Greetings and welcome to Friday! I wonder if anything interesting happened this week?
Hmmmm… well, it looks like the OCCC OCATT bond measure passed by a WIDE margin!! Woo hoo! A $31M bond, which triggers an additional $8M from the state… a million here, a million there… eventually we’re talking REAL money! This will allow the construction of a game-changing CTE facility and updating all of OCCC’s campus buildings. SO Awesome! Thanks so much to the board for your support in putting a letter in the voter booklet… I’m sure that was the tipping point! (that, and the hard work of SO MANY dedicated folks) 🙂
Also, welcome to Memorial Day weekend! A long weekend, a time to honor our fallen heroes and the official start to tourist season – here we go!
Also, yesterday was the Oregon Coast Aquarium’s 32nd birthday. Huzzah and cake and ice cream to one of our amazing anchor institutions!!!
Here’s our update for this week:
Blue Economy::
Mark Farley, Sarah and myself met with the Eastern Research Group (NOAA MOC-P economic impact study) to go over our comments to the initial drafts of their external and internal-facing reports. We are under-budget on the project, so we’ll extend our contract and get the ERG folks to come here in person to present their findings to some key group (Paula – one would be your port commission). Mark and I also met with Maritime Blue to talk through the logistics of putting together the collaborative NOAA accelerator grant application with Washington and Alaska. – Paul
I attended the meeting to discuss the NOAA impact report revisions with the ERG team and a Central Coast Food Web executive committee meeting. – Sarah
Community Connecting::
I’m following Paul’s recommendation and have gotten 1/3 of the way through Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, and I’m already sold on many of her ideas. A brief overview of the book’s concept was featured in Paul’s presentation at this month’s Coastal Caucus Economic Summit.
I’d like to share a quote from page 66: “Whether through local sports teams or international festivals, faith groups, or social clubs, we build norms, rules and relations that enable us to cooperate with and depend upon one another. These connections build social cohesion and help to meet our fundamental human needs, such as for participation, leisure, protection and belonging. ‘Community connectedness is not just about warm fuzzy tales of civic triumph,’ writes (Robert) Putnam; ‘In measurable and well-documented ways… social capital makes us smarter, healthier, safer, richer and better able to govern a just and stable democracy.’ ”
That’s just one of the many quotes that gave me continued momentum in my belief that a Community Connector plays an integral role in Rural Community Building and economic development.
Here’s the link to Leslie’s always awesome full report: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1odrqp8If3MySgqHQqFVKErROo6sYrqyrvURTkezoBnY/edit?usp=sharing
Events::
I did some additional coordination for YBEF/EDALC annual celebration. – Sarah
Marketing & Communication::
Created FB, LI, and IG Bloom Newport posts with pics from Sarah and Leslie. Reposted Local Ocean post about seafood butchery internships. – Stacie
Organizational Development::
Last weekend I finished the email and calendar migration over from MSoft’s Office 365 to Google Workspace. This week, we moved all of our files from OneDrive to GoogleDrive, so we’ve been operating as a full “Google shop” for the week, with relatively minor hiccups. Moving to the Google tools, utilizing Slack for out of office communication and collaboration and Stacie’s work dialing in Monday.com for project management has us firing on all cylinders in the digital realm. – Paul
I worked on getting all my files, contacts and passwords transferred over to Google Drive and worked on cleaning up my files and getting my email and drive set up. – Sarah
Monday.com – Reviewed our new board template and provided some helpful how-to’s in the team meeting on Thursday. Created automations for weekly updates, expense reports, and board meeting tasks based on feedback from team. Reviewed the Oregon Talent Assessment 2024 from The Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) and the Workforce and Talent Development Board (WTDB) out of curiosity. Migrating files, inboxes, and calendars from Microsoft 365 to Google Workspace. – Stacie
Project Work::
I worked on the major employers report, updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider, and made updates to Oregon Prospector. – Sarah
Team met Thursday for website training + group work on CTSI donation portal – Stacie
Supporting Partners::
CTSI – We began work on a web site that will initially be used to inform, educate and manage online sponsorships for the upcoming CTSI pow-wow. We see the opportunity to use this online portal tool (with an ability to pay be CC bolted in) to be able to expand and support other partners and efforts.
YBEF – On Wednesday, quite a few YBEFers trekked to GP for a lunch meeting and an amazing tour of the GP plant facilities – many thanks to GP’s Andrea Formo for setting that up. It really is an amazing process!
As a reminder – your Board of Directors resource page is here:
This weekend, I’ll be running the sound for the Fleet of Flowers event in Depoe Bay – fingers crossed on the weather!
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 🙂