The Marana Forum has been my life for the past few weeks. As my previous post stated, I was part of a team that gave a presentation to council! I think it went well, I felt like I was stuttering and said the same words over and over again, but it turned out to be really great. The council was really receptive to the idea and wanted to see a revamping of the strategic goal to have more productive and regular community engagement. I have been working on setting up the staff Forum, which is being held today!
We are holding a focus group today, for a random sampling of employees, to discuss some internal town issues. We are using this as an outlet for a "test run" of the Forum process. They had a discussion this morning about the issue and requested some of the data the Town could provide, and at the end of the day will provide tangible action plans for presentation to the Town Manager and the Human Resources Department Head, since the issue relates to her department. There was a bit of a push back this morning, beginning the conversation, but once they warmed up and had an icebreaker! the participating employees were really vocal and had some great ideas. I am really looking forward to what the outcomes are and what the ideas they come up with for the HR department.
I have been pretty swamped with this Forum stuff the past few weeks, but I am also working hard on getting all the wastewater documents in one place in a logical manner. There is always something regarding wastewater each day that I come to work, but the pile of paper is getting smaller and smaller each day. Eventually, I will get through the entire stack.
I have had my first experience with a close deadline for a project. The Town has been doing some really great clean up on I-10! So much so, that the Continential Ranch HOA wants to do a story about the clean up for their neighborhood newsletter! I have been chatting with Julie Bailey and Orville Saling about the project and the general beautification of the Town along I-10. It is really important to management that when someone drives through the Town they have a good feeling and see how great it is here. We just built that beautiful Twin Peaks interchange, and the stretch of I-10 just north of it was fairly overgrown and messy. The Town took it upon itself to clean that area up and make sure it was up to the wonderful standards the Town holds. I need to get that done tomorrow and since Julie was a part of the Forum today I was able to pick her brain about the process, which will help me with the short story.
I have been really enjoying my time with the town. I am able to be a part of bigger events than I had ever thought was possible at the intern level. I gave a presentation to council for goodness sakes! This Forum today was also big opportunity for me as well. Since no one over a supervisor was able to attend I was the only person who could participate. I was here in an administrative capacity. I set up the room, Diane helped me order the food, Ann and Laine helped to facilitate the entire thing. We got some really great feedback that is going to be contribute to helping the Town communicate information to the staff, and keep everyone on the same track moving forward. It might have been rough getting there, but the outcomes were exceptional. I hope we can do it again in the future.
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