Minutes from December 5, 2023 Meeting
7:00 – 7:15 Introductions
Please share name, pronouns, & what brought you to tonight’s meeting
Quick share: “What is your favorite way to celebrate the holidays?”
7:15 – 8:00 General Business
Approve November meeting notes
Approved
Discussion of youth board member(s)
Melody’s idea originally – young people are often left out of the discussion, feel powerless (lots of agreement in the room)
Why didn’t that young person who joined at one point come back? How can we create a better WNA experience for youth?
Question in the room: does someone under 18 have the capacity to understand and contribute to our work?
Consensus is yes – we should not be gatekeeping
Broader group does not share concerns about financial components – the youth board member would be one voice among many (12)
We do not seem to have much (any) division when voting anyway
Some skepticism from other board members
“Junior board member” – some folks are more comfortable with this designation
Question in the room: could we reserve a board position exclusively for someone under 18, in addition to doing the same for 20s to 30s?
Consideration: if we move forward with this, we need to listen to what youth want in their communities – we need to engage with what is on their minds
Would be good to have them involved in the association prior – possibly choose in October but recruit interested kiddos before that
Benefits to Youth Board Member
National Honor Society – volunteer work is a requirement
Other volunteer requirements for graduation, coursework, etc.
From a college admissions perspective, this is an excellent resume building experience (Shelby)
Leadership development
Community engagement
Youth ideas being prioritized in our community
Benefits to WNA
The people with the most available time to work on things are our younger folks and retired elders – working adults are busy, some of us with multiple jobs, kids, etc.
We need to keep the momentum up as people move on and out of Woodlawn and the WNA
Volunteers – could use more young people who need hours for other events!
Youth understand tech – we need this
We need to also try to engage college aged kids in the neighborhood
Apartment complexes! We want renters! We want youth!
Recruitment
Woodlawn Elementary school for connections – they’re young but they have parents and siblings – could we create a flyer and ask for help distributing?
There are 2 middle schools kids go to from Woodlawn
Jefferson High School – lots of Woodlawn students
Government and/or civics teachers – they might be able to recommend strong, interested students
PTAs
SMART reading connection to help find the right people at schools to connect with (Shelby)
Action: Shelby to spearhead Youth Board Member proposal and start getting the ball rolling on this
Propose budget for next year’s Easter Egg Hunt and National Night Out/Party on Portland
Reminder: NECN Indemnification – only board members able to vote on these next few
Movies or concerts in the park – got a lot of positive feedback but after reading the handbook, lots of hurdles
1k to do it, but that seems like the majority of our contribution apart from applying as City of Portland Parks Department manages
Idea is to bring City community together, food vendors go through Portland process – City leadership doesn’t want it to be fully insular within neighborhoods
We provide top 3 choices for:
Dates
Movies/concerts
3 parks – no guarantee it would be in Woodlawn park
Woodlawn
Peninsula
Alberta
Deadline – Jan 15th to get application in – opened 12/4
Fee is due in June if we are chosen – if chosen, we are committed
Could we collaborate and split with Vernon/Piedmont/Alberta? Everyone wins!
Consideration: we could apply given the looming deadline then contact the other neighborhood associations to let them know that we floated it
Consideration: we should probably loop in the other neighborhood associations before applying
Consideration: given the finances that we have, not necessarily the best choice for this year, however…
Historically a very popular event, people love, people engage, we do have some very close, very beautiful parks
Dennis (Treasurer) is supportive of even the 1k – our neighborhood businesses support us, we can support them back in this way – good response from local businesses for Neighborhood Night Out
Consideration: we could pivot to smaller scale and do a block party
High Water Mark, Campana, Tough Luck, Black Rose Market, Retro Game Bar, etc.
This could engage more Woodlawn businesses directly and save us 1k
Melissa works at an AV company in the neighborhood – on MLK – great location, thinks could host
Theater reopening – possibly grand opening, could help them out too?
We could do our own movie night supported by AV company, we could find a movie and get the rights pretty easily
$300-2k to show a movie publicly, movies in the public domain are free
Consensus is no, we pass on applying to formal movie night and potentially host our own
Action: Melody to spearhead survey on G-rated movies (we want to include kids), dates/times
Approve budget for Summer Free For All Event(s)
Budget: Around 5k for the year’s worth of activities [Anjala]
Modest income anticipated for next year 1500-2000 without much work
We will do fundraising
Woodlawn C&P, Tough Luck & Campana are great neighborhood partners
Great idea from Beth: Kroger has an online form to fill out to provide funding for these types of events – her NPO received $500 or so in gift cards toward food!
Easter egg hunt – $350 (approved)
Neighborhood Night Out – $3500 (approved) – August 6th
Out of food by 7pm this year, shouldn’t happen again in 2024
Tremendously popular
Got some good discounts on entertainment
Last year’s budget 2500, 3500 for next year so that we can 1.5x the food
Need to get the ball rolling and we need volunteers!
Budget items – let’s get another microphone & revisit the outdoor speaker idea
Anjala estimates $250 for wired mic to replace the one we used to have
Melissa with AV equipment access – checking if they have any solid outdoor speakers, microphones they could give away or resell to us
Transportation/traffic issues – set up a meeting – date, time, place
Anjala to post an agenda, share in newsletter
Transportation/traffic meeting: Sunday January 7th 1-3pm, Good Neighbor Pizza
Action: Linde to include in newsletter
Signup for coordination or helping with ideas from visioning session
Everyone voted on 4-5 priorities from the brainstorming session
Action: Barbara to reconcile and share and we’ll have Linde put the highest voted items into newsletter
Plug sign up to lead/contribute
January 2nd meeting pushed 1 week to January 9th
Action: Linde to include in newsletter
Responder for neighbor requests from social media
Time for Neighbor open comments
T-shirt fundraiser
Still working with Tymon on this – he plans to print over the winter break
Per Tymon, something like the below will work best with the printing method
Shelby proposed minor edits to proof
“Woodlawn Neighborhood Association” to appear above or below the streetcar – help promote awareness of the organization!
“Est. 1860” to replace “Woodlawn” on the streetcar – nod to neighborhood history (oldest settled community in the historical Albina area)Action item: Shelby continue working to get next steps from Tymon
Color?
Whether she should gather orders or there is a mechanism he uses
Cost
Final design image
NECN update
We can can get 1k for communication if we send them our minutes, etc
This money can be used for flyers, advertising – we don’t even have to tell them what we’ll use it for, (but we should, per Barbara)
We could potentially use this money to fund speaker purchase!
Action item: Barbara to send an email to interim director Jona
Deadline for small grants (2k, 3k, etc.) was extended to Dec. 5. These help bring great ideas to life – some granted projects end up becoming nonprofits
NECN bylaws will need to be changed because of new city structure, and a bylaws taskforce is being put together
Idea: Get together with NECN and other groups and host a symposium for next year’s local candidates for our area
Action item: Barbara to spearhead
Lots of neighborhood associations joining together to sign a letter to our governor about oil stored near our neighborhood
Can we invite a neighbor to speak about this at our meeting?
Consensus: yes!
Action item: Anjala (I think>) to spearhead inviting to next meeting [Not Anjala, Liz?]
Per Thelma, Urban League Senior Center is hosting an event 12/15 at 5325 MLK BLVD.
Breakfast 9-11:45
Caroling 12-12:45
Holiday sweater contest 12:45-1:15
Bingo for prizes 1:15-3pf
Action item: can we put this on social media? Or in a newsletter (deadline is sooner than WNA monthly newsletter!
8:00 – 8:20 Board Business
Treasurer’s Report
NECN Report – Anjala
Secretary Report – Nancy
Recovering from malicious code attack, working to clean up and salvage posts
Working with Jona [Interim Exec. Dir.] at NECN
Outreach and community engagement Report – Linde
Land Use and Transportation Report – See above – Traffic control Dekum Triangle – Anjala
Farmer’s Market Update – Holiday Market – Keith – Beth gave update
6,520 in bank account
Done for the year apart from:
Holiday Market 12/16 at Village Ballroom from 12-5p, 30 vendors, serving food, drinks (Beth is coming out of bartending retirement!), there will be music, both upstairs and downstairs, a raffle – it’s going to be a blast!
Neighborhood Emergency Team (NET) – Erin not present, no report.
