Horizons Meeting Notes - May 30, 2008

Ritzville Horizons Meeting Notes
DRAFT
May 30, 2008
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Participants:
Debbie Chapman Karen Cady
Dorothy Grove Monica Babine

We welcomed Karen Cady to our meeting today. Karen is a friend of Debbie’s and is doing some business in the Ritzville area.

Since our May 15 meeting, Ann has been updating the blog – which we appreciate very much. Dorothy shared several items she thought would be good to include in the blog post section of the strategic report. We discussed the need to finalize the plan by June 16. Both Debbie and Dorothy asked for copies of the interim strategic plan – it will be emailed to them. We may use email to gather additional information to include in the plan.

Both Debbie and Dorothy plan to attend the Inland NW Partners meeting on June 11. Information about the session has been sent to the Mayor and is in the City Council packets. After the Council meeting on Tuesday, June 3, we will determine who else to invite to fill the 5 registration slots available from Horizons. Dorothy is working on the tabletop display for the meeting and is gathering photos from the Journal and Debbie.

Preparations are underway for the Sue Price trainings on June 25 and 26. In addition to the article in the Journal on May 15 about the sessions, the Chamber has developed and distributed flyers around town. Carol Simonson, from the Chamber is also extending personal invitations and working with the Journal to run an ad. Carol asked for help from the Horizons committee regarding catering orders. Debbie will coordinate with Carol on this and possibly an ice cream social which was discussed earlier. Carol may need to be out of town so she would like to have someone from the committee at each event. Assistance includes being at the church early each day to make sure lights are on, the room has chairs, caterers can set up and Sue can get in early to prepare for the session. We also need to have a sign-in sheet at each event to turn into the Horizons staff. Debbie said she planned to be there on the 25th. We need someone to help on the 26th also. Dorothy will be out of town both days so she can not assist.

Under New Business we talked about several activities that we could do during the next month since we have almost $2000 in our Horizons budget. Ideas included a field trip to Port Hadlock and/or other distance learning centers; offering scholarships to the pool for low-income families; support for families with disabilities; and holding a community clean-up day. We spent some time brainstorming about the clean-up event. It was thought that this would be a good follow-up activity to the “clean up” letters recently sent out by the City. Dorothy agreed to talk with her husband, Dave, about doing this because of his role at the City. We discussed holding it either on June 14 or 21 from 8 am-noon, followed by hot dogs in the park. This would be a partnership activity and would involve asking churches, scouts, 4H, etc. to help out. We would need to develop a sign-up system both for volunteers and those who want help in their yard. In addition to food expenses, we might also need to use some of our funds for transporting items to the dump. An option would be to have this be our Horizons celebration too. There are a few “graduation” questions the NW Area Foundation would like us to gather input on and we could do that at this event. If we decide to do this we need to have a conference call the first week of June to plan it.

Monica provided an up date from the Horizons staff. Several Horizons communities are considering developing Horizons signage like those for All-American City, etc. Our group thought a plague that could be mounted on the distance learning/resource center would be a better fit for Ritzville. Monica announced that the NWAF plans to fund 15 new Horizons communities in Washington. It does not appear they will offer funding for “alumni” communities such as Ritzville. WSU however, is looking at potential resources to continue supporting alumni communities. We talked about other partners that may be able to continue Horizons related activities. Monica asked the group about local Extension office involvement. Several items were mentioned such as workshops/trainings for family and household management, canning, emergency preparedness, financial planning, bullying issues, as well as creation of a resource directory and/or bulletin board with community information, services, etc. We also discussed the partnerships that have already been developed during Horizons with Chamber, RPDA, City of Ritzville, WSU IDI and Big Bend Community College (BBCC). Several ideas were shared about classes that could be offered by BBCC – customer service, work ethic, continuing ed, etc. It might be a good idea for someone from BBCC to attend the Sue Price training. Police, sheriff, hospitals might also be good partners.

Debbie plans to follow up with Cecil Andrews, a speaker she heard at the Green Festival in Seattle. She presented on ways to simplify your life. No decision was made about how/if we would involve Cecil Andrews but we look forward to hearing what Debbie learns about her work.

I next meeting was not set but we will be scheduled via email.


Monica Babine
WSU Horizons Coach