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Legislative Committee Meetings | Certified Municipal Leadership Credits

AWC Pre-Conference CML Workshops

Wednesday, June 13
9 – 11:30 am

AWC pre-conference workshops require a separate registration fee ($40 member/$80 non-member). Please select only one session. Explore issues in more depth and earn 5 CML credits by attending a session.

 

Clusters: Growing Regional Economic Development

Do you have businesses in your region with competitive advantages that can benefit from new partnerships and communication?

Are you looking for more common ground and less conflict in your region?

Are you ready for new opportunities for specialized education and workforce training programs that could support business expansion?

Would new data for describing industrial activities help you with planning for funding requests for land use developments, transportation decisions and infrastructure investments?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you’re ready to explore clusters. In this session, you’ll learn new ways to cost-effectively deliver comprehensive strategies to help your businesses and work force become more successful.

  • Examine ways you can integrate regional cluster-based development into existing local economic development strategies.
  • Define the keys steps local leaders can take to bring the collaborative cluster approach to their regions.
  • Organize business activity data into a strategic planning tool for quick decision-making.

Speaker: Alec Hansen, President, Economic Competitiveness Group

Engaging Youth Entrepreneurs in Your Community

Engaging your youth in leadership activities or helping them develop entrepreneurial skills paves the way for a sustainable community. Community leaders who work together with local youth can successfully shape strategies that address mutual priorities, and in the process, revitalize communities.

This session shows you how to create a supportive environment where entrepreneurial youth can access practical tools and specific strategies.

  • Understand youth perspectives and practical ways to successfully engage with entrepreneurial young people.
  • Appreciate how your community's heritage can bring generations together to reawaken an entrepreneurial growth environment.
  • Measure your community's capacity for engaging young people, mapping resources and developing a road map to your goals.
  • Learn how to create a Youth Engagement System(c) in your community.
  • Hear case studies from successful youth entrepreneurship initiatives around the country.

Speaker: Craig Schroeder, Senior Associate, RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship

Leadership Skills: Turning Taxpayers into Citizens

Tax payers want accountability, and governments across the nation are responding to the outcry with a slew of performance measures. But measuring performance is not the silver bullet to accountability. Citizens are the ultimate judges of government performance.

Yet citizens do not typically measure government performance in the same way that government measures itself. This disconnect can lead to a vicious circle of mutual distrust and diminished resources.

The first step towards building accountability is converting your taxpayers into citizens. Ask the question – what are the “vital signs” that are meaningful to both the citizens and to government.

And organizations must go beyond measuring performance. They must manage and audit their performance so they can report back to their citizenry on how well they are doing, or not doing.

This session covers the very basics of this citizen-driven performance organization, including:

  • How to identify your communities performance “vital signs.”
  • Effective communication strategies for talking with citizens about performance – or lack thereof.
  • Grade your organization’s qualifications as a citizen-driven performance organization.

Speakers: Faith Trimble, FLT Consulting & Stewart Elway, Elway Research, Inc.