New York Mills, MN

The next Leadership Future Squad meeting will be on Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 12:30 pm, at Mills Lanes.  Everyone is invited!

All interested area residents are invited to attend the regular meeting of the City Council of New York Mills. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 4:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers, located on the second floor of the New York Mills City Hall. A Public Forum portion of the meeting will begin at 5:00 p.m.
So come, see, participate in the open forum or just listen to all or part of the meeting.

From: Lynn Kasma

RE: Your Grant Status: State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grant

We got the grant below to help us out with the Horizons project!  See you on Feb 11 at the Horizons meeting.

State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grant
Congratulations! Youth Service America (YSA) has selected you as a State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grant winner. As one of 100 grant winners, you were chosen from applicants across the United States for your leadership and commitment to engage youth in service-learning. We are excited that youth will address important issues in your community, implementing unique service-learning projects that engage public officials, the media, and youth of all abilities.

The State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grant is administered by Youth Service America and funded by State Farm. This grant, of up to $1,000 helps underwrite youth service projects for Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) in the U.S. on April 25-27, 2008. GYSD, the largest service event in the world, is a public awareness and education campaign that highlights the amazing contributions that young people make to their communities 365 days a year.   On GYSD, young people will design and lead service-learning projects in areas ranging from literacy and the environment, to healthcare, hunger, and help for the elderly.

The goals of Global Youth Service Day are:
To MOBILIZE youth to identify and address the needs of their communities through service.
To SUPPORT youth on a life-long path of service and civic engagement.
To EDUCATE the public, the media, and policymakers about the year-round contributions of young people as community leaders

We thank you for your hard work and dedication, and we offer our sincere congratulations.

Yours in Service,
Steven A. Culbertson
President & CEO Youth Service America
1101 15th St, NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005
www.YSA.org

The New York Mills Workforce Housing Partnership has been working to determine if it should put together an application for the upcoming Greater MN Housing Fund grant cycle.  This collaboration started in November with participants from City Government, Local Financing, Community Orgs, Local Businesses along with reps from both Greater MN Housing and MN Housing Finance Agency attending a meeting at OTWCAC.  

The decision was made to conduct a survey to see what type of housing was needed to accommodate the workforce and other residents interested in living in NYM.  The survey (NYMWFHP Survey) was created, delivered and received with much support in December.  We had a terrific response. 

Quick summary: 2614 surveys out (1000 in the paper), 153 surveys in (10 from the paper).  48 replying they want to move to NYM.  See survey summary NYMWFHP Survey Summary .  

Many respondents are interested in Saving for Downpayment, Homebuyer Eduation and Financial Literacy .  Since homeownership is one of the best asset building vehicles out there, it is critical to help as many people who want to own a home become mortgage ready as this will go a long way towards reducing poverty.  Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Team members present:  Kevin Cederstrom, Todd Cameron, Connie Warner, Lori Rothstein, Denise Peltier,Victoria McWane-Creek, Lynn Kasma, and Julie Adams.

Meeting started at 12:05 pm.

Since this was our first meeting since establishing the Horizons Team Work Plan, selection of Chair and Secretary was necessary.  Lynn volunteered to be chair and Julie volunteered to be secretary.

Todd explained the Barrier Elimination Funds in which we have $2,000 right now.  This money will be spent to recruit participants, action planning teams, implementing ideas generated by Future Squads.  Categories in which they can spend the money include:  office supplies, child care, mileage, food, photocopies, space rental, marketing/recruitment, and other.  Must be spent by June 30, 2008.   In order to request funds, submit form to ISD #553 (our Fiscal Agent) that has been signed off on by the Chair and the Secretary.  Todd will bring a spreadsheet that explains our Barrier Elimination Fund totals as well as the remaining $8,500.00 from the initial $10,000.00 that we have received.  

Discussion on how to start marketing the Horizon’s Program as well as the Future Squads. 
Trade Show—will be held Saturday, March 29.  Horizons team members will man booth.  Booth will include information, surveys, computer showing blog site, and a door prize drawing.  Lynn will organize this.
Tri-fold brochure—to include basic information about the Horizons Program and contact information for Future Squads.  Victoria and Denise will work on this.  Presentations to local organizations and businesses—Discussed the need to talk informally to local organizations to give basic information about the Horizons Program as will as to recruit members to the Future Squads. 
The list of contacts are as follows:
School Board/Teachers/Student Groups—Todd and Denise
CAC—Victoria and Connie
C&C/Thursday Morning Meeting—Julie and Kevin
Fire Fighters—Kevin 
New Horizons—Connie
Lions—Todd
St. Peter’s—Denise
Trinity—Julie
UCC—Kevin
Elder’s Home—Bill Warner
Cultural Center—Lynn and Todd
Finn Creek—Kevin
Sr. Center—Julie
Girl Scouts—Victoria
County Building—Julie
Other marketing tools include the Blog, newspaper articles, radio, etc.  Kevin will do an article soon.  Todd (and maybe one other person) will do Talk of the Town in February.  Lori stressed the importance of blogging all activities. Discussion of evaluation and monitoring methods.  Lori has examples of evaluation forms we could use.  She will email them out to us soon.

Update & Reports from Future Squads:
Quality of Life:  (Report from Lynn and Kevin)  They have met several times and have decided to focus on implementing a Community Garden.  Many details were discussed including possible locations and people to try to get involved.  They hope to emphasize “Green information”. 
Volunteerism:  (report from Connie and Victoria)  Victoria has blogged some information.  They hope to support other future squads.  Ultimately they would like to compile a list of organizations who need volunteers, a phone tree, and service days.
Leadership:  (Report from Denise and Julie)  They hope to meet soon to organize another round of Leadership Plenty.  Ideas pertaining to youth mentoring were discussed.
Economy:  No members of the Economy group were present.  No report given. 

The next Horizons Team meeting will be held in conjunction with all four future squads meetings in a break-out sessions.  The meeting will be held at the school with a meal catered from one of our local restaurants.  Todd will check the school calendar to see what date in February will work.   

Meeting concluded at 1:35 pm.

The Horizon’s Team met with DonnaRae Jacobson on Thursday, December 13 to finalize the “Horizon’s Team Work Plan for New York Mills”.  There were several Horizons Team members in attendance–Denise Peltier, Todd Cameron, Bill Warner, Connie Warner, Victoria McWane-Creek, Kevin Cederstrom, Pat Fredley, and Julie Adams. 

The meeting focused on the the main aspects of the Work Plan, namely the structure, the decision-making process, the communication systems, how to monitor and evaluate, and the sustainability of the Horizons Team.  DonnaRae will be sending the Team members the final copy of the Work Plan as soon as she puts the finishing touches on it.  This part of the process neeeded to be finished by December 31 in order to meet the Northwest Area Foundation’s grant requirements.  Good job Horizons Team!!

The next meeting of the Horizons Team will be on Friday, January 11, 2008, 12:00 noon, at the New York Mills Public Library Meeting Room.  Horizons Team members are asked to bring their own lunch. 

On Saturday, October 27, over 60 community members worked together to create vision for the future of our community. Looking 10-15 years out, this is what we came up with:

New York Mills is a special community that has developed a unique economy which encompasses culture and arts, outdoor recreation, and the tradition of agriculture. Farmers markets and buying local provide an opportunity to support our young entrepreneurs, our neighbors, and in turn sustain our community and ourselves. New York Mills is a welcoming place for everyone from the young to the young at heart.

Our heritage of cooperation is strong in our collective spirit. Our traditional values nurture strong volunteerism. The involvement of youth is seen in every aspect of the community. We have a collaborative, close-knit and supportive community culture that is underpinned by visionary leadership.

Share your thoughts with us!

1. Take a survey. It is only 7 questions and will help us reach the 15% benchmark:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2_2f4_2bvFKcTfr5arUadbhbiw_3d_3d

2. Come join the action. Our next meeting will be: Tuesday, November 13 at 6 pm at the NY Mills School Media Lab. Free dinner will be provided.

Together we can make a difference!

This is actually just a practice entry to see if I can do this right, but as long as I’m here . . .

I hope all of you can come to the NYM Public Library tomorrow at 12:30 for a Blog Meeting. Please bring your own lunch. Lori will be here to talk about getting our blog up and running.

See you there!