Greetings and welcome to a nice, rainy Friday (though I see blue sky now!), and also the end of October. Time just seems to be accelerating, doesn’t it?
Here’s our update for the week –
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Suzan’s week:
* Daily/ weekly routine tasks
* Learn new system, cut checks
* Rearrange work area
* Set up old printer to QBO
* Learn, post Payroll in QBO
* Take rent to Mishey
* Pay Spectrum bill w/cc
* Type agenda
* Distribute board notice
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Paul’s week:
First, two things missed in last week’s update:
Board of Directors appointment process – We had a very productive meeting with the ad hoc committee on Board of Director appointment policies and procedures (Birgitte, Doug Holbrook, Kerry and myself). We also had a number of followup emails during the week. The upshot is that we feel that creating a committee with a little larger view than the nominating committee (which is in the by-laws but not active) is the way to go – we came up with the “Strategic Alignment and Governance” committee – with responsibilities not only to nominate (and vet) potential board members and officers but also to monitor organization alignment with our goals and enhance organizational transparency. We’ll have some potential changes to the by-laws on the agenda for next week’s board meeting so that we can discuss.
Waldport – I spent several hours last Friday in Waldport with Laura Ferguson (Chamber Director for Waldport and Depoe Bay). She took me a tour of the new in-progress Chamber space and visitors center – which will be to the right of Eager Beaver. We also meet for a while (got to check out the Salty Dog!) on ways we can assist them and some exciting ideas she has to energize businesses support and networking in the community.
And now back to our regularly scheduled weekly update:
Newport 2040 – I had an opportunity for an in-depth meeting with Leslie Palotas – she’s working with Newport 20 hours a week to push forward work and communication on the 2040 vision (she’s funded by some Ford Foundation monies). We had a great conversation on moving strategic plans forward from plans into action, and we also discussed sections of the 2040 plan that dovetail nicely with larger county-wide economic goals.
Stakeholder Listening Sessions – Kristi Peter at the county has been a real rockstar and helped get out the invites to the November 12th & 13th listening sessions. Those sessions should provide some real insights into the regional economic development priorities across the county. I’m honored and excited to be helping to facilitate these sessions.
Community and Economic Development Grant – As of EOD yesterday, there were 12 completed grant applications, with asks exceeding the budgeted allocation. We had a couple of conversations about whether or not to extend the deadline, and Kristi is waiting to hear back from Wayne Belmont. The safe money bet is no, since the requests exceed the total grant amount for the year, but we’ll work with what the county thinks is best. We’ve got an agenda item in next week’s board meeting to refresh us all on the review process we’ll use – Curt got me up to speed on it this week and shared with me his docs and spreadsheet.
Organizational Goals and Projects – While our organizational goals are pretty clear to us, and you know what the EDALC staff has been up to, I realized that it would be helpful for us to have a short (and frequently updated) document outlining our current goals, current projects and anticipated projects – in an effort to keep us focused and aligned in our efforts. I’ll be sharing and initial version with the board next week. This document can also help us to craft an “elevator pitch” for the organization and our current work.
Workforce Housing (Lincoln City) – I pulled together some average rent information, plus data on the Opportunity Zone census tract in LC for the Portland-based housing development I met with on the 13th – hopefully that will lead to a followup conversation with them, Alison Roberson and myself.
Taft Sizzle Sheet – Ed Dreistadt and I met this week to compare notes on our “sizzle sheet” project for the Taft district of Lincoln City – we hope to have enough materials together next week to pull together a rough graphic design draft.
OEDA – The Oregon Economic Developers Association’s annual conference was held Monday through Wednesday this week, and for a virtual conference, I thought they did a great job – the used an app called Whova, which sits on top of Zoom technology, to create a credible “feel” of a real conference – I was impressed. A number of the sessions I attended gave me some meaningful takeaways, but then there was the tale of the first two keynotes: the first was an amazing presentation on tools and techniques for larger regions to work through economic recovery. Simply stunning. And then there was a keynote on some Portland COVID recovery efforts – and the speaker could certainly speak well, but yowza – was it just a rehash of everything obvious that we’ve all been doing across the county for the last few months – I had to bail early and get a sandwich!
QuickBooks Online – I did some research and was able to help Suzan pull up a list of vendor transactions in the new tool – something she requested. I was also able to build a custom report for budgets vs. actuals that you’ll see next week. It’s always a bit of a learning curve when you switch to a new piece of software, but it looks like we’re getting things figured out.
Reminder – We will have our November BoD meeting next Thursday, November 5th. The meeting will be at 3:30pm and handled via Zoom. Here are the meeting details (we’ll send out again as an Outlook calendar invite next week):
Topic: November EDALC Board of Directors Meeting
Time: Nov 5, 2020 03:30 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/9178104987?pwd=bVJDN0VlUEM3aG9EaFhJQUZjcDJHUT09
Meeting ID: 917 810 4987
Passcode: 0NyksK
Note: this is the same link as last month – we’ll use a consistent link for these meetings going forward (until, one-day, when we can meet in person again!).
Thanks for all that you are doing out there! Please reach out to me if you need anything at all.
And I know I don’t have to tell anybody to vote – and I must say, the Oregon mail-in system was pretty slick and easy to navigate! I loved that we all got the handbook of candidates and issues with the middle section for local elections. And over a glass of wine sometime, I’d love to share with you my crazy (or is it sane? – it just might be) idea on how to rejigger the electoral college for a more fair national vote.
Have a great weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂