Its hard to know who is working harder during this session of Leadership Plenty; the instructors or the students. With a smaller groupof people involved, the dynamics are much different…and all are working their brains hard. We are entering the 4th session; which we have a meal plan for. Hopefully the food will revitalize our tired brains. See we are working hard!
A group of concerned citizens in the Rolette community is taking it upon themselves to remodel the memorial halls kitchen. This is being done to increase use of the facility. It is also being done with the questionable blessing of the American Legion Post, the auxiliary, the city and the county commissioners. We do have the full support of RADA and they are our parent organization. Just to get permission to start this project has been strange. The county owns the building, the city pays all the bills, and the legion rents it! Crazy how life evolves. Gordy has given us his blessing although he doesn’t know why we would want to start this without any money. The city and the county also give us their blessings and blessing alone. Although the city offered their tax id number for us; so they are our fiscal agent. The thought process has boiled down to getting actual costs and estimates. Now the process of finding the right grant for the right project begins. Therefore we are calling ourselves the “Kitchen Nightmare”. Not to be confused with the popular show that can be found at http://www.fox.com/kitchennightmares/. Keep checking back for more info. and progress. I am sure there will be a time when your help will be needed.
This is us during our initial blog training in February. We had fun learning how to blog and even though some of us look a little more confused than others, you can tell by scrolling through our blog site that we all really did learn a lot.
Although the well marked walking trail is great for most seasons of the year, when the temperature dips below zero most people prefer to walk inside. Every morning Monday through Friday a group of men met at 8:30 in the mall for coffee and toast some just coffee. After we have discussed local, state, and national news we walk over to the hall for some exercise. The key for us to leave the mall is when Stanley Haagenson shows up generally between 9:15 and 9:30 and then Frank Boucher leads us over for our daily routine. We walk between and around tables as many as five to six deep for a period of thrity minutes. Of course we chose to continue to rehash local and world problems as we walk. Some days we are lucky when Sue Nelson and Jewel Honsey join us while walk. They being a little younger then we are basically walk circles around us even so we enjoy the company. Don, Jay, Eldore, Stanley, Gary, Frank and on Thursdays Kathy Anklam extends an open invitaion to walk with us. So come and walk with us. You’ll feel better if you do.
I see that you are working on another class for LeadershipPLENTY! Excellent and I wish you much luck. I know that it will be great - you did such a nice job with the first class in your community. I would also encourage anyone reading this to get in touch with the organizers to consider the training.
P.S. Nice work on this blog!
Lynette Flage - ND Horizons Director
With the new start of leadership plenty in the begining stages, this question has cropped up often lately. I am not sure of how the actually official grant got started but I do know that you can blame or give kudos to Joellen Gilje. Here is her picture and feel free to let her know how you think this process is going. Along with that I really cant let her hold all of the blame… she has a board of director for Horizons… are you can ask her who they are. Ha! Ha! Can you feel me passing the buck? I am one of the directors and please feel free to express your opinion to me as well. We can only change things if we know the are broken or not liked. Take some time and visit with us.
With all the hard work everyone has been doing I thought a little reflection would be nice. Here is the group of 4Hers and the two adult volunteers (Sue Best and Lois Hesford) who spearheaded one of our goals. They were caught in the act of painting the Town. Using fluorescent paint and templates, our swifty walkers painted the fluorescent grins around town on the predetermined path. The kids quickly dubbed it the “smile mile”. After a quick hot trip around town and a stop at Pastor and Lois Hesfords house for refreshments, the mile was marked. Karen Armstrong graciously plotted out the map and made brochures. These brochures can be found at the mall in town. Thanks to the quick thinking of these fine people we have a safe, user friendly by all walking path in town. If you see these folks please stop them and give them a heart felt “ Thank you!” they certainly deserve it.
On January 16th Duane, Peter and I took in different meetings at the convention and came back to Rolette with some practical ideas to generate more business in our town. The common theme throughout the conference was what sets your town apart from other towns? If your town is selling a product is it cheaper and better then the competiton. ? The Alerus Center is a wonderful place to hold a conference. I would like to go again next year! The people of Grand Forks, NDak. did a great job of hosting the event.
The Prairie Rose Writers have been very busy lately planning their first anthology. An anthology is a collected work of several writers that could include poems, prose, essays, and short stories. The Prairie Rose Writers group began in the summer of 2005 and has been going strong ever since. From time to time they also have visitors who include those who have already published their own books. The group is also encouraged to attend the annual Writers Conference which is held in the spring of every year at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, North Dakota. For more information , please go to UND Writers Conference.
….Pete is! Rolette is a thriving town, lots of great people doing lots of great things for their community. Check back often to find out what’s happening next!