Weekly Wrap Up

Goodness, it's already Friday!

Okay, let's see how I did on my plans:

• Attend meeting at the school on Tuesday, make introductions.
• I went to the ASC (school committee) meeting on Tuesday, and this proved to be very helpful. I learned some more about the community and made connections with the teachers so that we can hopefully work together on some projects. This was very productive.
• Attend city council meeting on Thursday, make introductions.
• I sort of did this. The city council meeting was last night, but a lot of the council members were out of town for various reasons, so the decision was made to postpone the meeting until next week. We'll try again then!
• Sit down with Lynn and compile a "dream list" of tasks that need to be accomplished in the library so that we can then prioritize them and make volunteer descriptions accordingly.
• Lynn and I have talked this over some, but thought that it would be good to get a library board meeting together so that this list can be a collaboration of everyone's ideas. This will be a work in progress, and I will put it back on the list of goals for next week.
• Begin to craft/revamp volunteer manual.
• Tougher than I thought it would be! I have been piecing together the tasks for daily running of the library, and I will hone in more on this next week.
• Get onto the library's facebook page and post upcoming events.  
• I now have access to the Coffman Cove Community Library Facebook Page and have been able to post some of our upcoming events.
• Look into the Center for Integrated Learning and Collaboration classes that can be offered over teleconference for kids or adults in the community. 
• A lot of these look really exciting. I have piggy-backed onto the event that the Craig Library is doing next week, so I will have my first real go at getting this running. I have looked at how I can incorporate some of these trainings into programs that the school or library will have running.

In addition to those things:

• I got the Coffman Cove Library signed up to participate in Alaska Book Week. I am working on getting in touch with the teachers in Coffman Cove and another nearby town so that we can get some events planned and scheduled. I am hoping to integrate a workshop/teleconference with a writing activity for the students and tie it into the books about Alaska that are here in the library.
• I have been working on carefully crafting the survey that I will use for the needs assessment. My VAD is very specific about the question that the needs assessment will seek to answer: what are the ways in which unemployment impacts members of the community. It has been very important that I talk with people and get to know the community before seeking to formulate a survey, because it became apparent to me very quickly once I arrived that the unemployment numbers and statistics don't seem to accurately represent what life is like in Coffman Cove. I want to be able to tease apart some of the things that might be helpful to know about the community in moving forward with program planning, which is going to require that I look beyond what may typically count as unemployment or underemployment. People live in this community for many reasons, but one of the reasons is that this is a place where a 40 hour per week office job is not on the menu. I am going to try to do interviews with people instead of distributing a survey so that I can talk more and get a clearer picture.
• Today, the library is hosting an event about the Dena’inaq’ (a native tribe) Way of Living. The Anchorage Museum sent a lot of great materials, and there will be some information shared by one of the volunteers along with a short video and a beading activity. I wish I could say that I had a role in the planning of this event, but it was all organized by a wonderful volunteer before I arrived!
• I am getting the word out for our first teleconference workshop, which will be next Thursday: Heck Yeah It's Time to Start My Own Business, which, as I mentioned, I jumped on with the Craig Library.
• I began to talk to the city administrator about forming a nonprofit for the library, which was fueled by my desire to get the library signed up for Amazon Smile. We are going to get together over the next few weeks and weigh out pros and cons.  
• I had my first webinar for class! I am taking Volunteer Mobilization through VISTA Blend, and that started this week.

Plans for next week:

• Attend city council meeting on Thursday (again) and make introductions. 
• Finish, or at least get close to finishing, the volunteer manual.
• Have a final draft of my survey/interview so that I can begin doing interviews.
• Promote and conduct the teleconference for people looking to start their own business.
• Get some things together and scheduled for Alaska Book Week.

That seems like a short list, but they are all big things!  Whew!