Garden County Nebraska

GardenCoNe.com

Oshkosh, Lewellen, Lisco

Garden County Chamber of Commerce
2008 Meeting Minutes
April 17, 2008 Meeting
Renee Lucero, Secretary

The April Garden County Chamber of Commerce meeting was held on April 17, 2008 at the Eagles in Oshkosh. Dinner of hamburgers, cole slaw and french fries was served at 6:30 p.m. The meeting was called to order by President Todd Royston at 7:16 p.m.

There were no corrections to the March minutes or Treasurer's report. Josh Henne motioned to accept the minutes, seconded by Terri O'Brien. Motion Carried

Old Business was discussed.

The Tourism Committee is still seeking a replacement for Don Bentley. If anyone is interested, please let him know.

Todd Royston didn't have a chance to meet with Amy Jay regarding the Western Nebraska/NorthEastern Colorado Community Website due to scheduling conflicts.

Easter egg hunt went very well. We are grataeful to all who donated contributions, time and efforts to this.

New Business:

Claudette Smith spoke on the Arcata Economic Development Corporation (AEDC). Eighty-seven percent of Nebraska businesses are small business. Claudette is willing to help with grant writing for monies available to help with new and local businesses.

Ron Moore from Panhandle RC&D (Resource Conservation & Development, Inc.) was the guest speaker. Ron mentioned that Jack Nerud was one of the founders behind the scenes starting in 1968. Ron has 11 counties in our Panhandle that his organization helps to get projects started.

The Panhandle RC&D is a public benefit 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that is committed to assisting local communities through the focus of economic development, recreation and tourism, natural resources improvement, community improvement and education. They cover 93 Nebraska counties.

RC&D acts as a catalyst to help local citizens protect and promote their local communities by focusing on each area's specific goals. Numerous benefits are derived through RC&D's grassroots philosophy and its close working relationship with other agencies and organizations: A localized process to address community and regional needs and issues through interagency cooperation; increased access to state and federal programs; ability to obtain and leverage funding through the RC&D nonprofit status; and staff support to implement programs and projects.

RC&D works in conjunction with the US Department of Agriculture. They also have software packages available to assist in seeing what future projects would be like along with ARCVIEW software that has been offered to the high school for research usage. ArcView allows you to easily create maps, and add your own data to them. Using ArcView's visualization tools, you can access records from existing databases and display them on maps. You can:

• Integrate and share data across your organization.
• Work with your data geographically-seeing undetected patterns, revealing hidden trends and distributions, and gaining new insights.
• Map customer and competitor site locations.
• Understand relationships between the forces that drive your business, and make better decisions to solve business problems faster and smarter.
• Publish intelligent maps and create interactive map presentations by linking charts, tables, drawings, photographs, and other files.
• Develop custom tools, interfaces, and complete applications.

Some of the opportunities mentioned were: working on the road to Crescent Lake; Hospital cooling / heating system needing redone; communication on the John Holman gravesite, hunting contests and fee hunting in the Panhandle. If there is a need and feasibility trail - they'll make it happen along with having more than 3 people involved. RC&D will help with training, salaries and support.

Terri O'Brien would like to have RC&D help with getting three new soccer fields to bring in revenue on weekend tournaments. This would help the restaurants, hotels, convenience stores, etc.

The Military Museum is needing additional space for showing of all the military items they have collected so far. There are people that schedule their vacations on seeing different military museums across the country.

Marlis Shearer brought up that the State of Nebraska is rolling out a project that takes a picture and gets the GPS coordinates for tourists to visit points of interest. She gave them some points in Garden County to check on: Flat Top; Crescent Lake; Ancient Bluff Ruins; Frog Head Rock and Lisco Bridge.

Fundraising for Garden County Chamber: Terri O'Brien suggested a meal at the primary elections. Will check with the VFW to make sure they don't already have something scheduled.

Airport: The snow removal equipment has been ordered.

4th of July - Working on getting a band and checking on dance at the Eagles for July 3rd. Parade theme was suggested to be the "Faces of Freedom", Motioned by Terri O'Brien, seconded by Carol Lake to accept this theme. There will be volunteers needed to help with the parade float. Fireworks: Midwest Pyrotechnic's will be doing the fireworks display this year. The fireworks stand will be supplied by Skip McKeeman again this year.

Meet the Candidates:

Ron Shearer is finishing is 1st 4-year term. Had a successful 4-year run. The courthouse is completely handicap accessible on all 4 floors and moved the courtrooms upstairs. He is again running for County Commissioner.

Terri O'Brien is running for Mayor. She has learned a lot about State and Federal rules and is bringing ideas to the City of Oshkosh. She is trying to bring non-profit organizations to town and she volunteers with kids and the military. Wants to make Oshkosh grow.

Carol Lake is re-running for City Council - she is also finishing up her 1st 4-year term. Wants to make sure people get out to vote and would like more public attendance on other meetings, City Council, County Commissioners, etc.

Jim McKeeman moved to adjourn and Julie Royston seconded. Meeting adjourned at 8:20 p.m.

Next meeting will he held on June 4th, at the 17 Ranch Winery in Lewellen.

Respectfully Submitted,

Renee Lucero, Secretary

Archives of previous Meeting Minutes:
Garden County Chamber of Commerce Archives of Minutes