Railbelt Mental Health &amp; Addictions

WIN minutes 05-19-07

Nenana Wellness CoalitionAGENDA

19^th of May, 2007

There were 15 people at meeting today including: Tim Horn, Laura Vance, Bonnie Reed, Traci Boschert, Diana Grum, Don Charlie, Rick Martin, Lynn Eldridge, Sharon Wallick, Dolores Eldridge, Marti Reed, Bill Reed, Hanna Fort, Rachel Fort and Felicia O’Brien. RMHA provided a lunch of sandwiches and watermelon.

WELCOME and the READING OF MISSION STATEMENT: Welcome and mission statement read by this week’s chair person, Bonnie Reed. This week’s prayer led by Delores Eldridge, followed by the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA; CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS – Traci added Dancing in the Streets to agenda

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Last weeks’ minutes taken by Kat and due to health reasons, not sure if were sent out.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: Lynn Eldridge & Sharon Wallick from the former Division of Behavioral Health, Dolores Eldridge, Marti Reed, Bill Reed, Hanna Fort, Rachel Fort and Felicia O’Brien.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS

Neighborhood Watch – No new updates on neighborhood watch this week. Mentioned again about maybe a spaghetti feed some time in the future, and Laura mentioned she thought the newsletter went out last week, but wasn’t sure.

Dancing In The Streets – Traci was looking to pinpoint a date for RMHA’s annual Dancing in the Streets celebration for recovery month (September). The date was set for Friday September 7^th. Traci wondered if anyone had any ideas about bands to hire. Rick suggested local bands would be a good; there is a high school band or Wes and Mary’s band, maybe both. Also looking for volunteers for the dinner, parade or dance.

WELLNESS THOUGHT-

OLD BUSINESS—None noted

NEW BUSINESS—None reported.

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS

Don Charlie – July 2^nd is the next Community Action Village Safety meeting at the George Hall. Neighborhood watch would give an update; also the new trooper would be introduced. Everyone come, there will be “food, fun & prizes galore”. People do not need to bring food, every thing is furnished. It was said, at the last two meetings there was between 100-130 people, Bonnie mentioned the meetings were a nice time.

Don also mentioned he works Mondays in Fairbanks and was still looking for referrals for the Ch’eghutsen’ program. Don went on to explain that Ch’eghtusen’ is a strength based, wrap around process to encourage young individuals concentrating on their strengths. The children get to help choose who they want to be involved in the wrap around process usually parents, teachers, relatives, peers. It’s not treatment it’s a strength based, warp around process. Rick asked how kids get referred and what ages. It’s any child under the age of 18 and they usually get referred by parents. Once referred it usually takes a little while for the wrap around process to get started. Tim pointed out it helps everyone involved with the child get on the same page in a positive atmosphere.

RMHA – Kat is at home resting and healing up due to a gallbladder surgery that took place last week. Traci informed the group that Mike Pearson, Anderson’s mayor, died after his dump truck fell on him and to pray for his family, friends and community. Diana Grum who works out of Healy, mentioned that Healy had lots of activities for the summer including women’s soccer and co-ed softball if any one was interested. Also, more referrals coming out of Denali area due to seasonal employment. Denali Borough established the bars would stay open until 5am, tabling indefinitely a discussion to close the bars at 2am.

Tim Horn mentioned there would be a school board meeting tonight in regards to the budget. Also her family would be going on vacation so she would be out of town for a couple weeks.

KIAM – Dolores Eldridge mentioned that due to satellite uplink and additional transmitters state wide, the station is now reaching more communities. She also wanted to remind everyone about bulletins and mukluk news which is free to send info out over the air, and to take advantage of the station by sending PA’s out for upcoming events. The stations manager is Brian Blair and hours our 7am-9:30pm.

Sharon Wallick from the former Division of Behavioral Health wanted to let the community know a little about what RMHA is dealing with from the State. Department of Behavioral Health was short over a million dollars for next year. Doesn’t know what next years budget is going to be. The state will grant 6 month grant awards to agencies based on their FY07 funding. They will deal with cuts after this time. Any political activism or help to fund RMHA program of any kind is encouraged.

Seniors – Shaw’s people are renovating the kitchen at the seniors due to a brand new stove. This will leave the kitchen unable to be used for the a bit. The seniors had a picnic on the 19^th, and on the 20^th would be having lunch at Brandi’s restaurant (old River Front Diner), she’s going to have a special deal for them. Rick Migra from KIAM will bring lunch to the seniors on Friday, and the following Friday the Moore’s are having them over for lunch.

ADJOURNMENT at 1:13 P.M.

2007 05 19

WIN minutes 05-15-07

Nenana Wellness Coalition
AGENDA
May 15, 2007

The Nenana Wellness Coalition is an alliance of representatives from various organizations, government agencies, community groups and individuals that meets weekly to discuss, evaluate, coordinate, consolidate and help implement plans for improving the wellness and quality of life in Nenana Alaska.
There were eight participants today: Donald Charlie, Maryellen Kanayurak, Miles Martin, Tim Horn, Bonnie Reed, Kat McElroy, Laura Vance, and Rita Pierce. We had turkey and red jasmine rice soup and assorted cookies for lunch.

WELCOME: By this week’s chairperson, Laura Vance, followed by the
READING OF MISSION STATEMENT.

PRAYER: Was led by Tim Horn, followed by the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA AND CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS: There were multiple additions to the agenda.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Were sent electronically by Kat last Tuesday.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: There were no guests today.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS

Community Clean-Up —This is scheduled for Friday, the 18th. It will begin shortly after school goes into session at 8 A.M. Denali borough landfill has free dumping on the 19the. For large items, it is unclear whether the city or native council are prepared to haul items away. For junker vehicles, the city office has forms that can be filled out by the owner of the vehicle and then the city will haul them away. There will be a bar-b-que at the ball-field at the end of the clean-up.

Wellness Activities in Nenana — Kat passed around the revised Wellness Activities sheet she has been working on. She is waiting for call-back from a couple of people on various activities but otherwise the information sheet is looking good. Miles had some suggested additions which he wrote down for her. He also thought it would be good to break the activities out into indoor/outdoor or by season. Tim suggested adding church services.

Chamber Update— Miles said that the Chamber had their annual meeting and accepted nomination for officers. They are changing their bylaws to have quarterly meetings instead of monthly. They are sending out notices about the upcoming elections but have not yet set the date for those. He was gratified to see new participants at the meeting. The Nenana web site is being switched from the Chamber to the city web site as they are already hosting a site with plenty of space and the chamber will be able to save the monthly web-hosting fee. There will be a Summer Market every Saturday from Memorial Day to Labor Day this summer, 10 A.M. until about 2 or 3 P.M. in the usual place. Miles is hoping that people will utilize the space for entrepreneurial activities. They need more vendors, he says. There is no rent but a fee of 10% of sales.

Neighborhood Watch —Rita says she gave the mayor a letter requesting funds for the NW signs, asking that it be put on the agenda for the last city council meeting. Apparently it was never read into the record and the request was not discussed by the council. The mayor apparently has asked that someone be present at the next (June 14th) meeting to forward this item on their agenda. Rita is asking 261 dollars for the 12 signs to be posted around town and another couple of hundred dollars for the galvanized metal posts on which to hang the signs. The signs will go in around the play-ground, the school, on 1st street, the ball-park, at the A-frame, the YERK, the Living Center and two at the boat launch. Miles again requested we have emergency contact info on the signs at the boat launch. All 150 of the latest NW newsletter have been taken from the various locations at Coghill’s, the laundrymat and the A-frame. Rita wants Neighborhood Watch to have a fund-raiser to help defray costs of Open Gym at the school. She feels this would be an opportunity to begin to shift public perception of NW away from the “Village Spy” thing. Discussion ensued. It was agreed that 4th of July would be a good venue. Kat volunteered to make fry bread to sell. Rita would like to do a spaghetti feed. She will ask Marilyn and Jack about space for this during the street activities. She asked Don if he could get Ch’eghutsen’ donations for the food. He’ll see. Rita also wants to do a community concern survey. Tim asked if we could get NW on the next Community Pride and Village Safety meeting for this purpose. Discussion ensued about the need for a sound system for that event as there is always a large crowd and it is too noisy to hear the speakers.

WELLNESS THOUGHT—There is only one thing in this world over which we have much power or control and that is OURSELVES.

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Don announced he got a scholarship and will be gone June 2-7th to Shelton, Washington to attend part 3 of a 4 phase training which will include a SAMSHA workshop on suicide reduction. There will also be information about methamphetamine, juvenile justice, and tribal issues. Don also explained in detail about his involvement with Ch’eghutsen’, how that system works, and his current client load. He explained that it is strength-based and works to build a system of care around the child and family involved.
Maryellen announced that she will be going with the Railbelt Healy clinician, Diana Grum on a trip to Hawaii to attend a training on Indigenous Social Work. Also, as of June 1st, she will go to full-time status. Kat announced that she’ll be on holiday May 23rd through June 10th, to visit family in Nevada.
Bonnie announced that City Council meetings are now at 5:30 P.M. on the second Thursday of each month at the Senior Center. She also announced that this Thursday night from 5 till 8 P.M. at the Senior Center, Logan Monroe is having a spaghetti feed to raise money for his trip to Australia. The charge will be ten dollars for adult and five dollars for children with children under age two eating for free.

ADJOURNMENT: 2 P.M.

2007 05 15

WIN minutes 05-08-07

Nenana Wellness Coalition
AGENDA
May 8, 2007

We had 10 in attendance today including: Kat McElroy, Vicki Minor, Jan Gale, Laura Vance, Miles Martin, Rob Thomason, Carl Horn, Tim Horn, Rita Pierce and Sandi Eggleston. We had prawns, kasha, bok choi casserole with salmon salad and brown bread. Traci sent carrot cake.

WELCOME: By this week’s chairperson, Ms. Laura Vance, who did the
READING OF MISSION STATEMENT.

PRAYER was said by Kat McElroy, followed by the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA AND CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS. Miles asked that the Justice Council Awards by put on the agenda again.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES—minutes were completed by Laura Vance last week and forwarded to the WIN e-list by Kat with one suggestion for amendment by Rita Pierce.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS Vickie minor introduced herself. She is from Boise, Idaho. She spent seven winter in the Fairbanks community. She is visiting and is interested in learning more about community development and healing. Jan Gale introduced herself. She is from Calgary, Canada. She formerly worked for a large oil company in Canada but has recently terminated from that employment to pursue healing work. She does Reiki.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS

Community Clean-Up Date — is set for May 18. It will be followed by a picnic at the ball park. Bonnie had a question about the money Railbelt has donated. Clarification, the money is given to the school to help fund the clean-up day and picnic. The 19th will be FREE dump day at the Denali Borough landfill. Miles asked about large trash items; will the city be picking them up? He should contact the city to find out. Jason did say at the last community safety meeting that he has forms for anyone interested in having junked vehicles towed from their yards, just pick up a form, fill it out and get it back to Jason.

Justice Council Awards—Miles passed around the award nomination announcement. Kat read it aloud. It seems that the NSLC would qualify for nomination for the ten thousand dollar award for the diversion program they have instituted as it fits multiple award criteria including victim impact, restitution, and alternative justice/sentencing. Kat agreed to take point on getting a nomination completed and in place by June 1st. Sandi will put together an overview of the program since inception and look for documentation. Miles will see if he can get a copy of the story Diane did in the Nenana Messenger last winter. We will see if the magistrate can give us any statistics or other outcome data. Rita suggested we get the overview with photos for the school web-site. Rob agreed to facilitate that.

WELLNESS THOUGHT—The longest journey begins with a single step—-Chinese proverb

OLD BUSINESS—Rita brought a printout of various signs that we could purchase for Neighborhood Watch. She particularly wants signage that highlights that it is a class B felony to sell drugs within 500 feet of school property which would include the school, the YERK, the Student Living Center. She passed around the sample signs and people voted on which they would prefer. Discussion ensued regarding placement of signage. Rita would like to have at least four signs around the school property. Miles would like signage at the entrance to out community. Other locations suggested included the dock and the boat landing off 10th street where there has been vandalism previously. Kat said she would like a sign that showed kids at play and had verbiage that indicated that Neighborhood Watch intends to help keep children safe. Miles suggested that we make a large sign for the boat landing area that would include emergency contact numbers for Troopers, EMT’s, fire, etc.

NEW BUSINESS—None put forward

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS—Rob announced that the 24th of May is the last day of school. Graduation will be Sunday the 20th. Albert Kookesh will be the commencement speaker. Keith Seieg has been hired to be the new director at NSLC and will arrive with his wife Carmelita in mid-July.
Railbelt announced that their Rural Human Services worker in Healy has resigned and will be moving to Fairbanks at the end of the month.
Rita announced that she intends to approach the city council to request speed bumps on the streets in Nenana that get high-speed traffic.

OPEN FLOOR FOR COMMENTS/QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

ADJOURNMENT—at approximately 1:45 P.M.

2007 05 08

WIN minutes 05-01-07

Nenana Wellness Coalition
MINUTES
1st of May, 2007

There were six people a meeting today including: Mike Anderson, Laura Vance, Carl Horn, Bonnie Reed, Traci Boschert, and Rob Thomason. We had halibut and rice and spinach salad for lunch made by Kat with an assortment of cookies and dessert bars from Bonnie Reed.

WELCOME and the READING OF MISSION STATEMENT: Welcome by this week’s chair person, Traci Boschert. This week’s mission statement and prayer led by Bonnie Reed, followed by the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA; There was no CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: minutes submitted electronically last week by Kat with no noted changes or suggested additions.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: No guests today.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS
Updates from all – Before meeting officially started Mike talked about how the lunch program at school was going since he’s been working there. He mentioned not too much difference. There’s been some procedural changes and he’s added some new dishes to the menu. He hopes this will get the students eating lunch at the school more often to bring their hot lunch program’s count up in order to get more funding. Meeting starts at 12:20pm. Mike brought up that he saw a flyer for River Days. Traci added that Suzanne Hill was running it this year and that it would be the first Saturday in June. There was talk about River Days. Bonnie remembered when they used to have the raft races and there was discussion about that. Those that were around for the raft races remembered that they brought a lot people for river days but by the end they turned out to be more of like a drunk/drug fest and that there was a lot of trash left behind and also some problem with the coast guard so the races stopped. Carl thought if Nenana wanted to do races again maybe it would work with regular boats. Mike also mentioned that he saw on flyer there would be a potato gun competition at River days and talked with Joe (Krause) at school that potato guns could be potentially dangerous (although they are a lot o’ fun!). traci brought up the idea of bringing the dunk tank back to river days, but that she heard it wasn’t in operational condition, some sharp edges and such. Mike mentioned that the school might be able to repair the tank, Traci wandered who she would talk to about it, and the thought was Blaine Morris at the shop.

Traci gave RMHA update. She’s been working on grant continuation for upcoming year. That she foresaw budget cuts, so RMHA’s budget for next year would be a lot tighter then in previous years. She also mentioned that if the school saw any grants on the horizon maybe the school and RMHA could partner up on a prevention grant. Traci also volunteered her grant writing expertise to the school if they needed help with writing grants. Mike mentioned that Whitney’s grant was up next year and that the women in charge of writing that grant stopped over at the school and gave him her card. He thought that maybe Traci could get in touch with her to talk about possible grant opportunities for the school. Carl pointed out that a lot of grant supporting students (like the Whitney’s paid from) are going away due to legislative cuts. Mike brought up that there was a lot of good stuff coming out of the A&E grant. That they were having a training course this summer to get people certified as EMT1’s. There’s about 23-26 people signed up for the classes both present and prior students a few community members. When the course is over each student would leave with their own trauma bag and the credentials to work in the field. Traci wondered if the school would be interested in a counseling training. Traci said it would great to send some students back to their villages with counseling skills. Carl thought Chuck or Sandy would be the ones to talk to about it. Carl also mentioned that he thought they it would be a good idea for the school to do a mini job shadowing for the students with business around Nenana (currently they take the students to Fairbanks to job shadow).

Bonnie reported that Vicki from the senior center is back. She also brought up a list Kat’s working on of stuff to do around Nenana for example Carl’s radio club. Carl said it’s not so much a club, but if anyone’s interested in learning about HAM radio to get in touch with him.

Rob Thomason reported that the last couple weeks have been interesting with the budget. There’s continuing budget problems. That legislation is cutting funds again by $200 per student. He also mentioned that there’s a board meeting at 6:30 tonight. Traci offered again her grant writing services. Bonnie asked if they ever say any money from the Save our School letter Chuck Hugney wrote, Rob said they got $250. Rob also said he got a call from the Lieutenant Governors assistant in reference to the NSLC. Rob has tried to call back but has been unable to get a hold of him, but it shows that at least our name is out there.

WELLNESS THOUGHT-

OLD BUSINESS—None noted

NEW BUSINESS—None reported.

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mike mentioned that clean up day would be the 18th of May and that a BBQ would take place in the afternoon at the ball field, weather permitting. Traci told Mike to send her an email requesting donations and that RMHA could donate money to help cover the cost of the BBQ. Graduation would be on Sunday the 20th of May with cake and pink lemonade at the school following the ceremony. On the 19th would be a luau at the NSLC for the NSLC graduates, although it is not open for the public. Mike also mentioned that the NSLC is having their end of the year awards ceremony were the staff serves the students dinner and gives out goofy awards to each student to show their appreciation for the students.

ADJOURNMENT at 1:15 P.M.

2007 05 01