Greetings and welcome to Friday! Is this weekend when the rains come for real?
I wanted to start out with a staff-wide update on how the Economic Summit went yesterday. It was an awesome, unqualified, rousing success! We ended up having 70+ in attendance and at a point, it was standing room only.
Our wild mix of speakers along the “Work, Play, Live” theme came together wonderfully and each session was someone’s favorite. We had a great mix of folks attending – from community leaders to business and nonprofit leaders. The EDALC team of Sarah and Leslie were rockstars, and I’ve got to say that our attendee packet was 100% solid with little to no fluff (and folks loved our Work, Live, Play stickers!).
Please check out our Facebook page for some pics of the event.
The only odd thing is that one organization was conspicuous in its absence – the Newport Chamber. No presence there at all. Weird. But it ended up being an excellent 100% EDALC event. High fives all around!
As for the rest of the updates – a little shorter than normal due to our focus on delivering the Summit event.
Also, let us know how you like the new flow of our weekly update – better than before?
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Blue Economy/O2IH::
This Monday, Mark Farley and I had the kick-off meeting with Business Oregon on their “Emerging Sector” study on the Blue Economy. We essentially went over the rules of engagement and scoring for the proposals that were submitted to do the work. I’ll be wrapping up my scoring and evaluations early next week. Glad to finally get this project rolling! – Paul
Communication/Marketing::
On Monday and Wednesday, I found more business courses and updated the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider on our website. – Sarah
I posted about our Economic Summit on our Facebook page on Friday. – Sarah
Community Connecting::
Monday wrapped up the Community Website Partnership (CWP) Equity Cohort Meeting series, where community leaders across rural Oregon convened to participate in JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) Training, then launch into action plans centered in their communities. You may have noticed a theme in many of the collaborations I’m involved with: working alongside local, regional, or statewide networks of folks to brainstorm, support, celebrate successes, and learn from shared challenges. For another example, next Monday I start my next cohort with Foundations for a Better Oregon (FBO), where I’ll be working on design team efforts that stem off of previous interviews of Rural Community Leaders and the resulting “Envisioning Pathways to Systems Change in Conversation with Rural Oregonians” Report.
Also this week, I helped my EDALC team prepare for Thursday’s Economic Summit. Paul and Sarah did an amazing job making the Economic Summit a success – it was an honor to participate and to be their teammate!
The Summit received a lot of positive feedback from presenters and participants alike, and I was excited by the turnout and the topics covered. Kate Schwarzler, one of my inspiring Ford Family Foundation connections from Independence, presented on the “Work” panel. Whenever the topics of co-working or incubator work spaces arise, I regularly brag about Kate and her Indy Commons (and now Indy Kitchen & Market) projects. I was grateful she had Thursday’s platform to introduce her work to the Lincoln County community. – Leslie
As always, here is the link to Leslie’s full report (WELL worth the read!):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k71EcNwI407bUJ-dT3aM4gH-XljMzs5pLrgs7KbzsuM/edit?usp=sharing
Events::
On Wednesday evening, I delivered another session of my Creativity Boot Camp training program at the Lincoln City OCCC campus. It was our best session yet, with total engagement of the participants – the two hours just flew by! One of the most heartwarming aspects of the program was a grandfather bringing along his awkward and shy 15 year old grandson (the 15 year old’s mother was in one of my previous sessions). The boy was quiet and reserved and hiding behind his long hair at the start – by the end, his hair was pushed back, he was animated and engaged and even took the lead on the final group exercise. As we wrapped up, he asked if he should invite his friends to the next one. Those are the moments why you do these kinds of programs! – Paul
This week, over the course of Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, in preparation for the Greater Newport Economic Summit, I created name badges for all the participants, created the contact list for all the attendees, wrote a MailChimp newsletter that was released on Tuesday morning, created the event speaker biography page, created the summit survey sheets, created the updated list of contacts for late signups, cut all the surveys and event stickers, filled the welcome folders with our materials, and took supplies over to the Best Western Agate Beach hotel. – Sarah
On Thursday, I helped set up and run the economic summit! It was a great success, and I am so thankful to work with such an awesome team! – Sarah
Organizational Development::
I created and began working on the minutes from the October board meeting on Friday. – Sarah
Our Communities::
On Tuesday evening, I presented an overview of EDALC to the Depoe Bay City Council. It was very well-received and I’ve had several follow up conversations with the Mayor and several council members – I think it was a (long overdue, but not for a lack of trying!) great initial step in building a working relationship with the municipality.
Upcoming::
Waldport Chamber Breakfast and Ribbon Cutting: October 25th, 7:30am-9:30am, OCCC Waldport Campus
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.
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂