Community life efforts will expand

Community life efforts will expand: groups creating vitality, after-hours events see success, will aim higher

Edie Ross - The Hutchinson News

The woman who inspired local efforts to provide more after-hours and community wellness activities will be back in town this month.

Well, kind of.

Rebecca Ryan, an expert in generational differences who wrote Live First, Work Second, will appear via Skype - an Internet communication software - at a community meeting July 27. The goal is to talk about the progress Hutchinson has made in becoming an attractive place for young professionals to live and to spur a community discussion about what the next steps should be.

Since Ryan’s last visit in February 2009, volunteers have created Bike to Work Day, community workouts and monthly programs such as Explore Hutch.

Jessica Miller, director of the Reno County Growth Coalition, which organized the volunteers in April 2009, says it is time to begin work on new areas of community life that young professionals look for when searching for their new home.

Community Index Teams

During Ryan’s first visit - as the keynote speaker at the 2009 Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce annual dinner - she explained that communities across the world must compete for the young talent that will replace aging baby boomers. Competing, she said, means becoming a “cool” community where the up-and-coming generation wants to live.

She listed seven categories - or indexes - of community life that young professionals deem important, including vitality, earning ability, learning opportunities, community engagement, cost of lifestyle, after-hours opportunities, and accessibility.

Through community feedback sessions, the Reno County Growth Coalition learned that residents saw after-hours opportunities and an atmosphere of wellness - or vitality - to be at the top of Hutchinson’s “need” list. Miller organized interested volunteers into groups to work on those two areas.

Now, more than a year later, those groups are established enough to elect their own leadership, freeing Miller to organize and lead new community index teams.

At the meeting July 27, she’s hoping Ryan’s thoughts will guide a discussion among participants about which indexes should be focused on next.

The after-hours and vitality teams will continue to move ahead with established programs and also create new ones.

After Hours

Explore Hutch, which was launched by the After Hours Community Index Team last summer, offers an evening event that takes place the second Friday of every month at a different venue.

The inaugural event was at Dillon Nature Center and since then Explore Hutch has taken place at venues such as the Kansas State Fairgrounds, Salt City Splash and the Hutchinson Zoo.

Friday, the Reno County Museum played host and themed the adults-only event “Naughty Napkin Night.” Other venues, such as the Salt City Splash, have put on more family-friendly events.

Miller said the variation between themes has helped grow the event.

“Each of them is a little different, so they bring out a different audience to each,” she said. “In general, though, people are paying attention and want to know what those events are. Our Explore Hutch group on Facebook has almost 600 fans, which is great.”

The after-hours team also agreed a key to creating more “after hours” opportunities is making the public aware of what is already happening in Reno County. To that end, it created The Weekender - a weekly e-mail that goes out to 1,500 subscribers every Thursday listing activities and events scheduled for the weekend.

It also has worked with arts and culture agencies and local attractions to market their events and gather feedback from the public.

One way it is working to do both is by intensifying cultural groups’ use of social media.

One obstacle agencies face is not having the time or know-how to use social media sites. The after-hours team, therefore, is working to put together a type of “job description” for media-savvy volunteers who could set up and run social media sites for cultural arts organizations or similar agencies.

“There are a lot of people who would like to volunteer but who can’t commit time during a normal 8-to-5 workday,” she said. “This would give them a chance to help out and do it during the evening from their own computer.”

Vitality

The Vitality Community Index Team’s first big event was the 2009 Bike to Work Day. Since then, it has organized a second Bike to Work Day, organized group bike rides to other communities and created weekly community workout days at Gowans Stadium.

The biking activities have garnered a lot of participation and praise. Bike to Work Day drew new participants in its second year, and the first annual Sand Plum Bike Classic, which was in May, drew 147 participants.

Community workouts, which got their start as an event in April’s Get Everyone Outdoors efforts, have since taken place at 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday at Gowans Stadium.

“We have about 45 people who participate in those,” Miller said. “Their enthusiasm is exciting.

Miller said as football season starts, the vitality team will need to find a new venue but plans to continue the weekly workouts.

The vitality team also has interest in bettering the community’s hike/bike trail system and is considering using money it’s raised to pay for the design of a trailhead with parking at the Plum Avenue hike/bike trail entrance. It is also looking into distance markers and potential corporate partnerships that could pay for amenities.

Because of its over-arching goal of community wellness, the group also is considering the idea of “walking school buses” or a similar program in which schoolchildren walk in groups, with an adult, to school.