2009.06.15 EDA Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

B R & E aspects of the community's situation together with the above might not have a lot of the agencies directly in your commu- information in developing an action plan. It also is quite nity,there are many organizations that have multi-county likely that your community will develop strategies that do areas for which they are responsible. It pays to identify not fall under any of the broad categories listed in Table 1. these agencies and invite them to this meeting. Often your state department of development representatives,regional economic development professionals from the utilities,or Arrange the Implementation Resources the extension service can help you identify these resource Meeti ng9 people. Most BR&E Visitation Task Forces can't afford to reinvent While this step slows you down in getting to the community projects or programs that other groups are already doing— commencement meeting where you announce your plans,it even if the existing projects do not really address the speeds up implementation and achievement of long-term concerns of the firms visited by your program. Further,if goals. your Task Force starts a project that another group already feels it's doing or should be doing,often energy is wasted on protecting"turf'rather than serving firms. Away around Arrange the Community Commencement these two problems is to hold an"Implementation Re- Meeting sources Meeting." At the end of the retreat,ask Task Force members to identify people or agencies that might be During the community commencement meeting,the survey working on each of the selected projects. Then invite a findings and projects are presented. This meeting provides representative from each agency to the"Implementation the opportunity for the community to recognize the"end"of Resources Meeting." the BR&E Visitation program and the"beginning"of new Set up a panel of these outside resource people for each of economic development initiatives. Even though the visitation stage of your BR&E Visitation program has the priority projects and ask each person ahead of time to concluded,you have just gathered a detailed database about address the following three questions: your industry and have just announced future BR&E projects for economic development. The community 1. What is already being done in this project/topic? commencement meeting,therefore,should signify the smart 2. To what extent are current programs reaching the firms visited? of local initiatives to improve your business climate,not the end of your economic development efforts. This com- a. How could your agency/organization and our group mencement meeting marks the end of the firm visitation collaborate on expanding or starting this type of project to better reach our funis? and planning stage and also marks the beginning of the implementation stage(See page 14 for an agenda for the Ask each agency to prepare a brief(no more than four meeting and tips on how to increase community attendance). minutes for all three questions)summary on these questions. Each panel might be given about twenty minutes to address the above questions. If you have more than three or four priority projects,you might need to meet more than once. Invite all of your Task Force members to this meeting—use a telephone tree to assign Leadership Team members people to call and invite. Then follow this call with a written invitation. At the end of the session,identify at least two Task Force members to be on the implementation team for each project. And identify the agencies or groups that might wish to be on them also. If you live in a small town,you might think that this idea will only work in more urbanized areas. Wrong! While you Local Leadership Team Manual -- 13