Greetings and welcome to Friday! It’s truly a gorgeous day out there!
Here’s our staff update for the week:
Blue Economy::
On Wednesday morning, Sarah, myself and Mark Farley met with Courtney Flathers – our local governor’s office Regional Solutions team representative. We also met with the new Regional Development Director from Business Oregon – Laura Engstrom (replacing Melissa Murphy). We got them up to speed on what’s upcoming in our Blue Economy work, talked about the NOAA lease and I also gave them a general overview of our priorities and the economic landscape here in Lincoln County. – Paul
Community Connecting::
Leslie and I met this week to review the Ford Family Foundation’s legal team’s checklist which will allow them to work with us (as a 501c6) and continue to fund the Community Connector position. I’ll be pulling together the required documents (nothing too arduous) and Leslie and I will be working on the position agreement – hopefully all can be in place for Leslie to be back at it in September. – Paul
Creative Economies::
For ART Toledo this week, I updated the Art Oysters & Brews page on the current EDALC website and put together the responses from the vendor survey. I also posted about the August 5th Art, Oysters & Brews event and the Michael Gibbons mural presentation on the EDALC Facebook page. – Sarah
I reached out to finalize the logistics for the three musical acts for next Saturday’s AOB event. – Paul
Data Projects::
This week, I heard from Kristin Yuille at Lincoln County about the economic report update project (I was expecting a contract this week). She wants us to solicit three bids for the work (we can’t just move forward with the original consultant on the report, even though they will most like be far and away the least expensive). It’s frustrating, since we could have done this 10 months ago, but Sarah and I are already prepping a simple RFP to go out next week – I’ll also reach out again to the Research Group LLC to see if their cost estimate has changed in the 13 months since this project was approved. We’re getting there! – Paul
Entrepreneurship:
I went to dinner with a local woman who is a financial consultant to discuss Newport’s economy and some industries she was interested in for finding new clients. She mentioned that in a previous place she ran her business they had a group called “Masterminds”, that included community members who provide financial, tax, retirement, and succession planning. She explained the purpose of this group was to exchange resources, clients, and try to recruit more people into providing and using those services. I wanted to mention the idea and ask if any of our board members would be interested in something like this or have any information on if something like this has happened in Lincoln County before? Thank you! – Sarah
Project Work::
This week I researched county economic data and updated our EDALC county profile. I also updated the links on the website that weren’t working. I continued to work on the newsletter and put together the board meeting minutes from both of June’s meetings. I updated Oregon Prospector listings and the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider later in the week. – Sarah
Rural Opportunity Initiative::
I spent a good chunk of this week preparing the final grant report (both narrative and budget) for our ROI project work since January 2022. That went off to Business Oregon today. We did hear from Laura at Business Oregon that they think our Lincoln County ROI work was some of the most impactful across the state (high fives all around!). I also did hear today that the ROI program was indeed re-upped by the state legislature and governor, so in the coming weeks, we’ll begin putting together our grant application for the next two years in the ROI program. – Paul
Supporting Our Partners::
Cascades West Economic Development District – This week we held our CWEDD Executive Committee meeting to approve some grant letters of support and plan for the early September full board meeting. We are also planning to have the November full board meeting here on the coast. – Paul
Lincoln City – On Monday evening, both Gregory (for the SBDC) and I presented before the Lincoln City council. We were both formally approved for FY2023-24 funding. As a side note – it was the first unanimous vote from the council for EDALC (there have previously been some folks on the council who are not in support of economic development or entrepreneurship in Lincoln City). – Paul
OCCC – Jeanette Campagna and I wrapped up our planning for the OCCC Foundation board retreat on August 3rd (before our BoD meeting). – Paul
Upcoming::
Next week, we have our August EDALC Board of Directors meeting via Zoom. Digital packets will go out mid-week. Below is the Zoom meeting info:
Topic: EDALC August BoD
Time: Aug 3, 2023 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09
Meeting ID: 917 810 4987
Passcode: 0NyksK
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
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 🙂