2008 Grantee Meeting Agenda

The ALbD Grantee Meeting detailed agenda is linked here in PDF form and is also displayed below.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 5

11:30 am – 12:30 pm    Publishing your Paper (AJPM Manuscript Writer’s Workshop)
Leslie Linton, Principal, Health Policy Consulting Group
Melissa Hall, Project Manager, Transtria, LLC
Laura Runnels, Project Manager, Transtria, LLC
This interactive workshop will explore the framework for your AJPM journal article (writing style, template and organization of information, technical requirements) and what to expect during the editing process (timeline, editorial reviews, peer reviews, manuscript revisions). We will consider audience, message, author team work, and forecasting and overcoming barriers during the writing process. We'll also look at organizational approaches to completing the project and examples of well written practice-based journal articles. What are your questions?  Let's get it started!

1:00 – 5:00 pm     History and Renewal: Evolution of the Healthy, Active Lents Neighborhood 
Welcome to Portland! We will kick off the grantee meeting with a walking and riding tour of Lents, an Active Living by Design and Healthy Eating by Design neighborhood. Five years and 5Ps later, Lents is emerging as a model of how active living and healthy eating initiatives can thrive in lower-resourced, ethnically-diverse communities. As one of the city’s urban renewal districts, Lents has undergone significant physical and social changes over the last several years, with many improvements still on the horizon. This tour will depart by bus from the Benson Hotel on a route through central Portland neighborhoods. Participants will begin a walking tour in the heart of the Lents community - the emerging Lents town center. Though the town center struggled for many years due to the I-205 interstate division of the neighborhood, it has recently begun to thrive as the site of the Lents International Farmers Market, a developing retail center, affordable housing opportunities, light rail transit access, traffic safety improvements and new urban green space. Tour participants will also gain valuable lessons learned from several public and community partners who will describe how critical policy and environmental change successes were achieved in Lents, and discuss opportunities and challenges associated with healthy, active redevelopment.

1:00 – 4:00 pm        Explore Portland on Your Own
Meeting attendees who are not able to participate in the organized tour of Lents (History and Renewal: Evolution of the Healthy, Active Lents Neighborhood) can explore Portland on their own or with a small group. Please visit the registration desk for walking tours and other options for things to do in Portland. Meeting attendees will receive an all-day TriMet pass and Transit Guide (located in the meeting binder) and are encouraged to use public transportation for their exploration of the downtown area.

5:00 – 8:00 pm        From Farm to Table: Active Living by Design Welcomes You to Portland
The meeting will begin with welcoming remarks and a true Portland farm to table experience. Zenger Farm is a unique working urban farm that promotes sustainable food practices, youth education, environmental stewardship, and community and economic development. The century-old Zenger farmhouse received a “green” facelift this past summer. The Friends of Zenger Farm, a key member of the Portland Healthy Eating by Design project, will host tours of the farm, and meeting participants will enjoy local, healthy foods prepared by Culinary
Artistry. The philosophy of Culinary Artistry is to start with fresh, local products to ensure that the cuisine is true to the bounty of quality products available in the Pacific Northwest. Our dinner menu is customized for the ALbD grantee meeting to ensure it’s both healthy and delicious. Meeting participants will also have an opportunity to balance out their healthy meal with physical activity.

Sarah Strunk, Director, Active Living by Design
Jamie Bussel, Program Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Noelle Dobson, Project Director, Community Health Partnership

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6

8:30 – 10:00 am    Green, Sustainable and Active Living by Design
Howard Frumkin, Director, National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
How can active living complement parallel efforts to promote environmentally friendly, sustainable practices and promote other aspects of public health? What are the synergies that can help us achieve multiple goals simultaneously? Join noted health scientist Howard Frumkin as he describes the connections among Active Living by Design, obesity, air quality, climate change and other aspects of the quest for a healthier future.

10:00 – 10:30 am    Break

10:30 am – 12:30 pm     Learning Sessions
These concurrent sessions will feature experts and practitioners from the fields of active living and healthy eating, who will share information about successful initiatives, new resources and lessons learned that can be practically applied by community partnerships. Topics will include approaching funders, claiming spaces for healthy parks and playgrounds, active living and healthy eating in comprehensive/general plans, and engaging citizens in policy advocacy for health equity.

Building More Effective Alliances for Health Justice Advocacy
Makani Themba-Nixon, Executive Director, The Praxis Project
Many of the primary challenges related to active living and healthy eating are systemic, institutional and driven by unjust power relations. This is particularly true for lower income communities and communities of color. In this context, it is difficult for advocates to achieve meaningful policy change and more difficult still for communities to build capacity, maintain accountability and sustain results over time. This workshop will introduce concepts of health justice and help participants develop a shared language about this work. We will explore how to build principled alliances with (and within) disadvantaged communities for more effective policy advocacy and implementation. The session will also address how to reconcile “professional” partnership models with “community organizing” models and other important forms of community engagement. Participants will be able to share and discuss their challenges, opportunities and experiences as they work to envision what health justice would look like in their communities and initiatives.

Branding Impact: Who are you? What do you do? Why does it matter?
Will Novy-Hildesley, Project Manager, Peregrine Strategic Consulting
Participants will work through a series of exercises providing insight into the essential relationship between their program strategies, internal alignment and external communications. This session will first discuss branding and how it relates to a partnership’s identity and strategy, before looking at a couple of working examples. We will then address three questions about partnership’s passion, expertise and funding sources, looking for significant themes and patterns among your answers. The session typically produces a rough draft that is best refined subsequently, but invariably produces extremely useful insights into how to focus, align and communicate your purpose as a partnership. In addition, this exercise is usually an extremely effective precursor to identifying the core brand values that should inform every aspect of communicating your partnership to key audiences.

Making Parks Accessible for People
Dee Frankfourth, Associate National Director of Conservation Services, The Trust for Public Land
The Trust for Public Land is one of the nation's premier organizations that conserve land for people to enjoy as parks, community gardens, historic sites, rural lands and other natural places, ensuring livable communities for generations to come. Learn about their recent efforts to partner with health advocates to increase access to neighborhoods that can support physical activity by relying on policy change, and tools such as GIS analysis and Conservation Finance.

The Local Policy Landscape for Childhood Obesity
Randolph Kline, Senior Staff Attorney, Public Health Law and Policy (PHLP)
PHLP provides in-depth research and analysis on legal and policy questions, and translates complex information into practical tools for community change. Participants will develop an understanding of PHLP’s research on local policies related to childhood obesity. Randy Kline will provide background information on key policy factors that influence obesity in children, including marketing, schools and built environments. This session will preview model ordinances, tools and other materials that are being developed for local efforts to prevent childhood obesity.

Healthy Comprehensive Plans: Policy and Partnership Tools
Sarah Pulleyblank Patrick, Senior Planner, Raimi + Associates
How can environments with unsafe automobile-dependent streets, unhealthy building patterns, and food deserts be replaced with healthy communities? Comprehensive or general plans can serve as powerful planning tools to support healthy community environments, and remedy the impact of land use and transportation decisions that have created barriers to active living and
healthy eating. This session will provide opportunities to learn about and discuss strategies for writing healthy comprehensive plans, including tools and resources for fostering partnerships across sectors, using model health language, developing implementation policies and standards.

12:30 – 1:45 pm     Lunch and Rolling Reflections   
Hear from the ALbD community partnerships as they share their stories, experiences and lessons learned during the past 4½ years.

1:45 – 2:00 pm          Break

2:00 – 5:00 pm    Outside Learning Activities
There is no registration fee for field trips, and they will occur regardless of the weather. Rain gear, comfortable shoes, clothes for bicycling and sun protection are recommended.

Building a Bicycling Culture: Systems Change in Action
Experience Portland’s internationally-famous bicycling environment and culture. This outdoor workshop will tell the story of Portland’s comprehensive support system for bicycling and highlight its seamless, varied and extensive bike network. Experience Portland’s cutting-edge infrastructure, hear from dynamic leaders and organizations, and learn more about its successful promotion of cycling for transportation and recreation. See how an integrated package of supports has been institutionalized throughout the city, and how it has given rise to a larger cycling culture. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss current challenges, issues and lessons learned with a variety of seasoned local leaders and experts. Appropriately-sized hybrid road bikes and helmets will be provided.

B is for Broccoli and Bikes: Engaging Youth in Healthy Eating and Active Living
Take a bus and walking tour to experience the many ways Portland supports healthy, active communities for youth and families. First, ride a bus to a local school and learn about local and statewide farm-to-school and school garden policies and programs. Hear how new staff at the Oregon Department of Education and Oregon Department of Agriculture are working with local stakeholders to kick off its innovative farm to school initiative, and how local advocates are working to institutionalize and sustain school garden efforts. Visit a school community that has benefited from Portland’s Safer Routes to School initiative, and learn about new city-wide strategies partners are employing to help ensure sustainability of safer routes programs. Participants will learn about local youth and family bicycle, pedestrian and gardening programming efforts.

It Takes a Neighborhood to Raise a City: Exploring the Complete Neighborhoods Approach
Enjoy a streetcar and walking tour of the Pearl District. Once a decaying industrial warehouse area in downtown Portland, this neighborhood has undergone significant renovation and is now Portland's premier urban-chic neighborhood with boutiques, specialty retailers, grocery and book stores, up-and-coming art galleries and trendy restaurants. New buildings are selling out before construction begins. On the other hand, the District is also dealing with criticism that this complete community is elitist and not available to most Portland residents. Learn how residents and planners are dealing with criticisms and how they are working to create better equity through affordable housing policy. Hear from local planners how the blueprint for the Pearl was created and is being implemented. Learn how the Pearl District fits into the Portland context and connects to broader city-wide efforts to update the Comprehensive Plan. Meet local leaders and learn about Portland’s neighborhood association system, which involves resident leaders in community development and the public decision-making process.

Park It! Exploring the Role of Urban Greenspace
Portland may be well known for its supportive bicycling culture but it also has a well developed municipal and regional park system. Portland's park system was envisioned by John Charles Olmsted, nephew of Frederick Law Olmsted and partner in the Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects firm who visited Seattle and Portland in 1903 and prepared plans for both cities. Over the years portions of his plan have been realized, and Portland Parks and Recreation continues to be guided by the plan's recommendations. This outdoor workshop will highlight the history and context of Portland’s park planning and park’s role as neighborhood public spaces within the larger community. Participants will also learn how non-profit organizations and local governments contribute to equity of parks and nature within this urban landscape, and how community gardens increase Portland opportunities for urban agriculture. The session will include discussions with parks experts, neighborhood leaders and advocates for open space. Participants of this guided tour will travel to three Portland parks to view the system first hand. The Wednesday tour will begin at the weekday Portland Farmers Market.

Self-Guided Tour of Northwest Portland
Would you like some time and flexibility to explore a neighborhood outside of downtown Portland on your own or with a smaller group? Enjoy a self-guided tour of Northwest Portland, a mature, densely populated, mixed-use and transit oriented neighborhood. Participants will be offered a streetcar pass, map and neighborhood guide, and encouraged to put themselves in the place of a resident as they travel friendly streets between the food co-op, parks, trails, schools, hospital, commercial centers, historic residential areas, transit stops, restaurants and other neighborhood features.

5:00 pm – UNTIL        Opportunities for Physical Activity or Free Time, and Dinner on Your Own
The annual ALbD volleyball game is on! You may also use this time to participate in other physical activity, healthy eating and networking opportunities. Take a walk around the city’s vibrant downtown, and visit one of the many shops, museums or restaurants. A list of restaurants with healthy dinner options that are located within walking distance of the Benson Hotel is provided in the meeting materials.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7

8:30 – 10:00 am    All Hands on Deck: Engaging All Citizens in Conservation
Charles Jordan, Chairman, The Conservation Fund
Charles Jordan is in the business of building community - the part of community building that connects people to their neighborhood, to their neighbors and to the land. The tools of his trade are “Parks, People and Programs.” As former director of parks and recreation for the city of Portland and current chairman of the board of one of America’s premier conservation organizations (The Conservation Fund), hear how he discovered that conservation, urban parks and recreation, and the nation’s health will never be all they can be unless everyone recognizes the critical need that each has for the other.    

10:00 – 10:30 am     Break

10:30 am – 12:30 pm    Small Group Discussions
Interested in how your peers are tackling sustainability or implementing the 5P model? Join in a small group discussion to share ideas and issues that are of greatest importance to you.  Bring a topic to the registration table for the marketplace of ideas. Information on discussion group topics and room locations will be distributed during the meeting.

12:30 – 1:45 pm    Lunch and Rolling Reflections
Hear from the ALbD community partnerships as they share their stories, experiences and lessons learned during the past 4½ years.

1:45 – 2:00 pm    Break

2:00 – 5:00 pm    Outside Learning Activities
There is no registration fee for field trips, and they will occur regardless of the weather. Rain gear, comfortable shoes, clothes for bicycling and sun protection are recommended.

B is for Broccoli and Bikes: Engaging Youth in Healthy Eating and Active Living
Take a bus and walking tour to experience the many ways Portland supports healthy, active communities for youth and families. First, ride a bus to a local school and learn about local and statewide farm-to-school and school garden policies and programs. Hear how new staff at the Oregon Department of Education and Oregon Department of Agriculture are working with local stakeholders to kick off its innovative farm to school initiative, and how local advocates are working to institutionalize and sustain school garden efforts. Visit a school community that has benefited from Portland’s Safer Routes to School initiative, and learn about new city-wide strategies partners are employing to help ensure sustainability of safer routes programs. Participants will learn about local youth and family bicycle, pedestrian and gardening programming efforts.

Get Your Nature On: An Off-Road Tour by Bike
The City of Portland and the surrounding communities have become increasingly connected by off-road paths (greenways) for active transportation and recreation. This outdoor session is a bicycle tour of selected paved greenways throughout Portland. The tour will begin and end at the Benson Hotel and will follow portions of the off-road Eastbank Esplanade, Willamette Greenway and Springwater Corridor Trail. Participants will experience various natural areas and wildlife along the route and learn about the “Three Bridges Project” on the Springwater Corridor Trail, which crosses a highway, railroad track and a creek. The session will include discussions with trail experts, greenway advocates and nature conservationists. Topics will consist of Portland’s trail development history, collaborative opportunities and future challenges. Appropriately-sized hybrid road bikes and helmets will be provided.

It Takes a Neighborhood to Raise a City: Exploring the Complete Neighborhoods Approach
Enjoy a streetcar and walking tour of the Pearl District. Once a decaying industrial warehouse area in downtown Portland, this neighborhood has undergone significant renovation and is now Portland's premier urban-chic neighborhood with boutiques, specialty retailers, grocery and book stores, up-and-coming art galleries and trendy restaurants. New buildings are selling out before construction begins. On the other hand, the District is also dealing with criticism that this complete community is elitist and not available to most Portland residents. Learn how residents and planners are dealing with criticisms and how they are working to create better equity through affordable housing policy. Hear from local planners how the blueprint for the Pearl was created and is being implemented. Learn how the Pearl District fits into the Portland context and connects to broader city-wide efforts to update the Comprehensive Plan. Meet local leaders and learn about Portland’s neighborhood association system, which involves resident leaders in community development and the public decision-making process. The Thursday tour will end at the popular EcoTrust Farmers Market.

Park It! Exploring the Role of Urban Greenspace
Portland may be well known for its supportive bicycling culture but it also has a well developed municipal and regional park system. Portland's park system was envisioned by John Charles Olmsted, nephew of Frederick Law Olmsted and partner in the Olmsted Brothers, Landscape Architects firm who visited Seattle and Portland in 1903 and prepared plans for both cities. Over the years portions of his plan have been realized, and Portland Parks and Recreation continues to be guided by the plan's recommendations. This outdoor workshop will highlight the history and context of Portland’s park planning and park’s role as neighborhood public spaces within the larger community. Participants will also learn how non-profit organizations and local governments contribute to equity of parks and nature within this urban landscape, and how community gardens increase Portland opportunities for urban agriculture. The session will include discussions with parks experts, neighborhood leaders and advocates for open space. Participants of this guided tour will travel to three Portland parks to view the system first hand.

Self-Guided Tour of Northwest Portland
Would you like some time and flexibility to explore a neighborhood outside of downtown Portland on your own or with a smaller group? Enjoy a self-guided tour of Northwest Portland, a mature, densely populated, mixed-use and transit oriented neighborhood. Participants will be offered a streetcar pass, map and neighborhood guide, and encouraged to put themselves in the place of a resident as they travel friendly streets between the food co-op, parks, trails, schools, hospital, commercial centers, historic residential areas, transit stops, restaurants and other neighborhood features.

5:00 – 5:30 pm    Break

5:30 – 6:30 pm    Opportunities for Physical Activity or Free Time
Enjoy time for networking and physical activity on your own. Refer to your meeting binder for a
list of group and individual opportunities for physical activity.

6:30 – 7:00 pm        Reception

7:00 – 8:30 pm        Dinner and Celebration
Enjoy local, healthy and delicious food from Portland. The evening will focus on the meeting’s themes: reflection and celebration.

9:00 pm – UNTIL    Fun, Dancing and Mystery Entertainment
The evening will continue with many options and surprises for maximizing the infamous “sixth P” (party). We guarantee a joyous celebration, time for connecting with friends and colleagues, and moderately-intense physical activity.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 8

7:30 – 10:00 am    Breakfast, Open Mic and Departure
Although the formal meeting ends on Thursday night, join us when you can for breakfast and an “open mic” to share appreciations, accomplishments and memories about the past 4½ years or your favorite P.