Greetings and welcome to Friday!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
At the start of my week, I worked on the newsletter we released Wednesday morning. Afterwards, I looked over the information about leadership Lincoln and the OCCC strategic plans Paul and the OCCC staff have been developing. Next, I proofread the newsletter to look for any errors. Later, I updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider and wrote a promo for the Fall CO.STARTERS course. At the end of the day, Paul and I toured the new Port of Newport administration building that is currently being built, it looks like it’s going to be an awesome office space! Afterwards I worked on a playlist for the Chalk the Block event happening in Toledo on Saturday.
On Wednesday, I started by going through the fifth-round applications for the Phantom Galleries project and completed the survey on each of those artists for ART Toledo. Next, I posted the CO.STARTERS ad and finished the Chalk the Block playlist. Later, I added another course opportunity to the entrepreneur slider and Paul thankfully helped me get set up and somewhat comfortable with Microsoft teams. After, I wrote and posted a promo for Chalk the Block and worked on the ART Toledo website.
On Thursday morning, I was invited to speak by the VP of University Advancement at EOU at the Oregon State Legislature’s meeting for the Joint Task Force On Student Success for Underrepresented Students in Higher Education. I spoke about my internship with the REV, how it impacted me, and how it has influenced my career since I graduated. I felt very fortunate and proud to be part of the speakers trying to get more funding for internships and career advancement training and support services for state and community college students who are BIPOC, in poverty, first generation students, and/or live in rural areas. Afterwards, I wrote an additional promo for Chalk the Block I will post on Friday. Next, I worked on the ART Toledo website. For the remainder of the day, I researched the average monthly lease rate of commercial properties in Lincoln County. I was not able to find any data on that, so I researched for rent commercial spaces in the county and created an average rate of $/sqft of commercial buildings in the county that I will continue to update as more come on the market.
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Paul’s Update:
Blue Economy – I met this week with the team from COLPAC, the north-coast economic development district. They received a Business Oregon Regional Innovation Hub Planning Grant, and we discussed ways in which our O2IH work and their planning work can overlap, and we can enhance each other’s efforts. I also had another meeting with our SBA rep – he must be dealing with a ton of these earmarks, since he was asking me for the same things as last week (which he did locate, finally). I am also getting a continuing education in the perils of federal-level “quick pivots” – some of the forms that we were required to submit (via specially-coded federal PDFs) can’t even be opened by the SBA themselves. I did spend some time today on the Federal Service Desk website and in a tech support chat, and sorted out a few things I guess the SBA can’t do – all should be good by Tuesday. We’re getting there!
Lincoln County – I’m pleased to report that Lincoln County will be supporting EDALC in FY2022-23 at the requested amount of $50,000. Those funds are for the update of the Lincoln County Economic Report ($30K) and operational support ($20K). Woo hoo! A huge thank you to all the county commissioners and a special fist-bump out to Commissioner Jacobson for her guiding hand.
ART Toledo – This weekend, the “van-lifers” descend on Toledo in force, and Saturday is the first-ever Chalk the Block event. It’s an active art event that allows artists, individuals, van-lifers, teams and families to compete in creating unique chalk art on Main Street. The drawing runs all morning with the “Artists, please put down your chalk!” order being given at 2pm, if you want to see the completed art work.
Port of Toledo – I had a good meeting with Lorna at the port offices yesterday. Sadly (but also excitedly), Lorna will be leaving her role at the Port of Toledo to rejoin Travel Oregon. She’ll be managing overseas marketing in the regions of the Americas and India – sounds awesome! Lorna is a new EDALC Director, and the board will need to decide if her change in professional role should have any effect on that position. Lorna is willing and eager to remain active on the EDALC board – it might be a great advantage to have someone with Travel Oregon on our board.
EDALC Offices – On both our end and at the OCCC, we continue to kick the tires on a potential EDALC office move too the OCCC Waldport building. Sarah and I also met with Paula to tour the new Port of Newport admin building and check out some possible office space there as well. We’ll certainly have some great possibilities to review!
Economic Summit – On Monday, I met with Jeanette and Robbie at the Newport Chamber to continue planning our October economic summit. We’re pretty close to nailing down a great format and some fascinating panelists. We’ll have Todd Davidson, CEO of Travel Oregon, as our keynote speaker. I also spent some closed-door time with new director Robbie, sharing some insights and opportunities I see for the Chamber.
EDALC Communications – We sent out our early summer newsletter early this week – it goes out to about 200 folks. We’ve had some great comments back already – it does seem like that communication tool is very effective for us to keep the larger business community up to date on what we’re doing.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
I had the honor to perform some blues at Literacy Park over the lunch-hour on Wednesday – about 75 folks enjoyed the event. Tonight, Susan and I are going to run a “pop-up bar” at YBEF’s annual meeting at the aquarium tonight, hand-mixing some pretty fancy (and boozy) cocktails.
I’ll be out on Monday – the weather finally looks good for camping so I’ll be putting up my tent in the woods on Sunday night and slow-cooking some jambalaya over the campfire.
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 