King County Food and Fitness Initiative

Collaborative Partners Meeting

October 24, 2007 2:00 – 4:00 pm
City of SeaTac City Hall, 4800 S. 188th Street, SeaTac, WA 98188
206.973.4800

Establishing Leadership (Continued) and Selecting Two Focus Communities

Meeting goals:
Build community through teambuilding activity.
Update Collaborative Partners about process to establish Leadership Council.
Share information about separate process to select focus communities.

Attendance:
Erin, Sylvia, Bill Beery, Colleen Brandt-Schluter, Sue Lerner, Julie Salathe, Denise
Sharify, Laura Raymond, Laura Niemi, Laura Streichert, Merina Hanson, Heather
Paves, Amy White, Tammy Morales, Janice Dilworth, Karen Snyder, Jim Krieger, Amy
Shumann, Patrick Green, Jerry DeGrieck, Angelina Allen-Mpyisi

Agenda
Welcome, introductions, co-convener updates

Kellogg meetings:
Kellogg held a Cross Site Evaluation mtg in early October with all nine regions to lay
the foundation for measuring change across all sites of the course of the planning and
implementation phases. Although KCFFI folks could not attend in person, they did
connect to part of the meetings by phone. Sylvia handout out a list of shared definitions
generated at the meeting that will help to establish common measures across all sites.
Notes and further information from this meeting is forthcoming.

The next Kellogg sponsored meeting is an Organizational Learning and Systems

Thinking Training Oct 29-30 Erin MacDougall and Laura Niemi from Seattle Tilth will
attend.

The Kellogg TAP Group Site Visit will be November 29-30 and the next Collab.
Partners Mtg will be 11/30 10:30 – 12:30 in Seattle so the TAP team can participate. The
University of Michigan is facilitating a team of individuals from institutions and
organizations with expertise in relevant topics—the Technical Assistance and Planning
(TAP) Group—to provide individualized technical assistance to Food & Fitness
communities. The TAP Group currently consists of five organizations, each providing
technical assistance in a specialized area(s):
Food systems—Michigan State University (MSU)
Physical activity and the built environment—Active Living by Design (ALbD)
Planning and collaboration; evaluation—University of Michigan (U of M)
Communications—Pyramid Communications (Pyramid)
Multicultural processes—VISIONS, Inc. (VISIONS)
Youth Engagement Group Mtg
Involving youth in throughout the Initiative is a strong emphasis of the Kellogg
Foundation and makes sense since the focus is on change for healthy kids and families.
A group of youth based organizations met with Erin and Sylvia to discuss how to
coordinate youth engagement in the planning phase. The group identified ways to
engage youth as well as resources needed and came up with a recommendation to hire
a coordinator to over see youth engagement. The CoConveners need input on how to
proceed with this aspect and handed out a short “survey” (which will also be shared via
the list serve) asking if the coordinator should be hired by WSU KCE in-house or if other
organizations should have the opportunity to apply for the funds to support staff in their
organization to do the work.

Decision: Motion for an open RFA for youth coordination – any group can apply,
including WSU. PHSCK will coordinate the selection committee so there is no conflict
with WSU KCE. The group at this meeting thinks this proposal should go forward to the
list serve. Ask for input from the larger Collaborative via the list serve with a deadline for
feedback.

Work Plan
A draft of the work plan was sent to the TAP group for feed back on Oct. 17. The final is
due in mid November.

Support Staff
A program coordinator has been hired to provide support to the Initiative and will work at
both WSU KCE and PHSKC. This person will start November 1.

Farm to School Policy

An exciting development is occurring with regard to farm to school policy. A statewide
legislative package is being put forward on Farm to School and local food policy by the
(strong and very successful) Washington Environmental Council in the 2008 legislative
session. Healthy Farms, Healthy Kids will be one of four bills they will support. Four
parts of Bill
1) Farm to school program at state level at WSDA coordinated with OSPI.
2) State ”Lead by Example” – develop goals for local and state governments to
purchase locally.
3) State procurement policy that governs state agency purchasing, prisons, DSHS,
schools (e.g. Montana recently passed bill where local food is exempt from
bidding process). Need in put on what is right for WA.
4) Funding to support these programs. Looking at $4-5 million to support programs.

Icebreaker/community building activity

Is it easy to by physically active in your neighborhood? What gets in the way? What
could be changed to make it easier?
Update on bylaws document
This document is a starting point and would eventually be adjusted and adopted by the
Leadership Council once it is established.

Section II. B. Question about the seats held for focus communities on the LC. Can the
person be a resident or staff person of an agency (who is not a resident)? Change
wording to, “3-5 seats for “representatives” (rather than individuals) from selected focus
communities.”
Majority straw poll results support this language change.

Section II. F.b. Suggestion: be specific about how many meetings people must attend to
be in good standing and/or to receive compensation. “Failure to attend a minimum nine
of twelve, as determined by a vote of the LC members.” Flag this item to indicate
specific expectations need to be defined.

Co chairs will be determined by Leadership Council. Suggest the council consider

having one co-chair be from focus community. Co-chairs not selected until focus
communities are identified.

Change language re youth seats to “two seats” not “one or two.”

II. Section D. c. Remove “provide input on” change to “set.”

Need to highlight need to accommodate schedules that work for youth. E.g. meetings
may need to be in the late afternoon.

III. D. add word “agencies”

Flag compensation decision for LC to consider.

Group agreed to move forward with bylaws with changes above.

Nomination and voting process for Leadership Council

The Nomination Process and Form document has been edited to reflect discussion at
last meeting. One issue that came up was whether or how to include an individual’s
diversity characteristics. Question #8 is meant to address this issue.
Suggestion: limit the answer to one paragraph (or word count).
“How would your participation as an LC member contribute to achieving this goal?”

Voting process suggestion: ask CPs to vote with the goal of a diverse LC in mind and
see if popular vote results in diverse LC. What about the possibility that people will vote
for their top choices (e.g. 1st, 2nd, 3rd choices)?

How do we structure an election that would get at the diversity goals we have? Can we
use the TAP team? Can we find a tool?
1) What if we don’t get enough applicants or diverse applicants? A nominating
committee that puts together a slate would address this concern. Can’t be on
nominating committee if you are interested in being on LC.

2) Try popular vote and see how it shakes out but if diversity is not achieved then a plan
B.

3) Nomination process moves forward. Make diversity values explicit on paper. Take two
voting process proposals to TAP Group for help.

Decision: straw poll decision based on those present: the nomination form is acceptable
and should go out to the CPs with minor changes indicated at this meeting.

Should be called an application not a nomination form.

Proposed process to select two focus communities

(Tabled until a future date).

Review and next steps

• The youth engagement proposal (above) will be put out to the Collaborative via
the list serve.
• Flag items in bylaws for LC to address once in place
• Nomination form should be called an application and go out to the CPs with
recommended changes.