City to host neighborhoods conference April 15

Neighborhood leaders hear about the upcoming conference, with training and workshops on April 15.

[00:00:08] Cindy Koehler (Office of Equity and Community Engagement): The neighborhood conference is coming up, so please mark your calendars. April 15, that’s a Saturday. We will hold a conference in the LCC (Lane Community College) building. In the morning we will have our traditional Neighborhoods 101 conference or Neighborhoods 101 workshop.

[00:00:24] We will provide lunch. So I’ll be sending out an email here shortly that allows people to choose whether they’ll be there virtually or whether they’ll be there in person so we can make sure that we have ample food for everyone.

[00:00:35] The afternoon, we’ll be offering a ‘Belonging for Neighborhood Associations’ (training). Several of you took the ‘Belonging’ training that was (hoo!) probably two years ago maybe. So we’ll be offering the ‘Belonging for Neighborhoods’ again. And that will take the bulk of the afternoon, video recording so we can have that available for neighborhood leaders in the future to watch that. But it’ll be in person and virtual.

[00:00:56] We will also have a workshop on effective outreach and effective neighborhood outreach (with Jefferson Westside’s Rene Kane) and we’ll have another one on subcommittees really with a focus on social justice committees. We have a group of neighborhoods that are interested in putting together that workshop.

[00:01:10] We have another workshop on Robert’s Rules and meeting management (with River Road’s Jon Belcher), one on neighborhood emergency preparedness (with Amazon’s Randy Prince).

[00:01:17] So we will have a nice robust conference. There’ll be lots of things to do and see and it will be wonderful! So mark your calendars: April 15, Saturday.

[00:01:29] John Q: She said her office hopes to hire for a staff position soon.

[00:01:34] Cindy Koehler (OECE): So the neighborhood liaison position, a lot of folks have been inquiring about that. At the last meeting, we hit the pause button on the hiring process. I wanted to let everybody know that we did reopen it for an internal process. That process closed on Monday evening (March 27, 2023). There were a few really good solid candidates that applied for the position and hopefully by next NLC, we’ll be able to introduce the new neighborhood liaison.

[00:01:57] John Q: Cindy said her office can help neighborhoods set up hybrid meetings. You can reserve the needed equipment.

[00:02:03] Cindy Koehler (OECE): With the help of the library, we have three hotspots—three pucks. And (Friendly Area Neighbors Co-Chair) JJ (Jaenisch) had the opportunity to try that out with the Owl (360-degree video camera) and the speaker and the projector and the whole kit and caboodle to try it out. We have lots of tools available to help with hybrid meetings.

[00:02:20] So we have on our neighborhood associations page, we’ve got the list of things that you can reserve and the Owl and the hotspot are on there, so you can reserve those. it’s first come, first served, so make sure you get those reservations in as soon as you can when you know you’re having a meeting.

[00:02:35] John Q: April 15: How to create a welcoming neighborhood organization, Map Your Neighborhood, and more. At the city website, see the Office of Equity and Community Engagement.