What are you celebrating this week? In England, you would have watched the sunrise on May Day and spent the morning wandering streets filled with music and dancing. Are you unfurling the red, white, and green pride today for Cinco de Mayo? Did you go around quoting “Star Wars” yesterday? If you woke up in the early hours to unlock your store, maybe you’ll take heart to know that this is National Small Business Week, since 1963 a celebration of people like you who show up every day to make a difference through your work. And if you got to work on your bicycle, take heart that May is also National Bike Month, appropriate considering the news we received yesterday: Travel Oregon, an organization that promotes tourism in our state, has awarded a Bicycle Tourism Studio to the Umpqua Valley, a region that includes Reedsport. This program helps communities build their cycling infrastructure and take advantage of the growing cycling tourism market. The RMSP supported this application, and we’re excited to see where this takes us! The Studio will begin in February 2017, so stay tuned. You can read more about it here:
http://industry.traveloregon.com/industry-resources/destination-development/bicycle-tourism-studio/
Here’s another thing to celebrate – our next community volunteer project day! Tomorrow, Friday the 6th, we’ll be gathering at Champion Dog Park from 10:30am to 4pm to spruce up the area. This will include clearing up the pathways to make them easier for walking, and possibly also some weeding and general trash pickup. Bring work gloves if you’ve got them, as well as any hand tools that might come in handy like shovels, hoes, or clippers. We’ll provide a barbeque lunch at noon. Come for a little, come for a lot, bring your dog, and spend a little time cleaning up a corner of our town!
Thank you to everyone who submitted an application for the Façade Improvement Grant! A number of businesses throughout Reedsport proposed many good projects, and a team of RMSP volunteers are now in the process of reviewing them. We will announced the recipients of the grant sometime in the next two weeks. If you missed this grant cycle but want to apply for our next one, look for an announcement in this newsletter, on Facebook, and in the Umpqua Post. You can also call me any time with questions.
Next week we’ll be celebrating our local history with a second Historical Collection Day on Friday, May 13th, from 10am to 4pm at the Lower Umpqua Senior Center. Do you have stories to tell about the history of our area? Do you have old photographs and letters, postcards and clippings, farm tools, matchbooks, flags, bonnets, or other artifacts from our area? Come to the Senior Center next week with anything you would like to share with our digital historical archive. We’ll record your stories and make digital copies of anything you bring. Remember, we don’t keep anything but the copies – you take all originals home with you!
Come and visit the Senior Center even if you’re not bringing anything to share. We have stacks of old photographs that need your help. Can you recognize local people from 1970 to 1990?
If you want to volunteer to help us even more, please come to the conference room at City Hall on Wednesday, May 11th at 3:30pm to learn how you can help us record information for the Friday event. We are working on a system to keep track of every item and contributor, and this helps us juggle a lot of information without losing any of it. There is a need for you no matter what you like to do. Do you like to talk to people? Would you rather handle data? Can you transcribe a recorded interview? Come take part, and let’s truly make this a community effort to save and share the history of the Lower Umpqua.
If you are planning to come to Friday whether to volunteer or contribute, please let me know beforehand if you can. The Senior Center would like to offer a $3.50 lunch to everyone, but they need to have an idea about numbers.
Next week the Promotion Committee will be sitting down on Tuesday, May 10th, 5pm at the Waterfront Restaurant to discuss promoting things. The Economic Development Committee follows suite on Wednesday, May 11th, 5pm in the conference room at City Hall to discuss economically developing things. And the following week on Tuesday, May 17th, the Board of Directors will meet at 5pm in the conference room at City Hall to discuss directing things. You are welcome to attend any of these and lend your two cents. The projects that we work on are the ones that you, our volunteers, want to see happen in Reedsport!
Have a happy week of celebrations!
Katie Lockard
Reedsport Main Street Program Coordinator
http://industry.traveloregon.com/industry-resources/destination-development/bicycle-tourism-studio/
Here’s another thing to celebrate – our next community volunteer project day! Tomorrow, Friday the 6th, we’ll be gathering at Champion Dog Park from 10:30am to 4pm to spruce up the area. This will include clearing up the pathways to make them easier for walking, and possibly also some weeding and general trash pickup. Bring work gloves if you’ve got them, as well as any hand tools that might come in handy like shovels, hoes, or clippers. We’ll provide a barbeque lunch at noon. Come for a little, come for a lot, bring your dog, and spend a little time cleaning up a corner of our town!
Thank you to everyone who submitted an application for the Façade Improvement Grant! A number of businesses throughout Reedsport proposed many good projects, and a team of RMSP volunteers are now in the process of reviewing them. We will announced the recipients of the grant sometime in the next two weeks. If you missed this grant cycle but want to apply for our next one, look for an announcement in this newsletter, on Facebook, and in the Umpqua Post. You can also call me any time with questions.
Next week we’ll be celebrating our local history with a second Historical Collection Day on Friday, May 13th, from 10am to 4pm at the Lower Umpqua Senior Center. Do you have stories to tell about the history of our area? Do you have old photographs and letters, postcards and clippings, farm tools, matchbooks, flags, bonnets, or other artifacts from our area? Come to the Senior Center next week with anything you would like to share with our digital historical archive. We’ll record your stories and make digital copies of anything you bring. Remember, we don’t keep anything but the copies – you take all originals home with you!
Come and visit the Senior Center even if you’re not bringing anything to share. We have stacks of old photographs that need your help. Can you recognize local people from 1970 to 1990?
If you want to volunteer to help us even more, please come to the conference room at City Hall on Wednesday, May 11th at 3:30pm to learn how you can help us record information for the Friday event. We are working on a system to keep track of every item and contributor, and this helps us juggle a lot of information without losing any of it. There is a need for you no matter what you like to do. Do you like to talk to people? Would you rather handle data? Can you transcribe a recorded interview? Come take part, and let’s truly make this a community effort to save and share the history of the Lower Umpqua.
If you are planning to come to Friday whether to volunteer or contribute, please let me know beforehand if you can. The Senior Center would like to offer a $3.50 lunch to everyone, but they need to have an idea about numbers.
Next week the Promotion Committee will be sitting down on Tuesday, May 10th, 5pm at the Waterfront Restaurant to discuss promoting things. The Economic Development Committee follows suite on Wednesday, May 11th, 5pm in the conference room at City Hall to discuss economically developing things. And the following week on Tuesday, May 17th, the Board of Directors will meet at 5pm in the conference room at City Hall to discuss directing things. You are welcome to attend any of these and lend your two cents. The projects that we work on are the ones that you, our volunteers, want to see happen in Reedsport!
Have a happy week of celebrations!
Katie Lockard
Reedsport Main Street Program Coordinator
