Greetings and welcome to Friday! Also, welcome to Spring!!
First off, let’s help Carrie and the Aquarium get some love in the Newsweek online poll for the best aquarium in the U.S. (we ALL know it is, be we need to vote!) – Here’s where you can cast your vote (you can cast it daily):
https://www.newsweek.com/readerschoice/best-aquarium
Our staff update for this week:
2024 Lincoln County Economic Summit::
This week, we had the first of what will be several post-mortem discussions about the event and how we can continue to improve it. Stacie also entered the data from our attendee surveys, and the overall rating of the event was 9.33 out of ten – not too shabby! Stacie also set up a repository of event photos that we can use for future marketing and promotion. – Paul
Blue Economy::
Last Saturday, a number of local leaders met with Senator Ron Wyden as he kicked off his support for keeping the NOAA Pacific research fleet based in Newport. We met at Hatfield and learned about the Gladys Valley Marine Studies building, other organizations on the Hatfield campus and about some NOAA fish hatchery research. We then got an opportunity to tour one of the NOAA research vessels that was getting ready to head out of port this last Monday. – Paul
Broadband::
This week was our monthly Broadband Action Team meeting (covering Linn, Lane, Lincoln and Benton counties). We got a number of updates – BTAP final scoring is coming up soon (we have an application in that pool). BDP (Broadband Deployment Program – an infrastructure grant) will open up on Monday. Solarity is working on a grant application with Pioneer (the last deliverable of that EDA grant), and we’ve got a call with them on Monday afternoon to see how we can assist in the process. It also looks like the federal government may be shutting down the ACP (Affordable Connectivity Program – to make Internet access more affordable) in the near future – we’ll keep our eyes on this as it develops. – Paul
Business Support::
This week, Waldport Mayor Holland and myself met with EiP Technologies (the renewable energy technology company run by former-me Caroline Bauman and her husband) to learn a little more about where they are at and to start planning a visit to see their demonstration units in action. I’m still not sure they have a viable product (yet) or have thought through who and where their market might be, but it’s always great to learn about local innovation! – Paul
Community and Economic Development Grant Program::
Stacie and I attended the County Commissioner meeting Wednesday morning to listen to the adjustments in the grant recommendations and the commissioners vote to approve the awards. – Sarah
The Commissioners took the EDALC’s BoDs funding recommendations with two tweaks – the recommended Impact grant (housing-focused) will be funded by county ARPA funds, so the number two scoring Impact application (Pioneer for broadband) was funded by this grant program. Also, the Samaritan EV project was not funded – in its place the Siletz playground was funded. – Paul
Community Connector::
This week, I reviewed and signed the Ford Family Foundation grant agreement to fund our Community Connector position, as well as provide some project funds for Leslie’s work. Leslie will be back on the EDALC team full time starting April 1st! – Paul
Creative Economies::
Attended ART Toledo meeting 3/21 as sub for Sarah in preparation for Art, Oysters, & Brews. Shared notes with team. – Stacie
Entrepreneurship::
I had a meeting on Monday with Kelliane and Michele from the SBDC to plan some marketing and coordination for the Youth Entrepreneurship Program Pitch Event happening on May 15th at the Hatfield Auditorium. I also began editing the video for that event that will feature sections from all the local business interviews I completed earlier. – Sarah
Marketing & Communication::
Social Media: Received facebook admin access. Instagram account set up was completed with Paul’s help. Will be refine plans around posting across LI, IG, and FB in the near future to spread awareness about EDALC services and share partner information with a wider audience. – Stacie
Organizational Development::
Onboarding: Post-summit, I am settling in, getting to know the team better, and figuring out what I want to bring in to personalize my office space! Priorities next week will be familiarizing myself with Monday.com and MailChimp + helping to draft the spring newsletter and getting up to speed on upcoming events/other projects. – Stacie
Project Work::
I created a page on our website for the Economic Summit presentations and materials: https://businesslincolncounty.com/economic-summit/ I also created a new playlist on our YouTube channel for the YEP local business highlight videos. In addition, I looked into funding opportunities for a medical clinic and updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider. – Sarah
Rural Opportunity Initiative::
This week was the formal kick-off meeting for the 2023-25 ROI program. There are currently 20 communities in the program for this biennium. We learned about changes to the reporting system and had a chance to hear from all the communities about their projects. We also worked through setting up some tracking forms on Business Oregon’s new file-sharing site. I also learned that we had an extra $860 to add into our project work budget. – Paul
Upcoming::
On Monday, March 25th, EDALC turns 30 years old!! Huzzah!!
5 de Mayo – Arcoíris Cultural, an Olalla Center program, will be continuing our annual 5 de Mayo celebration that will be held at the Lincoln City Cultural Center on Sunday, May 5th from 3 to 7 Pm. The event will feature local musicians and DJ, dancers, raffles, food, local traditional crafters, multilingual community resources, and lots of fun activities for the entire family. The event will be free of charge for community members of all ages.
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
Sarah is off Thursday and Friday of this week to help set up and attend her best friend’s wedding in La Grande.
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 🙂