Minnesota

 
Do you wonder what others see when they visit your community? Are you looking at tourism opportunities or revitalizing your downtown? Then read on!

The University of Minnesota College of Design has developed a community partnership program where 2-3 communities work together to bring outside perspective to what your community has to offer.

Through this process team members develop a skill set that allows them to look at communities in a different way. You will:
• Have fun being a secret shopper in another community
• Work collaboratively
• Develop observational skills
• Share new ideas and information with your partnering community
• Plan and complete a small project for your community

The goal of Designing the Future: Community Strategies is for communities to collaboratively and critically view their own community through viewing another. As Designing the Future is sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s College of Design, you will have the opportunity to consult with faculty and/or classes on projects related to graphic design, historic preservation, housing studies, landscape architecture, or retail merchandising.

To learn more about this program, read their brochure and application: dtfprogrammaterials.pdf

If you are a Horizons community and you are interested in this process, please let Lori or Jessica know as well and we will help you make the connections.

March 3: Theme of this call was communications and promotions. In addition, community members discussed additional resources they’ve brought into their communities and how they’re continuing with action steps. To see the March 3 notes

When I’m not on the phone or on the road, I often listen to Minnesota Public Radio at my desk. Today on the mid-day program, they broadcast an inspiring talk by Muhammad Yunus, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for more or less inventing the practice of microlending in India.

His radical approach to banking and lending in poor communities has changed the way many people think about poverty reduction, both internationally and at home. I highly recommend listening to his talk, which you can do at MPR’s website, or checking out their online articles about Mr. Yunus and his work. It reminded me that small decisions can make a huge impact, and that creating opportunity for one mother, one family, one student, can change the course for an entire community.

The next in a series of articles dealing with families and financial health.  You can access the website through this link

http://www.extension.umn.edu/MoneyEveryDay/ToughTimes.html 

We’re taking registrations for the Regional Training Workshops scheduled for:

March 29 at Fairmont Holiday Inn, Fairmont

April 5 at Hibbing Park Hotel in Hibbing

April 12 at Best Western in Detroit Lakes

April 19 at Rochester Community College

All training workshops run from 10 AM to 3 PM with registration and continental breakfast beginning at 9:30. All Horizons communities, past and present, are invited to attend at no costs.

A registration form is attached. Call Monica Herrera at 866 407-4906 is you have any questions.

Registration for Regional Training Workshops

Volunteers across the state can help you prepare your federal and state tax returns. If you’re a senior citizen, disabled citizen, or an individual with an income of $30,000 or less ($40,000 or less for families), you are eligible for assistance.

Most volunteer tax preparation sites are open from February 5 through April 15.

To get free assistance in filing your income taxes, you can log on the Minnesota Department of Revenue website to find a location near your home or click on the link below:

http://www.taxes.state.mn.us/taxes/vita/free_tax_prep.shtml

Hamburger Helper is taking applications for this year’s round of Hometown Helper Grants. Through this program, communities across the country have received funding for everything from firefighter training to playgrounds. Many Horizons communities have projects in the works that would be wonderful candidates. Check out the simple and straightforward application process, definitely designed for folks who are not seasoned grantwriters. Up to $15,000 per community is available, and the application deadline is March 31st.

Congratulations to our February contest winners! Julie Adams from New York Mills was the individual winner and the community winner was Chisholm! Now it’s time to announce the March contest.

The February contest was designed to get people to check out the Minnesota blog regularly to see all the cool things we’ve been working on. Now the challenge is to get people in your community to check your blog to see all the neat things you’re doing in your community. This month’s challenge is to get people to check your blog out.

How will we know who the winner is? A few different ways. The first will be to use instructions from my January 27th post on installing a hit counter to your blog, or click adding-a-web-counter.doc. The hit counter will help you see how many unique visitors you have to your blog each month. Be sure to check the box for “unique visits.” If anyone is having trouble installing it, let me know and I can help you out. The other way is through this very neat program that our site managers installed called Google Analytics, which is a more detailed blog statistic tracker. For more information on Google Analytics, click here: www.google.com/analytics.

The community that has the most blog traffic, weighted for population, wins! The individual winner will be chosen by random drawing from bloggers who post in the month of March.

How will you drive traffic to your blog? Look at my February 10th post on ways to promote your blog, or post a comment asking what others are doing!

Good luck, and Happy Blogging!