Greetings and welcome to Friday in September.
A shorter update this week because of the holiday… also earlier. Susan and I are heading to Portland today for a day trip to visit some friends from Illinois (their daughter just bought a house in Portland)…
Here’s our EDALC update for the week:
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Sarah’s Update:
I began this week by confirming my registration to Leadership Lincoln, it starts next week and I’m excited to get started! Afterwards, I edited the ART Toledo website and worked on the upcoming newsletter. Next, I did some research with Earth Explorer in order to help Mr. Lawson get some aerial photographs of his property. Later, I added to the average cost of rent for commercial buildings in the county spreadsheet and revised the August Board meeting minutes. At the end of the day, Paul, Leslie, and I enjoyed some team building at Sorello’s!
On Wednesday, I continued working on the newsletter. Later, I began writing the minutes from September’s board meeting. Next, I checked to see if our MailChimp mailing list had all the active council members and mayors from each of the cities in Lincoln County and added the ones that were missing. Afterwards, I kept adding to the newsletter and worked on packing up our office. At the end of the day, I looked at the new stats for Lincoln County that the Ford Family Foundation came out with and added more courses to the opportunities for entrepreneurs slider on our EDALC website.
On Thursday, I responded to Mr. Lawson about Earth Explorer and helping him get those photos of his property. Afterwards, Paul and I tested out Monday.com to help with our future Blue Economy work. Next, I recalled all the businesses that still haven’t answered me about their employment numbers for the major employers in the county list. Later, I continued working on the newsletter and fixed a formatting issue on the ART Toledo website. At the end of the day, I continued writing the minutes for the September board meeting.
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Leslie’s Update:
This week’s workload is heavy on the latter end, so much of what I have to report will be happening this afternoon or tomorrow (but my report is happening now so I have the time to complete it).
This week Paul, Sarah, and I had a long overdue EDALC teambuilding meeting at Sorella. Sidenote: I love September when locals start venturing back out to their favorite businesses they’ve avoided during the summer tourist chaos. Cheese and gluten are some of my favorite foods (in addition to seafood, of course), so it’s probably no surprise that I love Sorella…
Anyway, it was little surprise that the three of us (each born in different decades), had many intersecting interests and life experiences in rural communities. Economics, outdoor recreation, sustainable forestry, sustainable fishing, technology, reading, and pursuits that weave through all those spaces kept Sarah and me talking for three hours (Paul had to leave early). I’m so grateful to be on a team that has such a breadth of education and life experiences based on passions found and developed in rural communities.
Today (Thursday), I have an interview lined up via my network at The Ford Family Foundation (TFFF). Janel Ruehl, previous Sisters Vision Program Coordinator, is collaborating with Michelle Martin of TFFF for a Rural Community Building workshop at the upcoming Growing Rural Oregon Summit (GRO). I’m honored that they are interested in including insight on the unique Community Building path I’ve taken in Newport for their presentation.
Continue the deep dive with Leslie’s full report here (as always, so well worth the read):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bf47riS4NYqvJbMrWJOYdc5PX90AFho9xGQ7BV5jlE4/edit?usp=sharing
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Paul’s Update:
Blue Economy – Mark Farley and I met on Wednesday to roll up our sleeves and get the project work rolling. We put together our “wish list” for the O2IH advisory team (we’ll be reaching out to them next week) and came up with a solid plan of attack for the DEI work we’ll be doing as part of the project. I also started building the project templates in Monday.com to track our work and did some tests with Sarah on inviting guest contributors into the tool. I also upgraded us to the “pro” version that gives us more control and the ability to track project dependancies.
ART Toledo – Last weekend were the final two Art, Oysters and Brews events, and I worked the sound for the musicians both days. All in all, a great event series and one of the highlights was on Sunday – Tyler Spencer laid down some seriously funky didgeridoo music for a crowd of rapt and slack-jawed attendees. All in all, a great year of collaboration – three murals painted, several new rounds of Phantom Gallery artists, and the AOB series that gave over 20 artists a chance to sell their work. Huzzah!
Waldport Office – Sarah and I started purging and packing up the office for the move (happening on September 20th) – with a little work each day, we should be ready by then!
Economic Summit – I managed to wrap our the panelists for the October 20th summit – now we switch to marketing mode – I think it’ll be a great event. Full details coming soon!
Lincoln City – Yesterday, I met with Alison Robertson and City Manager Daphnee Lagarza to talk through project work with Lincoln City. We think we’ve got a great plan laid out for the remainder of this fiscal year (as well as several years into the future). We’ll be putting together a plan of work document for official blessing from their City Council.
Rural Opportunity Initiative – Later this month, we’ll be supporting the second cohort of CO.STARTERS – the education program we’re sponsoring as part of ROI. It’s facilitated by Misty Lambrecht and this go-round will be held in person at the Newport Chamber. The class is already full up. This makes a great complement to the SBDC’s excellent Small Business Management program – that program is for businesses who have been in operation for at least two years. CO.STARTERS is for potential start-ups to evaluate and analyze the market potential of the business they want to start.
Cascades West Economic Development District – This week, we had our CWEDD Executive Committee meeting and talked through an innovative approach that we’re going to try out later this Fall for organizations to report and better track their regional projects and those that are “in sync” with our regional Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS).
Team Building at Sorella’s – As you heard in the updates above, Sarah, Leslie and I had a great team building get together at Sorella’s. The only thing I have to add is how amazingly lucky I feel to get to work and collaborate with such wonderful, smart and visionary humans. Go team EDALC!
Mindy’s Internship – It’s hard to believe, but Mindy’s formal internship is at an end. Wow, time flies! Mindy did an incredible job for us on the social media front! She’s interested in still working for us “less formally” this semester, and we’d love to have her – but I want her to get a sense of her academic workload (she’s taking 17 hours!) first. I received this yesterday from Lisa Norton, assistant GM of CTSI:
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Paul, I wanted to express my extreme gratitude for making such an amazing internship happen. This would not have been possible without your willingness to be flexible and responsive. I look forward to working together again in the future.
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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 🙂