April 23, 2014 committee meeting – Attendance: Joni Burgin, Glenn Rolloff, Cris Peterson, Kelly Gerber, Nicki Peterson

· Nicki handed out hard copies of the presentation from the Design Team. Large laminated copies will be sent to us in the next few weeks; we will display these in the Village hallway.
· Jennifer at the Village is looking into a Brownfiled grant (not sure of spelling or details).
· We talked about a name for our group. We liked the idea of having the words Grantsburg and Revitalization in the name so it tells the story. To complete the name we thought of organization which led to the acronym GRO and we loved that so much that we decided to think of additional “o” words if organization got to be a mouthful. We didn’t officially vote, but we are leaning toward Grantsburg Revitalization Operation. Please respond with any ideas you have.
o I looked into a domain name and of course gro.com, .net, etc are all taken. However, www.gro.today is available – might be pretty fitting??? Otherwise, any ideas on domain names? I would like to get the website up in the next couple weeks (probably after the triathlon on May 10).
· We discussed ‘easy’ first steps. These included conversations around the following:
o Memory Garden along Olson Drive (from highway to Memory Lake Park). People / organizations / businesses could adopt a section of land (100 ft plots was mentioned) and plant native / wild flowers. They would receive a garden plaque to identify their area. We need to provide rules and boundaries for what can and cannot be placed in their plot so that it keeps a serene and neutral theme.
§ Glenn will also look into the possibility of renaming this street “Memory Lane” or something to that effect.
o Communicate with the DNR to open / clear trees and branches along Wood River so we can promote kayaking and canoeing from an area by Burnett Dairy to the St. Croix River.
o Painting of homes as student fundraisers – Ben Peterson volunteered to organize a group of people who are ‘handy’ and could oversee students wanting to raise money for their sport, school group, youth group, etc. while painting exteriors and cleaning up yards. His vision is to have this turn into a management training program or internship for student leaders.
o Branding – Nicki would like to lead the group (and other interested parties) in a process to develop our “Brand Core, Image and Communication Plan”. I have asked my boss at Burnett Dairy, Bryan Olson, who has 20+ years in marketing and branding (Schwan’s, Energizer, Johnson & Johnson) if he would volunteer his time to help and he said yes. More details to come, but this is very exciting! I’d like to get something scheduled in the month of May. He comes from 2 hours away so I just need to coordinate with his schedule.
o Downtown Building Reuse
§ Kelly said Community Bank might be interested in purchasing the Boyd’s store on the corner downtown and turning into office buildings. iForward is possibly interested in renting at this location.
§ Nicki talked to Tammy Nelson about the Lion’s Club building. They meet once a month and might be interested in selling it if for a good cause. It might be a possibility to turn that building into a business. We brainstormed and think the perfect thing would be a small café / baker with rentals (paddle boats, skis, bikes, etc). Could be leased to multiple small businesses all operating out of the same location to help split the rent. Tammy will have Gary bring it up at their 5/1/14 meeting.
· We discussed breaking out into sub-committees. I’d really like to keep each subcommittee to 2-3 members of the implementation committee. From this meeting we came away with:
o Downtown – Cris, Kelly & Joni
o Branding – Glenn and Nicki
o Others I’ve heard from include:
§ Natural Resources – Steve & Melanie
§ Highway 70 – Wade
§ Branding – Alyssa and Gordy – if either of you have interest in another category it’d be preferred that we split up a bit more evenly
o The lonely category is Housing
o Joni also volunteered to look into some funding options. We will need to identify specific projects that we need funding for. We also have options like Grantsburg Telcom, US Bank, Otto Bremer Foundation – even Polk Burnett for smaller funding (up to $1000) but everything certainly helps!!

I had a conference call with Todd and Randy from the design team yesterday. Their group loved Grantsburg! They raved about the weekend in Grantsburg and shared with me that our visit will be discussed across the Midwest. Todd is giving a presentation this weekend (can’t remember to whom, but in Minneapolis). Todd and Randy are giving a presentation in Dubuque, IA about the design team process, and specifically about their experiences in Grantsburg. This will be July 21 at the Community Development Society Conference. I’ve attached another forum being held across the state; one being in Grantsburg due to our involvement in the design team process.

Todd mentioned that the key thing to do with those who signed up at the event is to find their interests and give them specific tasks that have completion dates. Not everyone will want to be on an organizing committee, and those who don’t will still be excellent worker bees when we have specific projects to work on. Cris, could you follow up with those who signed up? I believe I emailed the list to you (it was a picture from my phone). Just to touch base and thank them for their interest and see what level of interest they have (committee or helping hand – and what ‘categories’ they might be most interested in).

Let’s meet again in a couple weeks to get a firmer idea on next steps.