BITS AND PIECES
A Weekly Update from the Strafford Region
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During the week of Mar. 7, GIS planner Jackson Rand updated SRPC's Arts and Culture Sites Survey. This public input opportunity was originally shared in the October 2021 newsletter, and is a strategy to involve the public as SRPC begins to build a regional arts and culture inventory, similar to what was done with the Promoting Outdoor Play! project.
SRPC encourages citizens to take the survey and share their local knowledge of the following types of spaces in the region:
- Music and Art Education: Art school, music lessons, dance academy
- Museums / Galleries / Venues: Art gallery, ballroom, comedy club, exhibition spaces, live music venues
- Clubs / Groups: Book clubs, chorus, community orchestra, crafts club, quilt societies, rotary club, arts commission
- Events: Arts workshops, concert series, craft fair, farmer's market, food and drink festivals, film festival, holiday activities (Christmas parade, Fourth of July fireworks celebrations, etc.)
- Public Art Installations and Memorials: Murals, statues, public art
- Historical Sites: Historical markers and monuments, Native American sites
- Arts and Culture Retail: Antique stores, bookstores, breweries, vineyards, farms, quilt barns, woodworking shops
- Community Arts: Places of worship, writer's space, community centers, little free libraries, game rooms, community spaces
Any site submission falling within these categories will help SRPC on this initiative, and assist in the creation an awesome resource for the entire region.
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Communications and outreach planner Shayna Sylvia attended a CommuteSmart NH (CSNH) subcommittee meeting for the spring challenge on Friday, March 11. CommuteSmart NH's spring challenge is its staple program to encourage employees to commute sustainably during the month of May.
This will be the first spring challenge where CSNH is having participants log their sustainable trips with its new apple and android app, which can also be accessed online.
CommuteSMART Seacoast will also run its B2B challenge this year via the CommuteSMART NH app, which is a change from prior years. To get a jump start, past challenge participants are encouraged to download the app, make an account, and start logging - you can begin earning now, even outside the challenge period!
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Strafford Economic Development District (EDD) staff kicked-off the annual update to its Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) at its Feb. 24 Commission meeting. Following this kick-off, staff worked during the week of Mar.7 to begin sending out project solicitation letters. These letters are sent to municipalities and other regional entities who listed projects in the previous CEDS, in order to update the listings and include any new projects that communities may be planning for.
The appropriate contacts for these update should expect these letter by early next week at the latest, with a due date of Mar. 28.
This process is important as having economic development projects listed in the CEDS can often be a large advantage when applying for certain funding sources. For example, the grassroots Explore Moose Mountains group was able to apply for an additional programming area when they were submitting their USDA Rural Development grant as their project was listed in the Strafford EDD CEDS.
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