Meeting # 6

First off thanks to Burns Massey at Conway Medical Center for hosting the last Strategic Plan Taskforce meeting and thanks to everyone who has dedicated their time to this effort thus far. As I mentioned at the last meeting, we are nearing the end of the first phase of this economic development initiative. In January the task before us was to develop a strategic plan for economic development in the County. We have accomplished this task (pending a number of revisions and the printing of a final draft)and move into the second phase of activity which is implementation. In order to facilitate the implementation of any of the strategies that you as a taskforce have developed, we must first win endorsement of the plans findings by local business and government leaders and establish a network of advocates that wish to continue as part of this process well into the future.

I’ve attached a revised copy of the executive summary that was presented at the meeting. At the end of the document, you will find a presentation of alternative courses, one of which we believe must be pursued if this effort is to successfully move forward. As the discussion during the meeting revealed, the likely outcome will be a hybrid scenario with characteristics of each alternative. The final plan report will be presented at a series of public forums starting at the beginning of year. In the mean time, we will be making adjustments and revisions in line with your suggestions at the last meeting and input we receive through the end of the year.

The complete document will be available for review on this weblog @ http://www.horrystrategicplan.blogspot.com/ once we have made all revisions we think are required. If we are able to locate resources to print the document, a final bound copy will be made available to each participant on the Strategic Plan Taskforce.

Thanks again everybody and we will keep you informed as we move forward.

Taskforce Update

Since the last Taskforce meeting held August 22nd, I have been in touch with each subcommittee to set up interim meetings associated with the development of strategies associated with the goals that we have established to date. At each of these meetings we will use the information developed through summer research, case study examples, and other available planning resources posted here to creatively think about measurable programs, projects and policies aimed at achieving our goals. Prior to the next full Taskforce meeting, I will pull notes from the subcommittee meetings together with information that has been developed at previous planning sessions as a rough draft of the final report. We will review all such information at the next Taskforce meeting and changes will be incorporated into the final document.

New planning resources available here on the weblog include: reports associated with the Grass Roots Initiative for Planning and Progress (GRIPP), Technical reports and presentation developed by student interns over the course of the summer, and model planning documents that we will refer to as we develop content ans format for our own plan.

As stated throughout the planning process, the completion of this plan is just a small piece in what can tend to be a complex economic development puzzle. It is neither intended to answer all questions related to economic development issues nor is will the fulfilment of it's goals represent the end of the process. It is one of many sparks required to start what I have characterized as a flame that must be sustained relative to economic development. It is the hope that this planning effort will be seen as a framework through which collective economic development planning may continue well into Horry County's bright future.

creatice class community initiatives

Tacoma, WA
Love Tacoma (Social Networking Program)
A group who coordinates and promotes events that bring young people to local venues to participate in cultural offerings – glass blowing, boutique tours, new neighborhood crawls, farmers’ market.
Arts Business Ecosystem (Arts Incubator)
A long-term project to build a multi-use art-business incubation campus that houses live/work studio space, shared support resources, classrooms, etc.
Green Alliance (Business Council)
A local association of businesses, government, and consumers to promote regionally produced green projects, products, and services.
Connected Individuality (Internship Program)
An internship program that places high school juniors in local companies to give students-of-color more work experience and professional contacts.
El Paso, TX
Binational Downtown Design Competition
An urban planning competition to design a cultural district that connects the downtown areas of El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juarez.
Digital El Paso (Free Wireless Network)
A free wireless network in the city of El Paso, TX coupled with technology redistribution programs. This project has given free technological resources to the region’s poor.
T3 (Mentoring Program)
A training program focused on cultural diversity. Target audiences include students, businesses and law enforcement.
EcoAwareness Council (Business Council)
A local business association focused on promoting regional ecotourism assets.
Border Canvas (Sculpture Garden)
A sculpture garden featuring work of local artists located on a piece of reclaimed land along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Tallahassee, FL
Tallahassee Film Festival (Cultural Celebration)
A three-day celebration of the region’s existing, emerging, and overlooked filmmaking talent. Also includes K-12 and college education programming.
Get Gaines Going (Neighborhood Revitalization Advocacy)
An advocacy group working to eliminate hurdles and create incentives for decision makers involved in revitalizing the central business cooridor on Gaines Street.
Greenovation (Environmental Advocacy Projects)
An umbrella organization focused on sustainable business and living practices. Projects include educational and recycling-in-schools programs, smart transportation policy advocacy, a regional green product and service inventory and building an urban green-design studio.
Jump Start Plan X (Small Business Incubator)
A business incubator designed to support small business creation. Programs include resource connections, community financing bank and physical office space.
Charlotte, NC
Charlotte Blog Project (Community Website)
A website to link to and host blogs on all subjects related to Charlotte.
E-Merging Arts (Public Art Project)
An effort to install local emerging artists’ work in public spaces, corporate lobbies, and other walkways and host a website to then sell the art to local buyers.
Third Places (Social Networking Program)
A branding effort to identify local workspaces for the mobile creative class. Participating venues – such as independent coffee shops - determine ‘office hours’ and offer small specials and coupons, which are then promoted on a local website to area freelance workers.
Green 100 (Environmental Advocacy Project)
A recognition and promotion project for green innovation that will 1) award 100 area leaders, organizations, and companies that are advancing sustainable practices and 2) host a 100-mile hybrid car race at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Creativity Festival (Cultural Celebration)
An outdoor festival to celebrate the companies, organizations and individuals innovating and creating in Charlotte.
International Corridor Project (Neighborhood Revitalization Advocacy)
A community advocacy group working to support and link organizations engaged in the revitalization of an ethnically diverse lower-income residential corridor. The goal is to promote this area as the international crossroads in Charlotte, increase public appreciation of the growing multi-cultural community and in turn foster more economic development.
Duluth - Twin Ports, MN
Brain Gain (Young People Retention Projects)
These representatives from area colleges and universities are working to find homes for special projects, including The 10,000 Hours Show and 40 Below, that welcome and connect students/graduates to Twin Ports communities and business.
We Mean Green (Environmental Advocacy Projects)
A group focused on developing eco-industrial opportunities and supporting green innovation to attract the creative class and venture capital and promote innovation. At the last check-in they were still inventorying local assets and interests and had not picked any clear direction.
Art Works (Art-Business Summit)
A business-arts summit on improving the livability of the area, encouraging creativity in business and art industries, and increasing local consumption of arts and culture opportunities.
Pathways (Bike Trails and Amenities)
A team focused on making Duluth-Superior a bike-friendly metro area by facilitating the creation of bike lanes, installing public bike storage decorated by local artists, connecting existing bike trails and distributing an accompanying trail map, and hosting a local bike race.
Mix It Up (Tolerance Advocacy Project)
A marketing project aiming to demonstrate the economic impact of diversity in the workplace and broader community.
Dayton, OH
The Young Creatives Summit
Young talent is leaving the region and it is hurting the area’s ability to grow economically. We propose the first annual Young Creatives Summit, which will bring together diverse young talent, business leaders, non-profits, universities and elected officials, to address the flight of young talent from the region. The Young Creatives Summit will air the concerns of young people, engage them in the region’s decision making process, and help build a shared vision of how the region can be improved.
This Is Dayton
“This Is Dayton” is focused on rebuilding community pride. The initiative will highlight the region’s many unique assets and diverse population through billboards, kiosks, bus signage, and window signage throughout the region. By rebuilding community pride, residents will become ambassadors promoting the area’s strengths- thus making the region attractive.
The Innovation Collaborative
The area’s rich concentration of artists, engineers and skilled workers are unique regional assets. Our mission is to integrate these talented groups into synergistic relationships to stimulate a stronger economy and promote job creation through innovative collaboration. To initiate this collaborative discussion, our group will issue an annual challenge to collaborative teams of artists, engineers and skilled workers.
Film Dayton
The Film Dayton Initiative will support, retain, and attract local creative talent, a key indicator of the region’s ability to achieve economic competitiveness in a creative economy. Film Dayton will leverage existing assets of regional filmmakers, cast and crew, institutional programs, and related technology in order to grow the existing industry and to export the region’s film product. This will raise awareness of the region and its strengths.
Dayton Creative Incubator
The Dayton Creative Incubator Initiative is conceived as a project to bring life back to one or several vacant downtown spaces by working with building owners to allow local artists to use the spaces for creating and displaying art- as well as providing community spaces where artists, musicians and other creatives can hang out, network and simply exchange creative ideas.

Just a reminder that we have rescheduled the upcoming Taskforce meeting for the Strategic Plan for 9:00 am, Friday June 20 @ the Horry County Library in Conway. At the meeting we will continue the development of goals related to each of the (8) focus areas. We have asked that subcommittees meet outside of the overall group to establish preliminary goal sets. To date I have received goals from the following sub-committees: infrastructure, cultural assets, natural resources, and tourism. I will ask that a spokesperson from each sub-committee present the goals developed within each group. In addition we will define the scope of applied research being completed in support of each sub-committee. Listed below are the research topics that have been provided:

Research Topics: The Economic Development Strategic Plan for Horry County

1. Valuation of natural resource assets (Natural Resources)
2. Infrastructure funding case study (Infrastructure)
3. Economic Development Collaboration case study (Intergovernmental Collaboration)
4. Tourism Partnership Case Study (Tourism)

(Healthcare) outstanding topic
(Education) outstanding topic
(Transportation) outstanding topic
(Cultural Assets) outstanding topic

Based on the voting results and discussion held at the last taskforce meeting, adjustments have been made to the following plan vision and mission statements:

Vision
A balanced and healthy economy through improved education, economic diversity, infrastructure, and natural resources.

Mission
Horry County offers an desirable quality of life, deep cultural roots, distinct natural resources, and a history and legacy that foster a special sense of place. Horry County will build on these assets to assure a balanced and healthy economic environment for all through enhanced educational opportunities, economic diversity, infrastructure development, and the preservation of our natural resources.

The Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporations is assisting Clemson Extension in the purchase of a number of books that may benefit our strategic planning efforts. If any of you are interested reading either text as we continue our discussions of goals and objectives, please let me know.

Rise of the Creative Class – Richard Florida

Florida, an academic whose field is regional economic development, explains the rise of a new social class that he labels the creative class. Members include scientists, engineers, architects, educators, writers, artists, and entertainers. He defines this class as those whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology, and new creative content. In general this group shares common characteristics, such as creativity, individuality, diversity, and merit. Mary Whaley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Smart Communities-Suzanne Morse

Based on the results of more than a decade of research by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change, Smart Communities provides directions for strategic decision-making and outlines the key strategies used by thousands of leaders who have worked to create successful communities. Smart Communities offers leaders from both the public and private sectors the tools they need to create a better future for all the community's citizens. Using illustrative examples from communities around the country, Smart Communities shows how these change agents' well-structured decision-making processes can be traced to their effective use of seven key leverage points:

· Investing right the first time
· Working together
· Building on community strengths
· Practicing democracy
· Preserving the past
· Growing leaders
· Inventing a brighter future

Taskforce Meeting #3

We are fast approaching our next strategic plan taskforce meeting scheduled for April 18, 2008 between 9:30 and 12:00 at Coastal Carolina’s Brooks Stadium. We’ve added an extra 30 minutes to the meeting to give us time to work through a number of exercises that will help us clarify the findings of previous meetings and exercises. The task before us at present involves building group consensus on the vision for our strategic plan as well as the establishment of focus areas on which our future work will concentrate.

The results of previous visioning exercise revealed that there are (8) focus areas on which applied research may be conducted in support of strategies that facilitate economic development. The following focus areas are documented in the visioning exercise and the attached visioning notes document.

· Transportation
· Healthcare
· Education
· Infrastructure
· Natural Resources
· Intergovernmental Collaboration/Cooperation
· Tourism
· Cultural Amenities/Assets

A subcommittee of group members is currently working to develop these findings into a cohesive vision statement on which you will have input at the next meeting. Please take a moment to consider the focus areas noted above and indicate to me by email reply which focus area you would be most interested in working with a subcommittee on. At the next meeting we formally organize (as evenly as possible) into such groups. It will be the responsibility of each subcommittee to identify a number of economic development goals associated with the respective focus areas and to identify any questions that may be targeted by applied research. Regardless of whether you will be able to participate in the next meeting, please select a subcommittee as future meetings in which you may participate will be organized on the basis of such groups.

It may be helpful for you to take a look at some economic development plan from other areas. In many cases these plans will help you both develop and organize new ideas relative the information we include in our plan. If any of you are aware of other plans or locations that we should include based on your experience, please let me know and I will make such documents available to the taskforce online.