Beaver Island Net - Beaver Island Places, People, Art, and History
Beaver Beacon - Beaver Island News and Events, Stories, Places, People, Art, Photography, and more.
Beaver Island
 
Beaver Island Beaver Island Places Excursions Projects Artists History Home

 

Beacon Archive

June 2003
PDF Version

McDonough’s Market - 70 Years serving Beaver Island

Don't bother trying to fix it … if it's not Baroque

Graduation Time

Beaver Island Chamber of Commerce Plans for the 4th of July

The Historical Society releases the schedule for Museum Week

BIPOA Nature Lecture: Painted Turtles of the Beaver Archipelago

CMU Summer Nature Walk series

BIRHC to Raffle Truck

Health Center Groundbreaking

The State of the Internet on Beaver Island

Honoring Bev and Mike

On This Date

One Hundred Years Ago

A Fine Spring Concert

An Environmental Protection section proposed for our Zoning Ordinance

Passings: Robert Smith; Gary Tepe; Margaret Way; Dan Green

Rural Arts & Culture Grant Update

Mary Gets a New Gallery

Roasting Jerry

The Sun Also Rises … over PABI's Community House: Summer Solstice Celebrations

The Class Play: A Class Act

Lighthouse School News

News from the Townships

Work at Beaver Head

BICS Students get Handhelds

Island Airways Hanger Party

Emerald Isle Security Exercise

Making a Walleye Pond

The Leadership Retreat suggests an approach for the Lansing Reception

A Report on The Lansing Reception

Peaine Township helps the Island move closer to a Master Plan

The AmVets in Action: yellow ribbons and posters

Weather or Not

Camp Quality Returns

Please Subscribe to the Beacon

Classified Ads

Beaver Island's Lansing Reception

Many people deserve a round of applause for making the Lansing Reception the best ever in terms of organization and effectiveness. Attendees from the Island were well prepared with strategies on how to present their case to the legislators and department officials, and their efforts were rewarded by good attendance and substantive discussions before, during, and after the reception. A number of follow-up meetings have already been scheduled.

Representatives from many Island organizations gave a warm welcome to the state leaders. Prior to this, individuals pressed their causes with specific legislators, but during the reception everyone focused on issues with Island-wide importance. The recent Lead-ership Retreat, which focused on tools and techniques for effective advocacy and lobbying, identified four areas that affect all community interests:

1. Beaver Island is very creative in making the most of its resources, but we send far more tax dollars to Charlevoix County and the state than we get back, and we can't meet our needs doing this.

2. The Island requires special consideration when it comes to formulas for health care and the school because they are based on assumptions about our resources that aren't valid for such an isolated, small community.

3. We need the County and State to provide equal access to basic services like telephone connectivity, area-wide toll free dialing, health care, and educational resources that are readily available to mainland residents.

4. Homeland security mandates need special handling with remote communities. Ferry and air transport is a lifeline, and new requirements threaten the Island's fragile economy.

These events don't just happen. Once again, Bill and Tammy McDonough deserve an ovation for pulling everything together and handling the arrangements. That work isn’t glamorous, but it’s essential to making the reception worthwhile. Tammy sent invitations to all the key officials and legislators and their staffs. She also managed the catering arrangements so food and liquid refreshments would arrive on time. Everything looked as good as it tasted, too. Pat Anderson, Connie Wojan, Barb Murphy, and others lent a had with last-minute decorations and distribution of materials.

In the meantime, Bill McDonough made arrangements for the reception room, finalized a date that worked for the largest number of people, arranged for Boat Company transportation, and helped make connections with representatives of Island organizations and many key legislators and department officials.

If you think it's tricky to schedule a dinner party for 8 people, try increasing the number to 50 or more, especially when everyone has extremely busy lives and a 400-mile round trip is part of the challenge! Expenses were covered by special funding from St. James and Peaine Townships as well as a small residual amount in the Partnership fund. It was money well spent.

Thanks also must go to those who created some of the best informational materials ever seen, another need identified at this year's Leadership Retreat. A lot was accomplished at the Retreat, including targeted planning of how to make the most of the reception. Jeff Cashman was asked to create a fact sheet on BI issues for which the Island needs state support; Connie Wojan provided the text in this team effort to produce a colorful, accurate, and succinct summary of both immediate and long-term priority issues. Jeff also created a Power Point presentation with views of the Island that demonstrated both the beauty and the challenges of living in such a remote community. Kitty McNamara supplied her laptop, projector, and know-how so the CD ran continuously during the reception. This augmented the snazzy new Chamber brochure, recent editions of the Beaver Beacon and Northern Islander, and a booklet on the history of community health care that was privately funded. Congratulations to all who were involved. Their efforts benefitted the entire community.

–Anne Glendon


The Real Beacon:

Fully Formatted PDF Version:
https://www.beaverbeacon.com/PDF/2003-06-June-Beacon.pdf

Select Images in the Image Gallery
www.beaverbeacon.com/gallery

Please Subscribe to the Beacon for current issues
www.beaverbeacon.com/subscribe


Search the Beaver Beacon Web Site & Archive:

Keywords: