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MEMORANDUM
FROM: Civic Economics
RE: ARC Technical Assistance Update
FILE: ARC General
DATE: November 7, 2003
FORWARD: Lou Orslene, Judy Sinnott, Scott Smith, Patsy Gregory, Kostas Skordas, Jen Simon, Mabel Murphree, Ellen Kight
As we approach the conclusion of the Technical Assistance program for Brownsville, Nelsonville, Okolona, and Sturgis, Matt and Dan want to spell out what we anticipate will occur over the coming month or so. We would appreciate feedback from any of you regarding these plans.
Please distribute this memo among the Teams, ARC staff, and others.
Please visit the project website
CivicARC.com has been updated to include full details about the closing workshops, which have been set as follows:
Brownsville & Nelsonville (plus KY and WV), November 17-18, Nelsonville, Ohio Okolona & Sturgis (plus AL), November 24-25, Columbus, Mississippi
In the coming weeks, we will be notifying the various Teams and state contacts as draft documents are posted for your review. All will be password protected until after the closing workshops, so if anyone has forgotten the password please contact Dan Houston at dhouston@civiceconomics.com.
Closing Workshop Logistics
We have not yet booked rooms at the conference centers for our Teams. ARC staff would like to see 5-8 people from each community in attendance; they need not be the same as those who attended the first workshop. Many of you will be tempted to drop in on the workshops since they are being held close to your homes; we would prefer that you stay the night with us so we can huddle over plans during breaks. Of course, we understand that family and other commitments may make that difficult.
Team Leaders (Lou, Judy, Patsy, Scott): Please provide a list of attendees as soon as possible.
Additionally, ARC has offered to host some of the resource people you will be calling upon as your projects move forward. Please let us know as soon as possible of any who may be willing to attend.
Project Reports in Progress
We are in the process of preparing the deliverables (consultant-speak for reports) for each community, with a particular emphasis on getting Brownsville and Nelsonville together before the workshop.
ACTION PLANS – See Action Plan outline BELOW
For each Team, we are preparing an Action Plan to guide activity in the coming years. In each case, it will be essential that we get a lot of feedback from the Teams on draft plans. We don’t want to leave you with plans that are either too ambitious or too soft.
We would ask that each Team Leader write up a brief description of recent progress so that we may incorporate that into the document.
We will want to get a draft to the Teams as follows:
FUNDING SOURCE DOSSIERS
Matt has largely completed our research on likely funding sources for the communities. We are working that information into a useable document for each community. In the meantime, we would ask that Team Leaders and state contacts submit to us a list of good leads they are aware of so that we can incorporate that into the dossier.
To be honest, this is proving to be a challenge given the myriad possible sources for various initiatives. We will especially appreciate any information we can get from the state contacts that can be applicable across state lines.
We plan to distribute early drafts of this material on Monday, November 10.
PROPOSAL TEMPLATES
Upon completion of the Funding Source Dossiers, we will prepare the proposal templates, providing language for multiple submissions. After each Team has reviewed their dossier, we will together select two sources that will provide the model for our work.
Our present intention is to complete these documents after the closing workshops, for delivery in early December.
Closing Thoughts
First, we ask you to bear with us. We are working hard to prepare four Action Plans, four Funding Source Dossiers, and eight Proposal Templates, all for nearly simultaneous delivery. That is a monumental task. We have turned down other work in November so that we can focus exclusively on this work.
Second, we appreciate the tremendous efforts of all our Team leaders and members. Please provide us with the information requested above as soon as possible.
Finally, we look forward to seeing all of you together at the closing workshops this month. ARC staff has put together a very interesting agenda for these meetings, and will provide the opportunity for a great deal of give and take among all participating communities.
Lou Orslene, Judy Sinnott, Scott Smith, Patsy Gregory, Kostas Skordas, Jen Simon, Mabel Murphree, Ellen Kight
flatiron@lcsys.net, sinnott_j@hocking.edu, sturgismayor@yahoo.com, patsy@okolona.org, kskordas@arc.gov, jsimon@odod.state.oh.us, mmurphree@mississippi.org, ekight@state.pa.us
OUTLINE OF AN ACTION PLAN
Introduction and Background
Brief outline of events since our involvement Discussion of “issues of critical importance” to the community – this satisfies the underlying requirement of the program Discussion of the projects considered Introduction to the project selected
Project Discussion
Action Plan
Steps to be taken in the near term (0-6 months?)
Organizational Financial Prospecting for programming Physical plant emergency needs Immediate funding where necessary
Steps to be taken in the long term (6 months – 2 years) Extended goals of the Teams
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