Tag: Roseburg

ready. . . set. . . SNOW!

Posted on by Julia Havens

Top Story on the News Tonight: Snow

Just about every community in the state of Oregon is hunkering down for snow, snow and even more snow. Levels range from 1 to 3 inches along the south coast to 7 to 10 inches in areas east of the Cascade Range. The National Weather Service says the cold weather will last through the weekend and transition to milder and wetter conditions (a.k.a. rain) by the middle of next week.  With that in mind, the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments-RARE AmeriCorps participants took a moment to share photos of their community’s first winter wonderland conditions before the rain washes it all away.

Resource Assistance for Rural Environments - University of OregonThe mission of the RARE Program is to increase the capacity of rural communities to improve their economic, social, and environmental conditions, through the assistance of trained graduate-level participants, from across the US.  These RARE AmeriCorps participants live in and serve 25 rural Oregon communities assisting in the development and implementation of projects for achieving a sustainable natural resource base and improving rural economic conditions. The markers on the map represents the 25 RARE placements throughout Oregon for 2013-14.



Special thank you to Andrew Barbier, Aubrey Erwin, Jeremy Goldsmith, Laura Goodrich, Maggie Hanna, Julie Havens, Katherine Hayes, Blake Helm, Gabby Pauling, Maddie Phillips, Rebecca and Jason Sergeant, Saira Siddiqui, and Titus Tomlinson for sharing their photos with us.


 

			

	





	

		
		
Adventures in Collaboration…Now with Technology! by Sarah Allison
		

			Posted on  by Admin		

			

	

		


Adventures in Collaboration…Now with Technology! 


by Sarah Allison


For the past few months, my Community Planning Workshop (CPW) team has been working to develop strategic plans for the Emergency Management divisions of Douglas and Coos County. We have gathered information from our steering committees (one in each county), research, interviews and a survey. In addition to the county-level strategic plans, we are also developing a regional plan with opportunities for the two counties to collaborate on common goals. Toward that end, we had a joint meeting this week with the steering committees from both counties to discuss regional opportunities.


The Value of Time


Our Douglas County steering committee is based primarily in Roseburg, and the Coos County committee is based primarily in the Coos Bay/North Bend area, so a physical meeting space would have meant several hours of travel for at least one of the committees, if not both. A two hour meeting would have become an all day affair. Instead, we used the tools available to make collaboration as efficient as possible. Each county had a facility with video conference capabilities, so we divided our CPW team in half. Two team members went to Douglas County, and two went to Coos. Each sub-team facilitated the people in their county, and we had remarkably effective interactions between the two committees virtually.


Moving Forward


Based on the conversations between committees and our previous information gathering, the team will now move into my favorite part of the project – synthesis. We will develop and polish goals and actions to help move these divisions in the direction they want to move. As an additional bonus, the tool of video conferencing may be included in the strategic plan as a way to maintain communication channels between the counties in the future!


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