Greetings and welcome to Friday! Looks like it might be a gorgeous weekend out there!
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
I started off this week by updating the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider with some new classes. I also updated some of the things I put on the ART Toledo website for last Saturday’s event and changed them to reflect the upcoming Art, Oysters & Brews event August 6th. Afterwards, I sent Mr. Orndorff some options I found for office spaces in Newport. Next, I wrote some Facebook posts for the Chalk the Block event and the SBM program and posted the Chalk the Block ad. Later, I made a new page on the ART Toledo website for all of the community art galleries and museums.
On Wednesday, I began with adding more to the ART Toledo website. Afterwards, I posted the other SBM program ad on Facebook. Later, I got a phone call from Mr. Lawson and discussed his commercial property and listing it on Oregon Prospector for a while. He wants some new aerial photos of his property before I list it but needs some help finding a place to do those so I researched some government website that can provide satellite images of his property as well as some local businesses who take drone shots of commercial properties. After that I contacted some more property managers about a potential office for Mr. Orndorff because all the ones I have sent thus far do not work for him. At the end of the day, I edited the front page of the ART Toledo website and changed all the colors on the website to match the ART Toledo color palette.
On Thursday, I went to the ART Toledo meeting at Toledo City Hall. Afterwards, I contacted the Holy Toledo van life group and their parent company The Journal of Lost Time promoting the Chalk the Block event and asking them to advertise the event to their participants. Next, I wrote back to Mr. Lawson and provided him some options for aerial property photos and some more information on Oregon Prospector. At the end of my day, I worked on the ART Toledo website based on the requests of that morning’s meeting and worked on a playlist for the chalk the block event.
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Paul’s Update:
Planning for the Year – Birgitte and I met this week to talk through some of our strategic priorities and how we want to maximize the value of our monthly Board of Directors meetings. I came away with a little homework that I pulled together and got off to Birgitte at the end of the day yesterday – basically clarifying and simplifying our strategic priorities and starting to lay out the next year’s Board meetings and potential topics (that relate back to our priorities). We both came away jazzed and energized at the work ahead of us.
Blue Economy – I had a phone meeting this week with Robert Tate, our SBA grant representative, who is our liaison through the Congressionally Directed Spending award process. Looks like all wrinkles have been sorted out and our paperwork is deemed complete – in the next few weeks, we’ll get our award contract with the first anticipated fund disbursement expected in early August.
ART Toledo – Saturday was the kick-off Art, Oysters and Brews event series in Toledo. It was a great success, despite competing (for a few hours at least) with the county fair. That Lincoln County can support two successful events on the same day speaks volumes about how people are ready to get out there and get mingling.
City of Newport – The City of Newport signed the contract with us that will formally allow the creation of a grant-funded position for Leslie Palotas. Today, Leslie and I signed her employment contract and got her I-9 form done, so she’s one of the team! Her first official start date will be when we have the check in hand from Newport, so that’ll be within the next week or two. She’ll be joining our August board meeting for introductions and welcomes. I also spoke with Spencer and it should just be another few weeks before we have our city center professional services contract from them and can begin that work.
Budgeting and Accounting – I spent some time this week revising our operating budget as well as adding new account categories to QuickBook that should have us good to go for this new fiscal year.
OCCC Waldport – On Wednesday evening, I had a chance to tour the OCCC building in Waldport with Birgitte, Dave Price and Dan Lara (OCCC’s Vice President of Academic Affairs). We’re “kicking the tires” of an idea that Birgitte had and we discussed back at the Regards to Rural Conference in May: is there a win-win to move EDALC’s offices to the Waldport building? We’d have much more space, more professional offices, conference and meeting rooms and major connected technology. It would also allow us to better serve south county. We’d also have the ability to “office float” at the Newport and Lincoln City campuses for serving central and north county efforts. For the OCCC, it would provide occupation and oversight of the building which would make it easier to use for community meetings, SBDC consultations and Community Ed classes. We’re exploring what that could look like from both sides (it only makes senes if it’s a win for both organizations). As an FYI, we are in a month-to-month rental agreement in our current office, so there are no long-term lease issues. We’ll keep you posted.
EDALC Website – I updated our About Us page to add Lorna as a new Director and also updated the officer. I modified the Membership page into a Partner and Investor page, which outlines our value proposition and membership tiers. I also updated the handling of our online application and payment portal for the new amounts and it now allows folks to pay directly by CC or request an invoice from EDALC. Finally, I created a “Thank you” container (a reusable chunk of a web page) to highlight our silver, gold and platinum level partners – that appears now on the main page and the Partner/Investor page.
EDALC Communications – This week saw the publication of my second EcDev column in the News-Times. We will have our summer newsletter go out early next week – it’s nearly complete – we’re just waiting to hear back on a few items, and we’ll get it proofed and out there.
Looking for a Summer Worker? – This came in from Chris Chandler:
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Are you looking for reliable summer workers?
I have friends with two outstanding, bright daughters who just graduated high school in the top ten percent of their class. One was salutatorian. They’ve been decompressing from all the whirl of graduation for a few weeks, but are willing to work and learn through the end of August, maybe a week or two into September. One is off to OSU, the other Lane Community College, and then to UO.
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As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
If you are in Newport next Wednesday and want to have a fun picnic lunch, I’ll be performing a few blues sets for the Newport Public Library at Literacy Park starting at noon – looking forward to it! Susan and I had lunch there this week listening to Chayaq en Familia there, and it was awesome.
Thanks for ALL that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
Have a wonderful, long holiday weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂