Minutes from February 2021 WNA General Meeting 2021-02-05

Woodlawn Neighborhood Association General Meeting minutes – draft until approved at next meeting

February 3, 2021, Online only at Zoom

7:00 – 7:15 Welcome and Introductions-Meeting is recorded
Present: Melody, Beth, Maija, Anjala, Dennis, Shirley, Thelma, Nancy. Community members: Michael and Chida, Andrea, Erica, Chris, Ari, Erin, Anna, John

7:15 – 7:20 Approve January meeting notes and February agenda

7:20 – 8:00 General Business

1. Gun Violence-nothing to update. However, that brings up items from Anjala:
   • Anjala is putting out a doodle poll for the next Land Use meeting to talk about things we can do to help reduce gun violence and other crime
   • Looked into Cure Violence in Chicago – would take hundreds of thousands of dollars, so not something that a neighborhood can go on their own. Would need to advocate to City government for funding.
   • Community Peace Collaborative meeting – every other Friday, next meeting this Friday, Feb. 5.
2. Events:
   1. 2/4: World Oregon Series feat. Former Woodlawn Resident and Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Nikole-Hannah Jones 
      1. https://www.worldoregon.org/2021_international_speaker_series
   2. 2/11-2/28 Woodlawn Farmer’s Market Fundraiser-online
   3. 2/20: 5:00-6:15 Woodlawn History Event by Woodlawn PTA-link TBA: SAVE THE DATE for a virtual Woodlawn History Event!

• Saturday, February 20th 5:00-6:15 pm
• (Link to the event coming soon)
• We invite the Woodlawn school and neighborhood community to join us for our first ever virtual Woodlawn History Event.
• Long-time residents and current teachers who attended Woodlawn as students will share their stories about growing up in the neighborhood. Join us to learn more about the history of the neighborhood and to appreciate the people and places with historical roots in Woodlawn. Everyone is welcome to attend this FREE event!

1. Thelma – Meals on Wheels fundraiser is coming soon. She will bring more info our next meeting.
2. Community Garden: 63 people on the wait list! One person noticed tagging on the school near the garden; could a mural go in? That would be up to the school.
3. What might we all do as an event this year around Easter? It’s Sunday April 4th and it’ll be a bit soon for a crowd for the egg hunt. Last year we encouraged people to hang drawings of eggs in their windows – maybe something like that? Thelma suggested something like a trunk or treat or parade similar to Halloween this year.

3. Fundraiser ideas:
   • . WNA could purchase gift cards to local businesses and raffle off to neighbors – Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association did this. Not sure how they handled the part of selling tickets/doing the raffle – check out https://alna.betterworld.org/giveaways/alna-raffle.

How could we handle incoming money? Venmo? Or check with Keith to see what the farmer’s market is able to do, since they are set up with a Square account.

Theirs is all online, and the drawing will be at their meeting. Perhaps even ask other neighbors if they want to buy gift cards/donate them to a giveaway/raffle. Could there be something physical/tangible as a giveaway? Classic Foods has an employee named Michael who makes beautiful cheeseboards – maybe find things like that to add to a raffle/auction? Anjala knows a local wood-turning artist, and a woman who makes beautiful flower arrangements.

Action items for now: start contacting local businesses and making a list of artists who might be interested (for now just ask artists what might be fair for them/if they’ve participated in something like this in the past). Start collecting names/businesses to make a list for some kind of event/raffle/auction. Exact details will be TBD.

Question: are we getting money to small businesses, or are we doing a silent auction for artists? Maybe don’t get our focus split. Perhaps we could do a round of raffling food cards, and do a silent auction with art – maybe even showing it at the farmer’s market. Keep healing arts in mind as well!

Anna can help more with fundraising specifics as that’s part of her day job.

Another question: any interest in some kind of talent show? There seems to be some general interest/enthusiasm for it. Could be talent, sharing a speech on a topic of interest, anything goes.

8:00 – 8:20 Board Business

1. Treasurer’s Report-Dennis Kennedy
   • No change $7600-ish balance
   • Dennis filed our 990E with the government to maintain our charitable status
2. Land Use and Transportation-Anjala Ehelebe
   • Lots of land-use-affecting measures before the legislature – recommends people read up on them and comment if they have opinions. Topics include recycling, bridges, other large-scale items.
   • Next Land Use & Transportation meeting coming soon – exact date established soon
   • Historic contribution zone measure passed – will make it harder to take down homes that contribute to the historic nature of a neighborhood
3. Farmer’s Market-Keith Baich – fundraiser coming up Feb 11-28, more information coming – keep an eye on https://www.woodlawnfarmersmarket.org/
4. NECN-Dennis Kennedy
   • Trying to get Mingus Mapps to come to a NECN meeting. His plan is to visit with coalitions before individual neighborhoods. Dennis will let us know when that meeting is scheduled.
5. NET-Erin Cooper – not present/updates from Anjala and Beth: Neighborhood Emergency Team page is a great place for training: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/pbem/31667 There was recently a course on BEECN (Basic Earthquake Emergency Communication Node) and the Woodlawn team will be having a cache outing soon. They can update the WNA about it after the fact. Erin Cooper had an article in the Concordia neighborhood newspaper talking about planning for outages: http://concordiapdx.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/cna-202102-web.pdf

8:20 – 8:30 Final thoughts, announcements, other conversations, other upcoming events

8:30 Meeting adjourns

Thank you for coming! Hope to see you Wed, March 3rd at 7pm for our next Meeting!