St. James, MN

Another community-building resource is coming to St. James, but pay attention to see how it works.

The Northwest Area Foundation funds Horizons, which is run by the University of Minnesota Extension service. Another program of Northwest Area Foundation is called “Creating a Value Added Community” (CVAC). Both Horizons and CVAC are designed to reduce poverty in rural areas.
Now CVAC has teamed up with the Madelia Model to bring the CVAC program and the Madelia Model bioenergy projects to the communities surrounding Madelia. The CVAC portion is being implemented by Renewing the Countryside. One goal is to incorporate existing community programs like Horizons and Bridging Brown County, so that we are all working together on a regional level.

The next meeting will be Tuesday, March 25, from 1-4 p.m. at the St. James Library, because they want to move the meetings around. They are looking for more people to get involved and learn how to Create a Value Added Community. To get involved, contact Linda Meschke at Rural Advantage.

The October 26 Scenario Planning session was facilitated by David Buerle of Australia.
Here are some of the things we learned:

Forces impacting the world – what are the emerging global drivers:
• Energy consumption is increasing
• Wealth in the US being distributed to fewer people
• Dramatic increase in wealth and workforce size in China and India – and expected to continue to grow
• Decline in US economic power in the world
• Climate change emerging as major global issue
• Media power shifting to internet and away from traditional media

Forces impacting the region – what are the emerging regional drivers?
• Rising costs of energy and transportation
• Area has excellent access to sustainable energy sources and food production
• Increasing ethnic diversity
• Increasing access to technology and media are changing work patterns
• Aging population

Watonwan County is in the center of a “biomass cooridor” of good soils, and good weather for growing. It puts us in a prime position to take advantage of renewable energy projects.

Key drivers shaping the future of Saint James (as determined by workshop participants)
1. Education
2. Community attitude
3. Bridging cultural gaps
4. Responsiveness to change
5. Willingness to invest in the future
6. Types of employment
7. Attractiveness for people and businesses
8. Future of agriculture
9. Availability of capital – poverty/prosperity
10. New energy/biofuel corridor
11. Quality and quantity of labor pool
12. Local/regional identity – “brand”
13. Understanding role of community in and with the region

These were also voted on and are listed above in order of the most votes. But if you add the votes for numbers eight, “Future of agriculture,” and ten, “New energy//biofuel corridor,” then land use issues would bump up to number three or four.

Fighting complacency with a single task force, the Future Squads were set at tonight’s Horizons meeting.

I didn’t count, but there must have been 45 people at the meeting. We came up with a vision statement and four solid Future Squads to work on the issues important to St. James. Two liasons were appointed from each Future Squad. They are:

Education: Shiree Oliver and James Piper (preschool up to higher education)
Green Team: Jill Henderson and Mark Anderson (energy/environmental issues)
Youth: Caitlin Olson, Kristen Shumate (youth issues)
Unity: Emily Boelke, Joe McCabe (engaging the community to work together)

If any of you would like to join a team, contact these people.

Three pizzas, six water bottles and a big can of Jolt fueled seven St. James students as they poured over a stack of applications to the St. James Youth Council.
The students, Erik Romsdahl, Hilario Alvarado, Julio Zelaya, Anna Asendorf, Josie Oliver, Tory Clark and Irma Marquez, were not just looking for the best resumé or the most popular applicants. Instead, they kept talking about finding unlikely leaders, looking for people who wanted to get involved.
The applications were excellent. Many of them said they wanted to change the way peer pressure was controlling what kids did in and out of school.
It will be fund to find out who the seven leaders selected for the Youth Council. Hopefully, when things get going, the Youth Council members will blog about their activities.