Mapril Action Plan

Aaron LaFromboise May 19, 2017, 4 comments

*actual action plan starts with the 3rd paragraph*

I kind of feel like our action plan entries are also a bit like a diary, and this entry is no different. Spring semester was amazingly tough (but in good ways). My husband keeps reminding me that this is my “learning year” as a new library director, and that every outcome, good or bad, is a learning experience. We did monthly programs for the first time ever in our library. That might sound kind of crazy to you public librarians, but we have never had a planned activities schedule. Lesson #1 – you can’t do it all, and if you said you will do it all, there is nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong. We started in February with six different types of monthly programs, and at the end of the semester we were holding three and a half. Lesson #2 – any participation is better than none. In January and February I just wanted to throw in the towel because we had two or three participants. By April we had 40-50 participants in our kid’s day activity. Lesson #3 – ask for help, and then ask for help again. I had done a pretty good job of getting buy-in and participation from my staff, but there were a few times when things just fell apart. Instead of feeling let down, I just re-asked for assistance. Lesson #4 – planning is key. Many weeks we were planning and organizing and facilitating our activities at the same time. That made for a very stressful three months.

All of these lessons can be plugged directly into my FRwtL program. This week has been very stressful, I was applying for a grant due on Wednesday, I had to work on my first ever course syllabus (I’m going to teach a section of college writing in the fall and I’m super excited about it), our library has been selected as a site for high school interns this summer and we had to create the application and advertise, I had business office documents to complete, I am giving a presentation on Wednesday next week and I haven’t even started on it yet, and I said that I would get my March and April action plans out by today. Monday morning I had my staff meet with me and I told them about all of the crazy deadlines I/we were facing this week and they rose to the occasion and were excited to help out. Because we are attacking this project in a slightly different way than was intended, and we just started the planning and community conversation, I think there will be more to discuss next month.

So, what would we do with middle school kids? How would we get them and then keep them engaged in a program? Who would be able to help us out? These were the questions I asked my staff on Monday. Our possible community partners are the college career center, the college admissions, a local grant funded agency called Honor Your Life that is charged to create youth activities and help to find solutions to challenges our youth face, the tribal job service Manpower, and the local TERO (Tribal Employment Rights Ordinance) office. Not only do I think that we can get participation from one of these organizations, I think we can get some level of participation from all of them. We began to reach out to these partners today, and Fridays on the rez are typically horrible times to reach anyone. I created a sheet with talking points, questions for the potential partners, the who/what/why/where/when’s of the project, and possible activities that we would like to have. We didn’t want to go to our partners without some structure already set up because I have realized that people around here want to know what is there before jumping in.

Here are the ideas of possible activities with our students: 1. Discussing and nurturing skills needed to enter the workforce. 2. Teamwork activities, such as a ropes course or another type of obstacle course. 3. A college/career fair designed specifically for the middle school students with mock interviews to help the students understand what the needs of employers are in our community. 4. An “everyday heroes” day where we invite people in the workforce to come in and do a little bit of a show and tell of their careers.

So far it seems as if there is a need for this in the initial foot-in-the-door conversations we had today. People are excited to work with a new audience, so far it seems as if middle school is an untapped market in our community. We have a luncheon planned for the first week in June, and will communicate next week by email, because two of the three of us will be at a conference.

I feel light years ahead of where we were last week, and my staff is excited and throwing out great ideas, and they have some really good community connections that I just don’t have. We are excited for our high school interns and would like at least one of them to assist with the planning and execution of this event. We are working fast because we want to plant the seeds with the middle school students so that they look for the event when we call for registration in late July. I think that this high school internship has bumped us into a new realm of the community and I am excited to start working with young adults for the first time (we welcome them in, but they mainly use the computers in the summer and after school in the winter, we have never had specific programming to engage them). I am just now starting to read what everyone else is doing, and I am excited for all of us (even those of us who are facing challenges). It feels good to back in the Future Ready circle!

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