Monthly Meeting Report, LNCI membership, February

A group of us, including the Steering Team, met at 7 p.m. Thursday night.
Discussed were the following:

Progress at the Indianola Children’s Center
The Ohio Obesity Prevention Plan (Healthy Ohio)
The Vacant Lot Conversion Group (a.k.a. Dirt Piles)
Leave No Child Inside around the state of Ohio
Future meeting locations

We are extremely grateful to the Childhood League Center for donating meeting space at the last minute. It was a wonderful space and we were able to converse comfortably on a cold night.

Progress at the Indianola Children’s Center

Tina Gratitude from the Indianola Children’s Center, a small preschool housed in a Presbyterian Church near OSU’s campus, attended for the first time Thursday. Tina said the preschool’s director used statistics from this Web site to help her build a letter to raise funds for creating a natural outdoor space in a small space that now houses a traditional playground. The Steering Committee expressed thanks for the comments, since we frequently don’t know when our work is helping people, and it is inspiring to find out. (Submit your own success stories by email.)

The Ohio Obesity Prevention Plan (Healthy Ohio)

We read the Executive Summary and the Table of Contents of the 109-page draft of the plan. Jenny and Alice were scheduled to testify at a public hearing on the plan the following day.
The group agreed:

The benefits of nature play were not reflected
A paradigm shift is necessary, but may be cheaper than the expensive programs and infrastructure in the plan.
Play was not well defined, and could have meant organized sports, which has been shown not to be the answer to solving the obesity epidemic, since childhood obesity and participation in organized sports have been rising during the same time period.
Alice and Jenny were encouraged to attend even if they didn’t get a speaking slot. Tina mentioned perhaps the group drafting the plan would be interested in having us speak in various settings.

The Vacant Lot Conversion Group (a.k.a. Dirt Piles)

A space and facilitator have been secured for a strategic planning session for the Vacant Lot Conversion Group for March 26. The group had been discussing what the goals of the session would be, and whether it would be all-day or a half-day.
Alice suggested if it is a half-day, perhaps the Steering Committee could take advantage of the other half-day by hosting a statewide planning session. The Steering Committee will wait to hear from the Vacant Lot Conversion Group about whether this arrangement would be acceptable, or whether the whole day should be set aside for the Vacant Lot Conversion Group.
Other goals that were discussed, since the facilitator has requested direction, were the following:

The Who, what, where, how, when?
Basically what is our Vision?
There is such a continuum of possibilities from a one day clean up vacant lot to designed unstructured play space.
With this vision in mind, what is our planning horizon (& new term I just learned?!!?), meaning our date to reach the vision.
Do we need a new name? Dirt Pile group or something else & what would that be?
What resources are necessary; who & where & how might we obtain those resources; what are the resources needed but currently present challenges to obtain?
Who are our partners, contributors?
We definitely want/need Community Buy-in!

Leave No Child Inside around the state of Ohio

Several stakeholders from around the state have requested additional face-to-face meeting time to discuss how all our organizations can work together. Particularly we want to make sure we are working together with state government efforts, and also making sure our movement in Ohio is being perceived as a collaborative effort.
There have been sporadic conversations among Central OH LNCI, Cincy LNCI, & other interested folks around the state.
Include ODNR (Natural Resources), EECO’”Brenda Metcalf, OPRA (Oh Parks & Rec) to discuss’¦

OBJECTIVE: Better define each groups/organizations’ roles; what does each org do?
How can we best collaborate or strengthen each others work?
First Lady Strickland mentioned in the past, an interest in understanding better the above.
Therefore, how can we all connect & be supported by Strickland’s passion for this area.

If this session can’t happen March 26, we will schedule for another date in March.

Future meeting locations

The group discussed the pros and cons of having meetings at rotating locations. Rotating locations can cause confusion and lower attendance when locations are not communicated quickly enough. The monthly meetings themselves are a success, but we need to nail down the locations sooner. It is nice to see the home base of other members, and to move the meetings around so people from other geographic areas can more easily participate. We will continue to try to move the meetings around. Tina offered to have the April meeting at Indianola Children’s Center.

Additionally, Tina suggested networking with parenting and homeschooling groups.
Jenny announced that the Children and Nature Network contacted Jenny and Alice to put them on a list of speakers for speaking events in Ohio!

Check the events tab on the Web site for future events and meetings.