St. James, MN

The Community Coffee is going to start in earnest in September, but we are still looking for topics to discuss, starting with the new school building proposal. If you need some help with ideas, here are some of my favorite community-building web sites:

• MPR’s The Future of Small Towns Idea Generator - http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2005/04/smalltowns/
(People, Economic Opportunity, Human Services, Telecommunications, Transportation, Social/Cultural Opportunities, Education, Government, Other. Challenge: find Dave Stordalen’s and Mark Anderson’s posts)
• Project For Public Spaces - Building Community, Creating Places, Using Common Sense - http://www.pps.org/
(Parks, Transportation, Civic Centers, Public Markets, Downtowns, Mixed-Use Development, Campuses, Squares, Waterfronts)
• Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation - http://www.smifoundation.org/
(Grants, Community, Business, Voices, Early Childhood, Bio-Industry, Asset-Based Community Development)

• The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation - http://www.theharwoodinstitute.org/

Other Places To Get Ideas:
• BetterTogether - http://www.bettertogether.org/
• Center For Rural Policy and Development - http://www.mnsu.edu/ruralmn/
• Local Initiatives Support Corporation - http://www.lisc.org/
• Heartland Center for Leadership Development - http://www.heartlandcenter.info/
• New Rules Project - Designing Rules As If Community Matters - http://www.newrules.org/
• Institute For Local Self-Reliance - http://www.ilsr.org/
• Local Government Commission - a nonprofit organization working to build livable communities - http://www.lgc.org/
(Community Design, Economic Development, Energy, Environment, People & Community, Transportation, Waste Prevention)
• Boomtown USA - http://boomtownusa.blogspot.com/
• National Trust Main Street Center - http://www.mainstreet.org/
• The City Repair Project - http://www.cityrepair.org
• Seven Revolutions - http://www.7revs.org
• Community Development Foundation - http://www.cdf.org.uk/
• World Changing - Change Your Thinking - http://www.worldchanging.com/
• The Minnesota Design Team - http://www.minnesotadesignteam.org/
• The Dialogue Project - Building Community Through Dialogue - http://www.thedialogueproject.org/
• COMM-ORG - The Online Conference on Community Organizing and Development - http://comm-org.wisc.edu/
• Freakonomics - The Hidden Side of Everything - http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/
• Heartland Center for Leadership Development - http://www.heartlandcenter.info/
• Rural Policy Research Institute - http://www.rupri.org/
• Governing Magazine - http://www.governing.com/
• Wiser Earth - http://wiserearth.org/

• Northwest Area Foundation - http://www.nwaf.org/

Add Your Own:

The first Horizons money requests were granted at the Leadership Team meeting on Tuesday. The Education Future Squad will get $750 for interpreter services for Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) classes. The classes are being held by the Good Samaritan community in May, June and July.

The other grant was $500 to the Green Team Future Squad to get their names on the reusable shopping bags that are going to be sold at grocery stores and around town. Besides being environmentally friendly, the project is a social contribution because the proceeds from selling the bags will go to a scholarship fund for low-income students.

This money comes out of the first $1,500 payment from the Northwest Area Foundation (the parent of Horizons) to St. James. Another $8,500 will be coming upon the completion of the Horizons program.

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.

Less than one year into the program, Horizons has sparked many projects and meetings in St. James.  A Horizons Leadership Team meeting on Monday, February 18, gave updates on several of the projects.
One of the central goals to come out of the Horizons community visioning meeting in October was to have all the St. James arrows pointed in the same direction.  That meant getting people and community groups working on common goals, rather than each person or group working on different groups.
For that purpose, the Unity/ Diversity/ Working Together Future Squad will have their organizational meeting on Thursday, Feb. 28, from 5:15 to 7:00, First Presbyterian Church.
The group will also invite members of the Unity/Unidad committee, which has not met for several months.  The meeting will be to brainstorm and come up with ideas for the Unity Future Squad.
Other Horizons projects updated were:
• The  community vision and vision statement threshold was met, with more than 600 people in St. James commenting on the Horizons vision.
• Bus shelter - a $2,000 donation from Tony Downs was announced to go toward the first project.
• More bloggers are wanted for the St. James community blog, stjames.communityblogs.us.
• Home repair classes are scheduled for May.
• Green Team Future Squad is planning to put up a display in the St. James Library, and work with schools on an Earth Day project.

Update: the article linked is no longer on the web, but click it to get a different story about a different town.

Anyone interested in retaining St. James youth has got to read this. Brookfield, Missouri, exactly the same size as St. James (4,700), started a plan to give each graduating student a mailbox to let students know that they will always have a home in Brookfield.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. They also started a $250,000 community foundation and a bunch of other stuff. It’s like a blueprint of what St. James is talking about in the Horizons discussions. Read the story by clicking here.

Please take our Vision Statement Survey

It will ask you about the vision statement developed at a St. James Horizons meeting.
Here is the vision statement:

We envision St. James to be a friendly and energetic community that
- Celebrates diversity
- Supports new endeavors that create a thriving community
- Has strong infrastructure, healthy institutions and active citizens
- Welcomes new opportunities and entrepreneurs, and supports local businesses
- Ensures everyone has access to quality education, health care, support systems, and safe, affordable housing
- Is committed to protecting our environment
- Makes decisions for the long-term good

The survey will ask just three questions: Does this match your vision for St. James? Can St. James achieve this vision? What can you and the organizations you work with do to make this vision a reality?

Again, the survey is at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=1yDhyMA0ULsWngdhhRrpyQ_3d_3d

Four possible future scenarios for St. James were presented at the end of the Scenario Planning meeting.

Scenario A -Big Brains, No Heart. This was based on a presumption that St. James would grow their skills and assets, but lose community cohesion and responsiveness to change. The characteristics were:
• Highly skilled commuter culture
• People have low interest in activism and involvement in the community and there are fewer service organizations
• Crime rate is higher due to a lack of community connection
• More duplication/competition among churches, schools, etc.
• Existing businesses will struggle and new business will not be attracted
• Entertainment industry increases

Scenario B - Saintopia or “I will do it”. Presumed St. James would grow skills and assets for the future, and also increase community cohesion and responsiveness to change. Characteristics were:
• Community supports new endeavors of all kinds
• People work together instead of being territorial, there is great community strength, energy and purpose
• Infrastructure is in place to serve as a fertile ground for new opportunities and expansion of existing resources
• All people in St. James receive a good education
• Residents are committed to being ‘green’

Scenario C - Good Attitude, No Action. Presumed St. James would not improve skills and assets for the future, but would increase community cohesion. Characteristics were:
• Population will age, younger people will move away
• As a result of changing demographics, school system will struggle
• Businesses and investments will come from outside, not within the community
• New businesses will struggle to find work force
• Community will continue to look the same, but as the world changes, St. James will miss major economic opportunities

Scenario D - Double Negative. No improvement in skills, no improvement in cohesion. Characteristics were:
• Lack of public funding and decay of infrastructure – roads, health, education all suffer and associated jobs are lost
• Increased community fragmentation – crime, drug use, social unrest increases.
• Major manufacturing and retail industries will be lost; jobs will primarily be in bars and other entertainment venues, care for elderly, etc.
• Little intercultural communication or ‘neighborly’ behavior, public gathering places suffer
• Bio-energy may be developed, but it will drain our water, pollute our land and be owned outside the community

Early responses showed that people prefer Scenario B, Saintopia or “I Will Do It”. So people were asked “What can you and the organizations you work with do to make that scenario a reality?” Here are the responses and the number of people with similar responses:
• Work together – this isn’t one person’s community (30)
• Get more people involved – get active in the community – So Get Up St. James!!! (26)
• Set an example — make a personal commitment to do what needs to be done (12)
• Support existing institutions (businesses, groups, churches..) (9)
• Set concrete goals particularly in education and being green - -be more proactive (8)
• Get different people to stand up and talk, participate in community discussions, listen to youth (6)
• Fundraise, find more dollars (6)
• More diverse businesses working toward same community goals; find more jobs for people (5)
• Bridge the cultural gaps that occur in the workplace, embrace our cultural diversity (3)
• Come back to St. James (2)

During the October 26 meeting, several topics came up in discussion:
• There is a strong interest in bridging cultural gaps and making diversity a community asset.
• St. James is seen as being well-positioned to capitalize on increasing demand for green energy.
• Participants agreed that making the community appealing to young people, both culturally and economically, is essential.
• The strong traditional institutions in St. James must grow with the community if they are to continue to serve as the community’s ‘backbone’.
• Participants saw education as an important part of the community’s investment in the future.
• Growing access to technology could lead to greater isolation or greater connection in the community.

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.