Bowdon, ND

What a kick! I was wandering around the house this morning getting ready for church and I started thinking about our situation with the grocery store and locker. I thought to myself, “You know, if people need to invest as a community to keep our store going, would that be so bad?” I calculated that if I had to drive to Fessenden, Carrington, or Harvey once a week to buy groceries, it would cost between $5.00 to $10.00 a trip, and that’s at today’s prices for gas. At that rate, including the 00ps-I-forgot trips, I’d get back a $1,000.00 investment in two years just in fuel savings.

Then, lo and behold, I opened today’s Bismarck Tribune and read an article that was reprinted from the Grant County News. It confirmed in a very vivid and factual way what many of us have been saying all along:  shopping at home makes sense. There is very little price difference in town and out of town, and the cost of fuel negates any savings. In fact, it makes out-of-town groceries prohibitively expensive. If we want to make sure that people on fixed or limited incomes–and I’m one of the fixed–can afford to feed themselves with healthy and nutritious foods, we must work to keep our local grocery store and locker plant open and thriving. 

Be sure to attend the 7:30 p.m. June 3rd meeting at the Community Center to see how you can be involved.

Pam Stewart is the new web master for the Bowdon Website http://www.bowdonnd.com/.  Be looking for a new look and a facelift to our site.  Also, don’t hesitate to send suggestions or additions for the website to pam at stewpj@daktel.com.  Lets make sure that our local events are posted so everyone can have a central place to find the place and times of each event.  Look at the Events page…. You’ll find a slide show of the 2007 Duckfest pictures. 

I can link and/or include events, lists, newsletter, other websites, etc.  Please don’t hesitate to send an email or give me a call.

Community Commentators
Bowdon’s Community Visioning process, the fourth step in the Horizons Program, which is sponsored by the Northwest Area Foundation, got off to a great start when participants were greeted by the usual North Dakota spread of good food when they walked into the Bowdon Auditorium on a recent Sunday evening.  Thirty-five people gathered to make comments on nine different categories that were an outgrowth of the paper survey that was sent to 220 households in the Bowdon-Heaton-Chaseley community.  From the 78 responses to the paper survey, the Group Decision Center  from NDSU created an interactive program to gather opinions, solutions, volunteers and more from the highly motivated, community-oriented participants. Laughter, a little frustration from the new-to-computers-crowd, and energy emanated around the room as we used the 35 laptops to answer questions, make comments, and make comments on others’ comments in the pursuit of a vision for our community.

At the completion of the evening, the Bowdon Horizons Steering Committee was given a complete overview of what our community views as important and actionable issues, along with practical solutions and ideas. In addition, many people volunteered to particpate in the implementation of the actions needed to realize the community’s vision.

In a meeting that followed soon after the Group Decision Center night, the Steering Committee and a few other volunteers met to distill the process into measureable goals with doable action steps. Those goals and actions are posted on the blog site. Just look in the column on the right hand side of the page to see them all.

Ready! Set! Go! Bowdon!

Recently, Patti Patrie and Laurel Jones attended a conference/workshop in Mandan, ND, under the auspices of Headstart that addressed the issues of poverty and moving from one economic level to another.

The workshop instructor, Monica Bein, mbein@tulsa-health.org from Oklahoma gave participants many personal anecdotes that illustrated the need to identify the “hidden rules” in any organization or group and to find ways to make experiences in accessing information and services user friendly.

Patti and Laurel purchased some books that are available at the Community Library and also received a workbook to accompany the books.

In the planning are workshops for the community to apply what Patti, Laurel, and Laurene Heintz–who attended an earlier conference on the same topic–have learned.

On October 17 Laurel Jones and I attended this great “marketing your community” workshop in Devils Lake.  It was presented by Jim Beatty of NCS International.  Jim made us think about how we sell our community and if we have thought about our “unique selling proposition” and “opportunity story”.  He also shared 12 points that should be included  in the design of an economic development organization’s website.  The points that really resonated with me were: directory of available  buildings and sites, current developments, testimonials,  and comparisons to competitor locations.  Contests can be used to generate traffic. We spent time viewing several communities’ websites and critiqued them.  I learn best by seeing so I’m happy Jim included  the activity.  Rollette’s weekly updates were impressive,  Crosby had a U-tube video, and Devils Lake had pictures changing with the four seasons.  New Rockford had won a prize for its website and Laurel and I cheered because Amy Wobbema, the Economic Director, is from Bowdon.   A panel of  ND resource persons also shared pertinent information.  Grafton’s unique housing incentives renewed my belief in the results of creativity.  Lynette Flage shared about the importance of building “social capital”.  Did you know that 1/5 of Americans move every year?  I can see where the Horizons program in Bowdon has really increased our  connections, trust, and interaction amongst community members. Infact I’m writing this in a computer class that Laurel is teaching in our technology/library room in our retired school.  We are laughing and having a great social time!!!  The  ND ambassador program is doing well and we were encouraged to join and help meet the goal of 2000 ambassadors by March 2008.  The program includes employer alerts on www.LUVND.com.  We received a powerpoint of Jim’s presentation and passed it on with notes to Bowdon’s marketing committee and webmaster, Pam Hoff.  Promoting and marketing our community ranked high on Bowdon’s strategic plan.  Well I’m rattling so this will end.  Just wanted you to know there are great opportunities to learn through Horizons!

Beginning on January 8, Bowdon residents began computer classes at the Tech Center in the school under the instruction of retired library media teacher, Laurel Jones. The classes are free to the public and are an outgrowth of the Horizons Program.
Under the auspices of Bowdon Development Center, Incorporated (BDCI) and the Bowdon Centennial Museum and Library, the former school library has been turned into a community lending library and a technical center with six computers that have high-speed internet access. The computers came from the Fessenden-Bowdon School after they upgraded their technical system. In addition, several community members have donated monitors and other peripherals.
The classes take place once a week on Tuesday evening at 7:00 with a repeat on Wednesday at 1:00. The students are easily able to follow the teacher’s instructions because she uses an LCD projector that is on loan from the NDSU Extension Service in Fessenden So far, students have learned internet skills and what’s in and on their computer.
Everyone’s welcome–just call Laurel at 3633 to make sure there’s room. Oh, and there will be no classes during the last week of January and the first two weeks of February, as the teacher is taking off!

What’s a blog, and why should we care? Recently, Pam Stewart and Laurel Jones completed blog training for Horizons at Harvey, ND (and Pam Hoff received all of the materials to self-train). Blogging is one of the newest, best ways to inform people about what’s happening in the community and getting opinions and ideas in response.
A new way of communicating via the internet, a blog is short for “web log” and is similar to an on-going community diary. All residents of the Bowdon-Chaseley-Heaton community, as well as any other interested people, are invited–urged–to participate in our new blog. Welcome aboard!!
By the way, we’re getting ready to update the Bowdon community website, and we invite your input. Click on the link and the tell us how the website can better inform and enlighten you. Let use know right here.