The goal for Connected Community this year was clear from the first few minutes of the meeting. While last year was about coming together and creating some foundations, such as the community calendar, this year needed to be about getting buy-in from the rest of the community. The information on the calendar is only as good as the number of people contributing to it.

Travel Manitoba was in the community earlier in the week to discuss their destination assessment of the area, and one of the takeaways from that meeting was that Neepawa needs more tourism ambassadors in its frontline businesses, who are aware of the opportunities and events happening in the community or can at least point a visitor in the right direction to find them. Posters with a QR code leading directly to the community calendar were distributed last year, but this year Neepawa Tourism is producing a window cling with the same information that will be front-facing for all visitors to the community.

Servicing visitors wasn’t the only concern of the group, however. Several people focused on what partnerships might be available between local organizations and businesses to produce new projects or expand current ones. As well, greater uptake on the community calendar would allow organisations to avoid overbooking a particular day or conflicting with other community events.

Volunteerism continued to be one of the biggest mutual challenges of participating organisations. While the idea of a unified volunteer list was kicked around last year, it proved to not be the best option as many people are committed to volunteering just for their selected interests. Organizations are now looking at holding a ‘volunteer fair’ similar to a job fair where community members can come out and see a variety of options that are available to them. While many people choose to volunteer simply out of interest, others have volunteerism tied to work bonuses or school credit, and are actively looking to see what’s out there.

Newcomers in particular, it was pointed out, wouldn’t have historical knowledge of what exists or has existed in the community, and recent arrivals often have time to fill and don’t yet have the community connections to know where they might fit in.

Participants went away from the meeting with some actionable goals to increase the reach of the community calendar, produce educational materials for frontline workers, and to ensure that public information about the community is as up to date as possible.