Marion County Adult Leadership

Meeting Minutes February 24, 2004
Sodie's Restaurant, 5:30 p.m.

Opening Remarks:

Mark called the meeting to order and distributed minutes of the January 12 meeting. There were no additions or corrections. A motion was made by Mark and seconded by Randy to approve the minutes as read, and the motion passed unanimously.

Ranger Days:

Randy reported that Ranger Boats has tentatively scheduled the first annual Ranger Days event for Friday and Saturday, April 23-24. This will be a large event with tours, tents, food, boat rides, and many other activities. Ranger is sending out letters of invitation and expects 5,000-10,000 people. The person to contact about setting up a booth or getting involved in some way is the Flippin Pizza Hut manager.

ACE update:

Randy gave an update of progress on the ACE certification. The first meeting was at Briarcliff with Becky Rhinehart, which essentially alerted her to our commitment to the project. The next meeting was with Layne Wheeler at Arvest Bank. She gave the group a “cheat sheet” that outlined the procedure Harrison went through to become certified. They completed ACE certification in only 8 months, compared to the 2 years it takes most communities. Certification requirements vary according to the population. Since Marion County has approximately 16,000 people, we would need 5 to 6 community development components and 4 to 5 economic development components. Finally, Sherry McConnell gave a presentation to chamber and leadership team members at Sodie’s on February 12 outlining the resources available from Entergy. Randy believes we could go through the process relatively quickly with the information we have been given and the resources available through Entergy. Leah suggested we might have an e-mail address, such as marioncountyleadership@yahoo.com, and a fax number set up especially for ACE. Since the ACE committee members are all involved with the Marion County Adult Leadership group, this should be a MCAL-sponsored project. Randy made a motion to go forward with ACE certification for Marion County. The motion was seconded by Mark and passed unanimously.

Needs Survey:

Randy handed out copies of the Marion County Needs Survey and stated that we need to copy them and distribute them to all areas of the county in an effort to involve a variety of people. We should distribute the surveys for about two weeks then place an ad in the Mountaineer Echo explaining what ACE is and asking for help and support.

Scholarship Committee:

Mike Drexler has made a complete list of chamber members in the county broken down by industry area. Mark will e-mail this list to everyone. The next steps will be to decide whether to target chambers or groups, determine a dollar amount, and set up a scholarship fund. Stacy Davenport commented that all of this activity and the ACE project should help with the Chamber membership drive.

Administrative Issues:

Mark discussed the South Shore Grant. Eve has agreed to chair this committee, with help from Mark and Randy. The grant will be used to pay for the next leadership class. Our present balance is $3,000, and we will ask for $4000 from South Shore. We may also get some donations from other sources. The group discussed raising the Leadership Class enrollment fee from $50 to $75. That was put in the form of a motion by Mark, seconded by David, and passed unanimously.

Courthouse Project:

There is no news at this time. The last committee meeting had to be postponed. This is a $1 million project still in the very early stages of development.

501C-3:

Mark gave an update on the tax exempt filing status. There was some confusion about the fee of $500 for unlimited or $150 for projects less that $10,000. Mark will get clarification on this and let us know.

Sign update:

Danna Johnson showed an example of what the sign would look like with a “fan” type display using 7 photographs. The general consensus was that the fan pattern looks great but would be easier to see with fewer pictures - maybe 5 would be better, including the courthouse and the four seasons, lake, river, turkeys, etc. A good slogan would be “Experience Marion County.” David reported that Lonnie Phillips has changed his mind and now does not want to allow the sign to be placed on his property.

Other ideas:

Mike Ragland suggested that we need to broaden our base as we move forward with the ACE certification. We could add a volunteer statement to the survey form to identify others who would like to get involved. We currently have a weak link in communicating to the public. We need a designated PR person to put articles in the media. Roger volunteered to work on this for now, and Beverly will help also. Mike asked about getting the Youth Leadership team involved. Beverly said they are an excellent group this year and would love to help. We could invite them to one of our meetings or attend one of theirs. Their next one is at the NATCO building from 8:30 to 1:00 on March 5. We possibly could make a short presentation to them during the time set aside for lunch. Beverly will contact Renee about this and will also think about things the students might be able to work on. Eve mentioned that there are a few other counties who have become certified. She recommended we find out which ones they are and contact them for information and advice. Randy said anyone with further ideas or questions could e-mail him at rlivingston@arvest.com.

Tutoring:

Howard Elmore spoke about his involvement with tutoring middle and junior high students at Yellville-Summit Schools and asked for other volunteers to help with this much-needed service.

Adjournment:

The meeting ended around 7:30. Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 23, at 5:30 at Sodie's in Flippin.