Motivational Mondays

I hope you all had great weekends! Here's a little something to help start your week off right:

You will come to know that what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove instead to be the greatest investment that you will ever make.
- Gorden B. Hinkley

Beehive T-Shirts!?

Location: James Elementary in Kansas City, Missouri.

She said that an event was giving it away a year ago. Why don't I have one? Why don't any of us have one? I will get to the bottom of this...

-Tommy D in K.C

Needs Assessment BBQ Event

Hey VISTAs,
Last Saturday we had a Needs Assessment BBQ event at our Access site 7 Courts. It was a great turnout even though it was freezing cold, proving the old adage: if you feed them, they will come.
Andy did a great job planning the event, and he got a whole team of GSU sociology students to come conduct the survey, with other volunteers to cook and coach and the like. See below for a video and the official write up from the event.


How do you use the internet? This is one of the questions asked of Seven Courts residents for the needs assessment survey administered by One Economy and a team of volunteers from Georgia State University. The survey was administered at a fall barbecue event hosted by the 7 Courts Resident Association and Mothers in Action. Residents learned about the free wirelessavailable and ate free food in exchange for filling out a survey. They also had a chance to share what they want out of on-site internet training. Resident children played soccer under the guidance of a coach from Energy Fitness of America. “The event’s success was due to the community’s involvement,” remarked One Economy Project Manager and event organizer, Andy Santamaria.

Volunteer Thanks: Many thanks to our volunteer survey takers from GSU: Kimberly McWhorter, Qiana Martin,Faye McMullen, Brittney Terry, Kesandra DeLaney, Andrea Durr, Alice Barrett, Francis Halan, Christopher Pell, and Deirdre Oakly. Thanks also to the volunteers from the Resident Association, Mothers in Action , Project Community Connections, Inc, and Energy Fitness of America, who helped cook and coach, and otherwise make the Access launch a success.

Ruqiyyah Nu'Man and Andy Santamaria for Atlanta.

How to Reset a Router by Andy

Hey All,

This is Andy showing us how to reset a wireless router.

Ruqiyyah

EmergencZone.org

One Economy has a new website called EmergencyZone.org, an online portal for disaster resources. Become a fan of EmergencyZone.org on Facebook, or follow the tweets on Twitter @EmergencyZone. For information specific to the American Samoa Tsunami follow the tweets @EZ_ASTsunami and @ASamoaTsunamiHT.

If you are interested, here is the link to the press release:

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS135751+15-Oct-2009+BW20091015

Motivational Mondays

Happy Monday! Here's a quote to get you going...and to build off the last post by Ruqiyyah:

Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.

~Gautama Siddharta

Nuggets from Rey: Read and Deliver

Hey All,

So the mysterious (to us VISTAs) Rey Ramsey visited Atlanta, and I had a chance to speak briefly with him this morning. He shared a few things with me on dealing with partners and funders that i'd like to pass along.

First of all, he was exhausted. He rattled off at least 5 cities he'd been in since he'd been home, and this morning's speaking engagement required him to be at New Birth Church at 7:30AM. But he said (and i'm paraphrasing), it doesn't matter what you feel like, you have to summon the energy and be enthusiastic, or no one will work with you. People ask him if he's tired...he says its irrelevant- there is only one way he can show himself in any meeting- energetic and enthusiastic. Great advice for a friday, right?

Secondly, my co-worker Ian, who had been to the speaking engagement this morning, commented that Rey didn't bring any speaking points or anything. Rey commented that he didn't know what he was going to say until he "read the crowd" After he saw something of who they were and what they wanted to hear, he delivered. Ian's comment was: "he hit a home run."

So, for all of us aspiring executives, there's some nuggets of wisdom gleaned from a 5 minute conversation from the man who has earned his own following (hence the "Reydar" that goes out to our emails). Put yourself aside, read what is needed from you, and deliver.

Ruqiyyah

Motivational Mondays

Here's a short quote to help get you going this Monday morning:

"Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right’. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along."
— Napoleon Hill

Laura

Quarterly Report Accomplishments (aka ego massage!)

It's been a slow couple of days at work, so I went ahead and worked on the quarterly report. Of course, this means spending a lot of time on the accomplishments section. I thought I'd go ahead and post it here for all to see. Think you can beat this? Bring it. I'm interested to see what everyone else has done as well!

4. Describe your major accomplishments this quarter – both from your work plan as well as any special projects. Please include the breakdown to #10 and #11 here.

· Researched and brainstormed Beehive ideas after looking at local Beehive content across the country, especially Twin Cities.

· Received training and gained access on the Beehive Content Manager System.

· Wrote, published, and researched local Kansas City Beehive articles on the following subjects:

o Immunization information, including where to get children’s vaccinations for free.

o Foreclosure assistance with United Way 2-1-1.

o MO Healthnet, the Missouri form of the SCHIP program of children’s health insurance.

o Kansas HealthWave, the Kansas form of the SCHIP program of children’s health insurance.

o Explanation of proof of income standards.

o The Kansas City Free Health Clinic, providing care to people without health insurance.

o Applying for unemployment in Missouri.

o Applying for unemployment in Kansas.

o Voter registration information for Missouri.

o Voter registration information for Kansas.

o Food stamp information for Missouri.

o Food stamp information for Kansas.

o A list of Job and Career transition groups by area.

o Listing of Safety-Net Health Clinics in Missouri.

o Listing of Safety-Net Health Clinics in Kansas.

o Hot meal sites in the area.

o Emergency assistance programs with the Salvation Army.

o Emergency shelter services for families.

o Getting a GED information for Missouri.

o Getting a GED information for Kansas.

o Public transportation information.

o Video tour of major Beehive features.

· Instructional video series on internet basics and Beehive features, published on Beehive.

o Creating an email account and using it.

o Setting up a Beehive account.

o Using the resume builder step-by-step.

o Planning a bus trip using Google Transit.

o Using the Budget Builder.

· Easily accessible submission form on front page for anyone to send in feedback to Kansas City Beehive.

· Updated front page and picture for Kansas City Beehive.

· Worked with One Economy and LINC to purchase kcbeehive.org vanity url and have it redirect to the Kansas City Beehive for local marketing.

· Represented LINC and the Beehive with booths at two major community events: the Independence Heritage Festival and the Community Resource Fair (for social workers)

· Designed and produced Beehive marketing materials:

o 11” by 17” collage of different Beehive pages.

o Beehive flyers.

o Beehive video tour.

o Billboard with Beehive logo and screenshots.

· Participated in discussions with supervisor Brent, Donovan, and representatives of the United Way 2-1-1 about a possible tie-in.

· Made a presentation to LINC communication staff on value of Beehive.

· Learned the basics of taking video with the flip camera, HD flip camera, and $5000 HD cameras for LINC

· Took video for LINC at several community events including the Universoul Circus, Terry Riley’s Back to School Rally, More2 community meeting, Sante Fe Trail character building assembly, Gena’s school project, and the Garcia Chili supper.

· Took photos for LINC at several community events including the Border Star elementary after-school program, a local flag football league, and the Garcia Chili Supper.

· Uploaded, edited, and organized several LINC photos for kclinc.org.

· Engaged in other capacity building for LINC such as producing flyers, packing boxes, delivering materials, loading up an U-Haul truck, answering questions at a LINC table, rolling up banners, printing photos, and carrying heavy objects.

· Created LINC Facebook page and update it along with LINC’s twitter account.

-

-Tommy D in K.C

P.S - I guess I have to update my VAD now or something?

Motivational Mondays

Hi Team,
I hope you all had great weekends! Here's a great quote from Thomas Jefferson to get you going this Monday morning:
"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

--Laura

Beehive at Independence Heritage Festival

Earlier today, I drove out to Independence, Missouri to have a booth at one of the more popular community events through the year, the Independence Heritage Festival. It's an interesting event that combines multicultural performances like song and dance with some fun activities, like face painting for the kids. Even though it turned out to be a cold, windy day, they still had a pretty decent turnout, largely in part to the great work LINC did to promote the event.

I came to talk with folks about the Beehive. When my buddies at LINC first told me they wanted me to man a Beehive table, there was a little miscommunication because I wasn't sure if this was the best audience. Up to this point, I've thought of the Beehive's demographic as closer to the urban poor and not the middle class folks that would probably be there. But as the event drew closer, I realized that Independence is a working class town that's been hit as hard as anyone by the recession.



So I set up a table with various Beehive marketing materials I've come up with, and people were liking the idea. The traffic on our side of the festival wasn't huge but very positive and friendly; I had some quality discussions. The video was taken with LINC's HD Flip Camera. I call it super flip. But look at the quality!

-Tommy D in K.C

Post Tours on Connectors Club

Hey all,

Ive been participating in the Connectors Club, its really cool and if you haven't already, you should check it out. I posted the tour of the office and Leo Sosa said there should be more tours posted, so go ahead and post your office tours there too. It will help the connectors understand what is going on with OE.

Cheers,
Ruqiyyah