Greetings and welcome to the first Friday in September – wow, did the summer months zoom past!
Thanks to all who attended yesterday’s Board of Directors meeting. What a great deep dive into the upcoming ARPA funding for broadband. It was exciting to hear that the statewide funding should be enough to cover most of our broadband needs – essential since this is basically once-in-a-generation funding. Also good to know that we have a regional team already at work (our Benton, Lane, Lincoln and Linn BAT) and the tools in the works to help develop a plan (Faster Internet Oregon and the regional EDA planning grant administered by the COG). Below is a link to Steve and Aaron’s presentation:
Click to access EDALC_Link_Oregon_Sept1_2022.pdf
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
I started off this week by talking with some of the Directors of Art foundations around the state about how they run their auctions to get some information for the ART Toledo auction that we are beginning to plan. Afterwards, I updated the major employers spreadsheet. Next, I continued to research properties for Ms. Waters and sent her some information about available commercial buildings for rent. I called some local moving companies and got a quote for moving our office to Waldport. In addition, I scheduled an appointment with Habitat for Humanity to pick up our remaining desks and table. I talked with Mindy about Art, Oysters & Brews marketing and gave her a tutorial of how to use MailChimp. Next, I created and edited the upcoming September newsletter. Afterwards, I updated the ART Toledo website and the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider on the EDALC website. I continued to research auction software for the ART Toledo event and added to the average rental rate of commercial buildings in Lincoln County spreadsheet. At the end of the day, I went to Toledo to take a picture of the new mural that was just finished on the back of Timbers!
On Wednesday, I worked on the ART Toledo website and added the new mural to the site. Afterwards, I worked on the newsletter and added more courses to the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider that are from the Oregon Coast SBDC fall class list they recently released. Later, I attended the Oregon Coast Food Prospector meeting led by the Oregon Coast Visitors Association. At the end of my day, I reviewed the Board meeting materials and researched new MacBook laptops!
On Thursday, I continued conversations about art auctions with a couple art directors in Washington and Clatsop County and got some helpful advice. Afterwards, I attended the ART Toledo meeting and then updated the ART Toledo website. Next, I worked on the newsletter and added the Greater Newport Economic Summit event to the EDALC website. Later, I scheduled an appointment for some movers to help move our office to Waldport later this month and wrote some paragraphs for the newsletter. At the end of the day, I attended the board meeting!
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Leslie’s Update:
Happy September! It’s my favorite month on the central Oregon coast.
As I mentioned at yesterday’s EDALC Board meeting, I’ve added Alex Llumiquinga Pérez’s email below announcing September 24th’s Cultural Fest at Newport’s Performing Arts Center. It will be a wonderful opportunity for enjoying multicultural music, dancing, and art, as well as multilingual community outreach and resource sharing for organizations and businesses. I highly recommend participating and contributing in whichever way you and/or your organization is able. Again, please read Alex’s email below, in italics, for a list of ways community partners can contribute and participate at the 2022 Cultural Fest.
If you’d like to enjoy the original virtual 2020 Cultural Fest Celebration (in English and Spanish), click here to start at the 30-minute “pre-party” family-friendly nutrition/cooking demonstration I helped put together with folks from the Lincoln County OSU Extension team. If you’d prefer to jump directly to the multicultural history and music celebration, click here.
Otherwise, I’ll keep my weekly update brief so you are able to spend more time enjoying the virtual Cultural Fest and/or figuring out how you can contribute to this year’s celebration. Please contact Alex directly if you already have ideas, or contact me if you’d like help brainstorming ideas. Have a wonderful holiday weekend, and best of luck to everyone who is getting started with the new school year!
Continue the deep dive with Leslie’s full report here (as always, so well worth the read):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vhg3KRBDETcLrzqmgNN-gSzPxLeKsa6oP0awRbdi5tw/edit?usp=sharing
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Paul’s Update:
Blue Economy – A many of you heard during the BoD, Xmas came a little early and unexpectedly this week. On Monday, I heard back from our grants manager that all of our docs (for our Congressionally Directed Spending award) *finally* looked good and it was being passed on to management. On Wednesday, we received our office NOA (Notice of Award). An hour or so later, when I was in the middle of doing our August financials, I noticed on our bank account website that the numbers were off – diving into our check register, I saw we had a wire into our account (while I was working in it) of $1,000,000 from the SBA. Wowza! We were NOT expecting it in one lump sum, but there it is. And the wire showed up *before* I did the formal signing of our NOA. Everything is now signed – I received a virtual high five from our grants manager and have already started planning the first steps in this two-year journey we’re embarking upon. Exciting stuff!
Art, Oysters and Brews – This weekend, Art, Oysters and Brews wraps up its summer event series with events on both Saturday and Sunday from noon until 5 in downtown Toledo (and also the Toledo Art Walk). I’ll be manning the sound both days for six awesome musical performers (including Tyler Spencer playing his funky didgeridoo music at 1:30pm on Sunday). Saturday at 3pm is the ribbon cutting for the new mural behind the Timbers. I’m sure I’ll see some of you there!
Waldport Office – As you read from Sarah’s update, we’ve got the movers locked in for 9/20 and the Habitat Restore coming on the 22nd for the furniture we’ll be donating. Over the next few weeks, we’ll purge, evaluate and pack up our office and get ready for our move to points south.
Economic Summit – Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 20th – our first collaborative economic summit is a go! Here’s the link: https://www.newportchamber.org/chamber-events/ We’ve got the event nearly nailed down (just one final panelist to secure!) and it’ll be awesome. Jeanette (from the Chamber) and I also met with the keynote speaker this week to plan his presentation. We should be able to share full event info with everyone next week.
Lincoln City/Business Oregon – On Tuesday, I got to spend the day in Lincoln City. In the morning Alison Robertson and I met to talk about EDALC work with Lincoln City – what we think they might need and what Alison thinks they need in the short term. We’ve got a great plan, and we’ll be meeting again next week to finalize. Then Alison and I met with Melissa Murphy (Business Oregon) for several hours to talk through new and existing BizOR programs and ways we can tap into those resources. After lunch, we spent the afternoon in a deep-dive tour of Lincoln City and their new and planned Urban Renewal districts.
Rural Opportunity Initiative – We’re ramping up some research on what could become a key component of our ROI work next grant cycle – creating an online Etsy-like portal for local Lincoln County creative economy entrepreneurs to sell their work. We’ve done some preliminary interest querying (passionate interest!) and there may even be a new BizOR program that could infuse some funding before the next ROI grant cycle. The next steps are looking at tools and approaches (and making sure we’re not reinventing an existing wheel).
Upcoming Newsletter – We’re planning on doing a mid-September newsletter. If there’s anything you’d like to see in there, just let Sarah or myself know.
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.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers,
-Paul 🙂