The purpose of the Utah Commission on Service and Volunteerism is to enable individuals, communities and organizations in Utah to benefit from the service, power, skills, and passion of volunteers.
Our mission is to strengthen Utah communities through the power of service and volunteerism.
Ourvisionis vibrant, productive communities with active, engaged citizens.
Minutes
Committee Meeting
August 17th, 2017
1:30 – 3:00 P.M.
West Lecture Room at Rio Grande
Attendees
Commissioners
David Clark
Rep. Becky Edwards
Richard Gonzalez
Mark Thomas
Kris Hamlet
Jake Murakami
Todd Hansen
Jill Love
Staff
LaDawn Stoddard
Greg Bates
Ruqia Qasim
Greg started the meeting by welcoming Commissioners David Clark, Richard Gonzalez, Mark Thomas, Kris Hamlet, Becky Edwards, Todd Hansen, and Jake Murakami, and staff: LaDawn, and Ruqia.
He then gave a quick overview of the agenda.
Upcoming Items:
Program director meeting will take place here at the Rio Grande building. The meeting is scheduled for 8/30/17. Commissioners are welcome to attend. We will go over policies, and updates.
New program year has begun. We have a new program staring: the senior charity care foundation. They have a mobile clinic that they take around to different senior centers throughout the state of Utah. Mostly northern Utah. AmeriCorps members will expand their capacity to serving elders.
We have two new planning grantees this fiscal year: the International Rescue Committee (IRS) which is one of the two resettlement agencies in Utah for refugees, and Boys & Girls Club Weber/Davis counties which is a tutoring program- specifically on math- in schools. The Boys & Girls club of Weber/Davis counties is being funded through supplemental funding.
Next, Great stories were read by Mark Thomas, Rep. Becky Edwards, and David Clark. Great stories were submitted by: the Association for Utah Community Health, Utah Conservation Corps, and BYU Family, Home and Social Science.
Greg talked through the different engagement opportunities that are coming up:
List of upcoming dates for the AmeriCorps member of the month were written in the agenda. Commissioners are encouraged and welcomed to attend any of those. Dates and times will be scheduled to fit around the schedules of those who are interested in attending. Calendar invites for each of those dates will be sent out. Richard Gonzalez and Representative Becky Edwards are interested.
The 9/11 day of service: in conjunction with the world trade center of Utah and the Lt. Governor’s office, we will be participating in a service project on 9/11 at the Catholic Community Service Day Center, where we will be serving lunch for the homeless, and other volunteer service projects throughout the day. There are three different volunteer projects to volunteer in, each at different time slots. Fifteen volunteers for each volunteer project are needed. Commissioners are invited to participate. We’re going to make a shared google document to have individuals sign up.
Active Engagement Retreat previously known as the Engaged Citizenship Retreat is a three day retreat where AmeriCorps members and college students sign up to attend. It will take place on October 19th – 21st at Wanship, UT. The retreat focuses on looking at different ways to stay engaged in society. The retreat coordinators are putting together a panel of influential community leaders that are engaged in the community. If you’re (commissioners) interested in being a panelist, or would like to attend the retreat, let Greg know.
Progress Reports:
Greg explained the process of providing feedback on progress reports for each of our AmeriCorps programs. Each commissioner signed up to review one AmeriCorps program’s progress report. The progress reports can be found in the National Service Program shared folder on Google drive.
Milestones Update:
Project Impact and Internal Evaluations completed by 10 of 10 programs in 2017: 9 out of 10 programs have submitted a final report. We are working with the last program to obtain their report by the end of the quarter. We’re determining the next steps and beginning calendaring Dialogues in Action modules for the 17-18 program year.
Training given at program director meetings and as needed is crafted toward the needs of our programs as identified through site visits, file checks and risk assessments: Risk assessments will begin in August. 9 out of 10 visits have been completed. The last visit is scheduled for 927/17 due to program staff availability. Commissioners are welcome to attend site visits. Greg will send out calendar invites for those interested in attending.
Auto enrollment of AmeriCorps alums in Utah will be completed with the national AmeriCorps alums network: Structure of the chapter will be discussed with program directors at the 8/30/17 program director training. NSPS will begin drafting a plan for the structure of the Alumni Chapter. NSPS will create FB groups for current members and alumni. Plan for the alumni chapter will be reviewed at the 11/15/17 program director meeting. Next steps will be identified. We’re going to lead the alumni association here in Utah at its early creation, but once alumni board members are identified, they will lead the association from there on. Commissioners suggested tying in fund raisers, and donations with the alumni association.
Increased numbers of interactions with legislators. Implement a “Call to action” component to legislative outreach asking legislators to support our programs: commissioners suggested to do outreach to community leaders on engaging legislatures, and providing written letters to legislators ahead of the AmeriCorps Member Gathering event. They also suggested to divide and host this event at different days where each AmeriCorps program identify themselves to the legislative committees that align with them on the same issues that they’re both working on.
Inspire Utah colleges and universities to match the AC education award: we’ve met with Campus Compact leadership to develop an outreach plan to reach out to schools. We’re working on creating a letter of introduction to finance directors at universities. We will be attending four to five different job/career fairs at colleges and universities to promote AmeriCorps.