Dialogue to Action Steering Committee Minutes 9/8/15

In attendance: Chia, Betsy, Christine, Nicole, Leslie, Jens (phone)

Budget update – Stipends will be given after the dialogue to recipients but there is paperwork that needs to be completed; Transportation is covered for those needing assistance through free bus passes donated by Metro Transit through Saint Paul SmartTrips; Betsy will go through the original budget and send out an update on how the stipends will be distributed – total amounts will depend on numbers of facilitators and participants needing assistance.

PED work – Curriculum has been drafted and is being finalized, and the date is October 14. The work has been divvied up among the planning committee for who would do what and there will be meetings between now and the date of the workshop. There will be four 40 minute sessions.  24 PED staff have committed to attend. District councils can have up to 5 reps per council in attendance. There will be an intro, definitions, struggles and challenges and priorities, with actions about how to make things more equitable.  The different levels of racism and equity will be addressed as well as how to do equitable community engagement. The planning group will meet one more time with final draft of the curriculum due on October 1 with run through that day at Arlington Hills. The work will look at how disparities impact livability – we want to be setting high level goals for both community and the department.

Leslie will prepare a three paragraph draft of a press release – include a quote from Mayor’s Office? Quote from Najat?

Updates – Chia and Betsy met with Mayors Office. We will meet with Gwen P and Kathy K directly again to talk about how we will work with them on the Parks dialogues (NOTE: this meeting took place on September 9 and was a positive meeting).  As curriculum is developed, we note that the Met Council has a report on Parks and equity. We are finalizing the parks curriculum.

Facilitators training – 8 people attended and we used the training tools from Everyday Democracy with some rearranged materials. Youth fully participated. We wanted to assure that people were not confused about their roles and the materials, they supported each other and left very positive about the experience. They were to meet with their co-facilitator prior to the actual dialogues.

Outreach plan – We have been sending flyers out and participant forms. Betsy will resend the updated form. We suggest it be announced on the WEQY 104.7. An announcement was sent to ES Review, Jane McClure, reached out agencies, reached out to CAT members and former dialogue participants; Jazz festival in Rondo, Family Values giveaway. Steering committee members will recruit. We need to have SIGNAGE at the site.

Thursday send Steering committee numbers we have for next Monday (NOTE: we only had 2 RSVPs by Thursday…)

October 12 at 10a… next steering committee