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B2P Steering Committee MeetingFebruary 26, 2020United WayPresent: Owen Cardwell, Lindsey Cawood, MaryJane Dolan, Joan Foster, Shawne Farmer, Joan Phelps, and Ruth TalianRecap of 90 Day Meeting: There was positive feedback from the group. The meeting felt tighter. The Faith and Education taskforces don’t really have a breakout group but it’s good in case anyone new comes so they can be brought up to speed and get the schedule for the taskforce meetings.Grants: John Hughes was not present at the meeting. He provided some feedback about W-9’s from vendors and a financial timeline for money being spent. Joan will email John to finalize the grant money process. Deadline for the grant money to be spent is January 31, 2021.City Council/Budget: Joan Phelps asked what the chances are for there to be money in this year’s budget for the poverty initiative. It is hard to say, but the group’s desire is to at least try to get funding to bring the balance back to $50,000 after this round of grant money has been spent. The balance left after subtracting grant money is (we think) $29,000, so we would like to see $21,000 set aside for this year. There was a discussion about the latest census data showing a decrease in the poverty rate. Ruth was asked to email a chart to the committee showing this information.Jodi Pfarr: Jodi Pfarr, the trainer that facilitated much of the Bridges training to the area, will no longer be contracting with Aha! Process after December 31, 2020. If we want to use her again to teach Bridges out of Poverty, we need to book her before March 20, 2020. After discussion, the group decided that we didn’t have the funds readily available or a specific need for her services at this time. As Jodi has her own consulting business, we may want to use her services in the future to help us as we evaluate our progress and effectiveness in the fight against poverty. Owen Cardwell advocates for an evaluation and celebration event in a year.Survey: Thanks to Lindsey Cawood for her awesome compilation of questions for our survey. Although it is lengthy, the group feels all of it is valuable and we will use the questions in their entirety. Ruth will put together the Survey Monkey to distribute to the B2P Listserv. Speaker for April 90 Day Meeting: Since the survey addresses speaker/meeting preferences, a decision about a speaker for the next 90 day meeting has been tabled until we have the survey results. A suggestion was made that we could devote the whole meeting to a group discussion of ways for the taskforces to collaborate.Terms of Service: Joan Phelps has expressed an interest in stepping down as chair for the steering committee by July, 2020. She will continue to serve on the steering committee. The group needs to come up with a plan for folks to resign from the executive steering committee offices and also from the steering committee itself. It was suggested that exiting steering committee members find/recruit their replacement from their taskforce, and to use the nomination process for electing a new officer. It was felt that folks can serve as long as they are comfortable rather than having a set term because finding folks to serve at this level of commitment can be challenging. Ruth has volunteered to remain secretary for the foreseeable future. A request was made to make this process less structured/rigid than other regular board’s terms of service. The question was raised if we should continue to try to keep a City Council member as a steering committee member. How this might work will also be a part of the discussion for the plan.Taskforce Updates: Community Taskforce: Lindsey reports that the Community taskforce has somewhat melded with the Life Skills institute with Keith Cook running the last few meetings as a result of determining that the Life Skills Institute was launching almost the exact same program as the Community and Workforce taskforces. More information is shared in the Workforce Taskforce update.Faith Taskforce: The Know Your Rights presentation by the LPD was fantastic but was not as well attended as hoped. The date for the program funded by the grant money will begin on April 27 at Fairview Community Center.Workforce Taskforce: They have initiated an exciting collaboration with a taskforce that started with Park View and now involves many organizations and has developed a process that helps people living in poverty develop the skills necessary to move from poverty to a place of independence and self-sufficiency. As part of this process we have been able to launch the first Career Essentials class that will ultimately be a region wide employability skills training that we’ve been working on for over a year. As the program grows and develops we’re hopeful that more people will become involved and business will also buy into the program and support the program by hiring graduates.Workforce has also received some additional WIOA funding to help strengthen relationships with local DSS’s and to pilot training programs for the medical field and the manufacturing sector. Through this funding we’ll be able to serve more people with Career Essentials and supportive services to help them gain technical skills leading to national credentials and employment in high demand occupations. They are also working on more collaboration with the Youth Works program now that they have moved into the one-stop center at Virginia Career Works.Next Steering Committee Meeting: Wednesday, March 25, 2:00 PM at United WayNext Executive Steering Comm. Meeting: Wednesday, March 18, 2:00 PM at United Way. ................
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