Great news! The Shokapee Mdewakanton Dakota community (headquartered in Prior Lake, MN) has awarded a $300,000 grant to kick-start the Ginanda Gikendaamin Community Center capital campaign. The seed money is intended to pay for a site appraisal, a development budget, and architectural fees.
Congratulations to our partners at Red Cliff and our TLAM students who have been working so hard on this project!
Where: American Indian Studies Program conference room (3rd floor of Ingraham Hall)
When: 12-1:00pm, March 14, 2012
Members attending: Kelly Kraemer, Troy Espe, Dawn Wing, Robin Amado, Jacob Ineichen and Jessica Miesner
Topics:
1) First order of business: Revision of the constitution.
2) Red Cliff Update:
Red Cliff group members present are Robin Amado, Dawn Wing, Troy Espe and Jacob Ineichen
3) Project Management
We’ve been facing challenges with communicating among the different TLAM projects, and the members involved in each group. Since the TLAM Student Group was founded in part for the purpose of enabling the different projects to share their work with others outside of the classroom, year-round, we want to make communication among our members easier. In discussing this, Kelly proposed that every TLAM project assign one member with the responsibility of communicating their project’s activities and tasks between class members and non-class members, and the TLAM Student Group (the latter of which can help relay messages). The proposal is as follows:
All three projects had at least one member present at this meeting, and they will talk with their group about this proposal and make a decision. (Jessica for the Kingsbury project, Kelly for the Ho-Chunk project, others for Red Cliff). Each project group will report back on who their liaison will be at the next TLAM meeting, and then we’ll go forward from there.
4) TLAM student Group Elections!
We need to start thinking seriously about TLAM organization member elections for our 4 leadership positions. Your current leadership includes:
⁃ President: Kelly Kraemer
⁃ Vice President: Jessica Miesner
⁃ Treasurer: Troy Espe
⁃ Secretary: Dawn Wing
All four will be up for election. Our current leaders entered their positions voluntarily when the group was formed last fall, so this will be our first official election and we want to be as transparent and egalitarian as possible about this. Plans right now:
5) Keep your eyes open for some events coming soon!
Questions, suggestions, or comments are welcome!
Red Cliff Meeting: Thursday, February 23, 4:15pm, SLIS Commons
Attendees: Louise Robbins, Robin Amado, Janetta Pegues, Jennie Freeburg, Troy Espe, Jake Ineichen, Omar Poler, Sarah Morris
Louise just conference called with the Library Committee meeting up at Red Cliff
Business Card drafted: community created 2-sided card:
Other Notes:
Goals: Find Start-Up Money for Capital Campaign (Louise says $50,000 is a great goal!). Tasks for TLAM students:
Next Steps:
Qs? Feel free to contact attendees above.
- Robin
Purpose of Trip: Capital Campaign Workshop (2 Days)
Dates: January 17 -20, 2012
TLAM Members: Omar Poler, Louise Robbins, Robin Amado, Troy Espe, Jacob Ineichen, Jessica Miesner, Sarah Morris
On January 18th and 19th, individuals invested in Ginanda Gikendaamin, the proposed Red Cliff community center and library, attended a two-day capital campaign workshop at the Legendary Waters Resort and Casino in Red Cliff.
Boris Frank, who has had invaluable experience in a number of fundraising projects, including eighty library capital campaigns, led the workshop. Those in attendance included: Rose Gurnoe-Soulier, tribal chairwoman for Red Cliff; Randy Hella, tribal planner; Dee Gokee-Rindal, Early Childhood Center & Education Division Administrator ; Carmen VanderVenter, Red Cliff Education Specialist; Patricia Aiken-Buffalo, community member; and two librarians from the Northern Waters Library System as well as a Red Cliff police officer and Bayfield community member.
Our goals, by the end of the two-day workshop, was to create an action plan for the capital campaign, decide who in the community will lead the campaign, and discuss possible prospects for donations. Throughout the two days, there was a great sense of excitement and positive energy about the project. Students furiously took notes as Boris spoke about the process and etiquette of fundraising, ideas on who to ask and how to raise money, and stories of other successful campaigns. Patricia, Dee and Rose are sharing leadership in the capital campaign. Patricia volunteered to be the campaign administrator. Her duties include maintaining contacts with volunteers, keeping the financial records, creating campaign reports, and more.
TLAM members were able to attend the workshop and return to Madison with the wonderful and safe mini-van driving skills of Mr. Poler, who braved snowstorm conditions each way. Those in attendance were a great sampling of TLAM members: Omar and Louise have been instrumental in initiating and continuing the Red Cliff/UW relationship; Sarah, Troy, and Jessica are invested in the project as they were students of the TLAM class in the spring of 2011; and Robin and Jake are new TLAM student group members who are eager to become involved in the project.
When we were not in the workshops, we enjoyed time on the casino floor, exploring the workout center and food/drink options, and relaxing with our laptops and books. On Thursday night we attended a lecture by Al Gedicks at Northland College in Ashland. He was speaking against the proposed mine at Penokee that would affect much of the land and the Bad River band’s wild rice growing area. Mike Wiggins, Jr., tribal chairman for the Bad River reservation, was in attendance with many other community members from the surrounding area.
Following the trip to Red Cliff, several TLAM students met Boris at the Grant Center in Memorial Library on January 31 to learn about how to use the center. This meeting served as a starting place for grant research and writing.
Tasks underway include:
If you have any questions or comments, or would like some more clarification on our trip and what we learned, please don’t hesitate to comment below.
- Robin Amado
TLAM students Omar Poler and Christina Johnson help clean up Red Cliff Library on April 4, 2009.
Quick breakfast at Super 8 on Saturday morning after a night out of visiting with Cat’s and Christina J’s friends, respectively. Met Jim and Renee at the library shortly after 9 and spent four-plus hours cleaning, sorting and reshelving. Sue also came for a while to connect. Cat and Gabe took measurements and drew a floor plan to take back to Madison for us to draw up some possible new layout plans for the library. Gabe and Christina C. sorted and cleaned some of the supply closets in the children’s area, which contained art supplies, puzzles, games as well as computers and other electronic equipment and disks. We also discovered photographs from an apparent art installation and old local postcards of Red Cliff. Christina J. went out into the community to round up cardboard boxes for books we gathered for donations and for the ease of moving and sorting books within the library. Tyler cleared paperbacks and sorted through them. Christina J. reshelved and also sorted books and began to organized the circ desk area. Omar and Christina J. swept and mopped, and along with Gabe’s help cleaned several of the rugs and floormats. Tyler, Gabe, Omar, and Jim removed some of the bookcases from the library to open up the space more, plus a few of the bookcases were moldy. Omar helped with shelf work and along with Cat also identified books for possible weeding. We concluded the day by loading the van with books and miscellaneous materials to be donated and dropped them off at ABC in Washburn after we ate lunch at Maggie’s in Bayfield on our way back to Madison.
Day one of the Bad River/Red Cliff trip started off with about 6 hour drive to the Bad River reservation. We arrived in the early afternoon and went straight to the library. There we met with Norma Soulier and Phillip ‘Skip” Hefner. They told us the ins and outs of the library, where the money comes form, how they handle acquistions, and the system they have devised to catalog the many resources they possess. The discussion was lively, as the conservation covered everything from education to growing up on the reservation. Our hosts were most generous with their time and we gained much from their accounts of the library and information services in the region.
After, a few hours in the library we checked into our rooms at the casino and headed out for a pizza dinner. The first day concluded with a few class memebers trying their luck with the slot machines, Gabe and Christian (visiting architect), took home about 50$ a piece, so it was a good end to an already productive day.
The next day we headed up to Red Cliff to meet with the tribal council in the morning. The meeting concerned the library and the next steps that Red Cliff would like to take in the implementation of a new library. The council members in attendance were: Larry Balber, Rose Gurnoe-Soulie, Charlie Bresette, Joanne Peterson and Randy Hella. Christian Schaller, (architect from Chicago who is generously donating his time to assist Red Cliff) showed his designs for the library and everyone seemed enthusiastic about the project. At this point, they are still deciding the right avenues to pursue for funding, and exactly how/what the library should be. It seems there was a general consensus that the structure itself should function as a sort of community center also, similar to the library, museum, and archive of the Potowatomi. All and all the meeting was a great opportunity for the tribal council to meet all of the students (and vice versa) and also a chance for everyone to share ideas.
After the meeting we had lunch with a few library board memebers and then followed by a meeting with the entire board. The members present for that meeting were, Larry Balber, Sue DePerry, Rene Lushko, Mary Peterson, Sarah Quale, Linda Lamoreaux, Jim Pete and Roberta Menger. This meeting also acted to solidify the cooperation between Red Cliff and the UW as well as develop future plans for the library.
Here are a couple of photos from the meeting with Tribal Council members and others.
Larry Balber, Christian Schaller and Professor Sunny Kim from SLIS.
TLAM class member Tyler Kennedy, Red Cliff Police Chief and Council member Charlie Bresette and Tribal Planner Randy Hella talk at a break during a meeting about the proposed new library.
Louise Robbins, center, introduces architect Christian Schaller, left, to the TLAM class as we get ready to embark on Thursday, April 2.
Norma Soulier has been the librarian at the Bad River tribal library for more than 20 years.
Skip told of how returning library visitors claim the ceiling has been lowered (as they've grown). The photos are reproductions from the high school yearbook.
The TLAM class gathers after meeting with Norma and Skip.
Last night we had teleconference with members from the Red Cliff board. The people that were able to join us were Sue DePerry, Rene Lushko, and Loretta Gokee, attending on our side of the line was Louise, Michele, Christina, Cat, Gabe, Roy, Christina and me (Alissa).
Before the meeting started we outlined some questions on the board that we wanted to address, these included: What is their interest in the library? What does success look like? Who is the organizing contact? What would they like from us? What would it mean to have the building open? We also planned to ask if they would like to participate in our trips and if we could have a regular meeting time by phone.
To begin the conversation, it was suggested that the library before it could be open needed to be painted and the books dusted and shelf read. But before this can begin, they decided that they needed to have a real board meeting with all the people they thought might be interested in contributing in some way to the library.
There were many names thrown around and I think Sue, Rene and Loretta will be contacting about 7 more people. Included in this list is Sister Barb, who actually has the key to the library and I think could possibly be a good contact.
Last night was an opportunity to get blood flowing back into the project. Everyone sounded very enthusiastic and they were all ready to get started. From what I gathered, the next step I believe is for the board members to meet as a whole and then contact us with their plans.
The most important thing gained from this exchange was a start to understanding the role that everyone is playing in this process. Hopefully, when we speak again the board they will have decided on a person to take the lead, or at least, divied up some tasks to be accomplished. As far as our participation goes, I think that we are expected to be supportive and offer suggestions.
All and all the meeting was positive and hopefully it will be a new beginning for the Red Cliff library.
