Railbelt Mental Health & Addictions

Nenana Wellness Coalition
MINUTES
June 24, 2008

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 six in attendance today, including: David Poppe, Laura Vance, Kat McElroy, Tim Horn, Bonnie Reed and Maryellen Kanayurak. We had moose soup, pilot bread, green salad, walnuts and home-made brownies for lunch.

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

PRAYER: lead by Tim Horn, who sang A Prayer For The Children, followed by the PLEDGE OF ALLEGIENCE.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA AND CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS. Envisioning Wellness update and Communicating with the Leahy Children were added to the agenda by voice call.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes were submitted electronically last Tuesday afternoon by Kat with no requested changes or addendums.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: No guests today.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS

Envisioning Wellness – our next presentation will be July 15th, with David Poppe talking to us about Peak Oil. Laura says she had a conversation with Valerie from Access Alaska who will be coming to Nenana once a month. Laura asked if she would be interested in doing a presentation, if not a future Envisioning Wellness, perhaps on a Tuesday when we do not have a EW presentation scheduled.

Proposal to Re-allocate YERC to Alaska State Court System: WIN at large. Laura sent copies of our WUIN letter out to the city, NNC council members, the school and TCC. Tim Horn went to the city council meeting last Thursday evening and spoke during citizen’s comments. Our letter to the city council members had been included with the council member’s packets but the issue of Re-allocation of the YERC was not on the council agenda. Mitch Dementieff suggested that the issue be put onto the agenda for the next Community Pride/Village Safety meeting which will be sometime in July. Tim’s sense is that due to financial burden of heating and lighting the building, public input and this process would be more of a forum to explain this than an information gathering process to actively elicit input. Kat will call Robin to see if WIN can help in any with PSA’s to advertise that this issue will be on the agenda.

Wednesday Night Sing Alongs: Kat McElroy has made flyers to advertise that the Inspirations at Episcopalian Parrish Hall on Wednesday evenings will run thru the end of summer (until the beginning of hunting season) by decision of the participants. Beverley says that she wants them to be considered “sing-alongs”, utilizing secular music as well as songs from the hymnals. Kat has purchased a couple of copies of the Rise Up Singing song-book which has words and music to thousands of folk songs for use at the sing-along. Tim suggested that we consider changing it to Tuesday night as there are several churches locally that do services and other activities Wednesday evenings which conflict with the time/date of the sing-along. They will discuss this Wednesday night. Kat will postpone hanging the new flyers until a decision on this is made.

Communication With The Leahy Children: - Darcia has the large greeting cards for the Leahy kids at the library available for anyone wanting to add a greeting. Aleta took them to the Seniors lunch on Wednesday and Kat then took them to Darcia. Kat emailed the various teachers at NCPS to alert them that the cards are available for signage. It has been suggested that we make ongoing communication as opposed to a one-time communication as this would be more helpful in regards to providing emotional support for the children. It has also been suggested that small gifts such as Hot Wheels cars, coloring books, paper dolls, etc., would be appropriate. Kat will call the OCS caseworker to see how to get these to the children. In discussion of how we can make ongoing emotional support, Tim wonders can the children be brought down for our annual 4th of July celebration. Also, there are people who would like to be pen-pals. Kat will forward these requests to OCS.

WELLNESS THOUGHT
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS
Bonnie noted that the Senior bus is back from the shop. Also, Charles is back. His partner, Pat, had a hip replaced. She is on the mend. Thursday, July 3rd, the bus will be making a trip to town for Senior’s errands and shopping.

Tim reminded us the Bush Vet will be here July 5th. Appointments can be made by calling 832-2013. Don’t forget the 4th of July celebration next Friday, in front of Coghill’s store. July 19th will be our next picnic and Free-cycle at the Troxel’s. Tanana Valley Fair will be held from Aug. 1st thru the 9th. There will be a dedication of the small bridge to Shirley Dementieff on the afternoon of August 8th. Aug. 14th, school begins. Tim also said that she ran into Norma George in Fairbanks who indicated that she would like to be able to move back to Nenana but because of health concerns she would need someone to live with her to take care of the wood-stove and other daily living chores. It would have to be someone who is alcohol-free. Tim also gave us a quick over-view of her family’s trip to Cold Foot and Wiseman where co-incidentally there was what was advertised as the first iron pour north of the Arctic Circle.

Maryellen announced that Pam Samash is organizing women’s soccer, soccer for the fun of it, Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, 6-7 P.M., at the soccer fields.

David Poppe noted an item of interest “to go into the weird file.” Down in Denali Park, he heard, there were two juvenile grizzly bears playing that were then being accosted by an older, larger grizzly. One of the younger bears ran off but another of them crawled under a tour bus and hide there for about ten minutes. To David’s knowledge, this is the first time a bear used a tour bus as protection.

Kat announced that June 30th marks the end of the fiscal year for Railbelt. Laura said this means there is a lot of financial details to attend to, balancing out the accounts and seeing if we need to make any end-of-year purchases. Maryellen said that the Tobacco Prevention program could use new materials. Kat suggested if we have funds available, perhaps tobacco money could be used to help buy soccer balls for the newly formed women’s soccer team.

OPEN FLOOR FOR COMMENTS/QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION: None

ADJOURNMENT: 1:45 P.M.