses & Jobs Work Group. We had a great meeting this week and discussed ways to inform and connect existing efforts with the various strategic areas of vision. We also discussed highlights over the past year that will be presented to the Newport City Council. One of them is going to be our “economic support ecosystem” map we developed – how cool is that?
North Lincoln County Economic Development – This week, we restarted the discussion group focused on north coast economic development. This group had come together in the past and had some good discussions, but the general sense was no real results happened, so the current push to to make things happen, which I’m all for. Beyond us, Lincoln City, the SBDC, Pacific Power and BusinessOregon we represented. We were also joined by newly-sworn-in State Senator Dick Anderson. One very positive takeaway was the very enthusiastic support for our organization (as the county’s economic development organization), our new direction and the current work we’re doing.
PPP – After discussions with the Executive Committee, we submitted an EDALC application for PPP funding, since for the first time, 501(c)(6) nonprofits are eligible. With some help from Bryan’s team, I was able to gather together all of the requisite documents – we’re applying through Columbia, since our business checking account it there. I’ll be heading over there this afternoon to get the application notarized. I’ll keep you all posted.
Toledo Arts – I was able to secure the “arttoledo.com” URL for the Main Street art project and set up a hosting site with a bare-bones WordPresss site. Toledo high school media teacher Rachael Wallace’s class will be creating a website for the phantom gallery art project that looks to launch later this spring.
Travel Oregon Destination Grant – I attended a training session this week to go over the new Destination Ready grant program from Travel Oregon (https://industry.traveloregon.com/opportunities/programs-initiatives/destination-ready-program/). I’ll need to do a little research to see if there are any project areas that fit within this grant program. We’ve also been asked already by several organizations to write letters of support for their applications.
Enterprise Zone Renewal – The first step in our EZ renewal process will be reaching out to the sponsoring and consenting taxing bodies to determine if they support the zone’s renewal (right now, I don’t anticipate any problems). Once that’s completed, I’ll formally indicate to BusinessOregon that we will be seeking to renew the zone. I’m attending a webinar in a week or so on processes and procedures for changing zone boundaries during the renewal process. Again, I’ll keep you posted.
BAT – The Broadband Action Team met this week. The EDA feasibility planning grant for Linn, Benton, Lincoln and Lane counties was approved! At this time, intergovernmental agreements are being secured and the planning work is expected to begin in approximately two months.
Staff Planning 2021 – Suzan and I had our staff mini-retreat on Wednesday where we discussed internal and external organizational goals and well as current and upcoming project work. We also reviewed the changes in the Office Manager job description to allocate more time to project support work going forward. All in all, a very positive and energetic retreat!
Blue Economy – On Monday, I finished up and submitted a project budget for a “MIC” project brief to create a fishing boat simulation game, aimed at 7th and 8th graders. Currently, Mark Farley and Rachael Maddock-Hughes are reviewing project briefs to prepare them into a “deck” to share with potential funding agencies.
Upcoming Meetings (some reminders):
Strategic Alignment Committee:
Jan 28, 2021 03:00 PM Pacific Time
https://zoom.us/j/97417320274?pwd=TEdwSDRPWnhLZUlJMGx6RTUvR0ZSZz09
EDALC February Board of Directors:
Feb 4, 2021 03:30 PM Pacific Time
https://zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09
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 🙂