Opportunity Links to Sponsor Job Fair

The job fair will be held on September 23 from 1-5 pm at Opportunity Links, 998 E. Main Street in Newark. The job fair is free & open to the public. Participating Employers Include: Abercrombie & Fitch, Adecco, Atrium, Gummer Wholesale, Harry & David, Licking Memorial Health Systems, MetLife, MPW, Plumbers, Pipefitters & HVAC Equipment Service Local 189, Speed FC, Stanley Steemer International, State Farm Insurance and more employers to be announced. Attendees should bring thier resumes, dress for success, & be prepared to interview!

September 3 Education Support Group Meeting

The Community Capitalism Education Community Support Group initiative would like to invite you to a special meeting with Representatives Jay Hottinger and Dan Dodd. This is an open meeting to the public to discuss and answer questions regarding funding and mandates related to HB 1. At CTEC, Adult Education Center, 150 Price Road, Newark - September 3, 2009 5:30 - 7:30 pmRead More

Licking County Levy Survey Results

The Education Support Group conducted a Licking County Levy Survey recently via The Advocate recently. You may click here to see the statistics. While the results are not statistically significant, the information is meaningful and a good first step for further work. At a minimum, the findings should promote meaningful dialogue about NCS and the levies.

Education Community Support Meeting

The Community Capitalism Education Community Support meeting will be next Thursday, Aug. 6 at 5:30p.m. in the OSUN Sleight Room. The group will look at the survey results more in depth and develop an action plan for what to do with the results. (Healing the relationship between communities and schools.)

Licking County Complete Count Committee

The 2010 Census is coming up fast and it is very important to get the word out to all citizens of Licking County. Click on the photo to get involved!

Survive & Thrive Seminar

Click below to read about this free seminar:

Community Capitalism Group Meeting

Those interested in learning more about the Community Capitalism initiative met last Tuesday to hear about the accomplishments and future of the groups. It was an informative meeting - thanks to everyone who attended.

An article was written in This Week Licking County newspaper. You may read it by clicking here:
http://www.thisweeknews.com/live/content/lickingcounty/stories/2009/07/19/0716lsnews5.html?sid=104.

Community Capitalism Meeting Tonight

Join us tonight at the Firehouse Church on Maholm Street in Newark for our Accomplishment Review. You'll hear what all of the working groups have been doing since the last meeting and get an update on what's to come. This will be an informative meeting and a great opportunity to network.

Picture: inside the Firehouse

Career & Finance Fair

Opportunity Links will sponsor a Career & Finance Fair at Indian Mound Mall on Friday, July 27 from 1 - 6 p.m. Attendees may meet with professionals regarding: job search strategies, resume writing & Interview tips, career transitioning, adult education, investment & retirement advice and mortgage questions. Local businesses will be able to exhibit and recruit for job openings at a cost of $20 a table. ($10 for non-profit) Businesses interested in getting involved may click here for registration.

Community Capitalism Review Meeting

Be sure to join us Tuesday, July 14 at 7 pm for the Accomplishment Review Meeting. We will meet at The Firehouse, located at 71 Maholm Street in Newark. You'll hear what the working groups have accomplished since the last meeting, and see what the next steps should be to continue this initiative. Click on the photo to download the invitation and sign up to attend!

Survey

The Young Professional/Talent Group has created a survey to learn more about Licking County's residents needs and wants. You may Click Here to take survey . Look for the results in a few weeks.

Thanks for your input!

Community Capitalism Working Groups making great strides

The following article was published in The Advocate today. Congratulations to all working group members who've had a hand in the accomplishments thus far.

We are writing today to explain the Community Capitalism initiative and the accomplishments this devoted group of volunteers have obtained in just a few short months.

The Community Capitalism effort began last fall when community members read the book of the same name about the economic successes in Kalamazoo, Mich. Grassroots meetings were held and working groups were established in six areas to look at ways to keep Licking County growing and prosperous.

The following is a synopsis of the group's accomplishments and goals thus far:

Education Support: They concentrated first on passing local levies. Keith Richards, Newark City Schools superintendent, and Damien Bawn, Johnstown superintendent, both credit the Community Capitalism efforts with helping to pass their levies. They organized talks, hosted walking tours and coordinated a letter writing campaign. Now they are working to learn more about the perceptions that Licking County residents have about their local schools. They will be meeting with local school boards and superintendents to see how relationships between the communities and schools can be improved.

Higher Education: They have four subcommittees that are working on establishing an internship clearinghouse, a one-stop database of all college scholarships for local students; "Adopt a School Program" between Denison University and Newark High School students that need extra tutoring; and working toward literacy development and the critical role parents play in reading development.

Talent/Young Professional: The Talent Group is focused on recruiting, retaining and developing young professionals. Along with their main focus, they also have been asked to help promote and develop a young professional group. They currently are surveying young professionals to inquire about their wants and needs from the community. Once the survey results are compiled, the data might be useful in retaining local talent and make a long lasting difference in the Licking County work force.

Infrastructure/Capital: Their main goal is to structure a process for innovative business opportunities. This includes creating a review committee to look at business opportunities; have a matrix of services and progression like available space, contacts, utilities (one-stop) and a list of all vacant properties for future business; focusing on funding for businesses -- identifying venture capital firms, capital sources, SBA loans and bank loans; in addition offering a competition for students to create business plan models, and the winner receives $5,000 in cash and services to start up their business.

Downtown: They are working on cleaning up, as well as bringing more students and entertainment venues, to the downtown area. This group wants to bring Wi-Fi to the entire downtown area to bring in more traffic, and it has looked at the idea of workspace sharing.

Marketing: The main goals of this group are to "market" Licking County and our communities and to assure good communication among the Working Groups to assure that their efforts and accomplishments are visible to the public. This group has established a blog, www.lc3blog.com, for group updates as well as meeting times and minutes. There is a social-networking site on LinkedIn, www.lc3network. com, where news items and questions are posted. This group also is establishing talking points of positive development and success stories that will be available this summer as a slide show on various Web sites, such as the Chamber, CVB, City of Newark and County -- called Get "IN" LickINg County. The goal of this marketing is to show a united front to all viewers who surf these sites, such as someone looking to move a business here or relocating. Upcoming events include a networking event June 13 and a review meeting July 14.

These successes and goals are an impressive start to achieving great success for our community. Although we've accomplished a lot so far, we have a lot to do. And we always are looking for additional volunteers. If you're interested in helping to better the community and have time to commit, please take the next step, and get involved!

For information, call Jennifer McDonald at the Chamber, (740) 345-9757 or log onto www.lc3blog.com for a schedule of events and attend an upcoming meeting.
The Community Capitalism Marketing Working Group is composed of: Jennifer McDonald, group leader; Racie Young, Rick Platt, Bob Cullen, Cindy Hollis, Susan Fryer, Anne Spray, Ralph Devine, Mike Blowers, Barry Connell, Steve Layman, Wes Humble and Jerry Nethers

Infrastructure/Capital Mission & Goals, by Bart Weiler, Group Leader

Our mission is to develop promote and facilitate resources and services for innovative business opportunities in Licking County.

Our goal is to create a consistent predictable process in helping an individual with an idea of starting a business, succeed in Licking County.

We are creating a review committee which is made up with SBDC, SCORE, Tech Columbus, and the County Economic Development team so far. The purpose of this committee is to meet on a regular basis at a set time and place which they are able to meet with potential business prospects and help them be successful or the committee can follow up on business opportunities in the pipeline.

We also have committee members developing a matrix of services and progressions that is similar to a flowchart which is designed to help new business startups succeed in Licking County. We are also in the process of gathering a list of all vacant properties to accommodate those businesses looking for space.

The committee is identifying venture capital firms already doing business in Licking County, other capital resources such as the Early-Stage Capital Fund announced by the Heath Newark Licking County Port Authority, and financial institutions specializing in SBA loans. This will create a one stop shop where everyone is working together for the potential new business with the purpose to succeed in Licking County.

Our committee is also considering the creation of a business plan competition for any student in licking County, where the student creates a business plan model and receives a prize of cash and service to start up their business in Licking County.

Industrial FAM Tour

The Industrial Familiarization Tour was held today -sponsored by the Licking County Chamber of Commerce. This tour featured the Advanced Material Manufacturers in Newark and Hebron. The tour began at the McMillen Industrial Park, with a stop at Arboris. It was interesting to learn that Arboris is the world's leading producer of sterols. Sterols are derived from pine trees and used in healthy foods to lower cholesterol. Rob Klinger, Rob O'Neill, Rick Platt and Tom Denison spoke about the numerous manufacturers located in McMillen Industrial Park, COATC, Mid-Ohio Industrial Park and Newark Ohio Industrial Park. Of interest, Rick explained that the new bridge under construction at the COATC Base will directly connect to James Parkway to the Industrial Parks in Hebron, opening up all of the manufacturing corridor and furthering the opportunity for future development. He reported that $3 million will be spent in improvements and they are using 12 local companies to complete the job. Once we arrived in Hebron, the group toured Bayer Material Science. It was evident that Bayer is on the leading edge of technology by producing polymers and high-performance plastics that help their customers stay competitive and fresh.

Be sure to join us Saturday June 13 for the Community Capitalism Picnic at Tony Campolo's farm. There will be wagon rides, bon fire and cookout. This will be a great time to network and learn more about the working groups. Please rsvp by clicking here.

Marketing Working Group by Jennifer McDonald

The Marketing Working Group will be meeting this Wednesday, May 20 at noon at the Chamber office. We have compiled talking points and will be working to refine the details of these points. We plan to feature these points in the Get "In" Licking County weblinks yet to debut on local websites this summer. These talking points will be available for community leaders to borrow from and plan to offer in a powerpoint for those interested. Other items on the marketing group agenda include press coverage, further development of this blog, community scavenger hunt, and more. Please feel free to join us on Wednesday - we are always looking for new members.

Ohio Chamber of Commerce Annual Meeting - by Jennifer McDonald

Cheri Hottinger and I attended the Ohio Chamber's Annual Meeting this week. The Chamber gave a legislative briefing. You may read the entire briefing, by clicking here. They have a great staff and work very hard at advocating in these areas: taxation, education & workforce, workers' compensation, unemployment compensation, environment, energy, health care, small business and grassroots. They are also working with the Ohio Department of Development to institute an internship program that will help develop our state’s next generation of entrepreneurs while helping to ensure that some of Ohio’s brightest and most promising students remain in the state after graduation.

The panelist session brought together a handful of intriguing entrepreneurs. The moderator, John Huston is the Principal of USPrivate Companies, LLC who launched the Ohio TechAngel Fund, did a great job of leading the discussions. Of interest: Baju Shah, President and CEO of BioEnterprise, a business acceleration initative that supports the growth of bioscience companies. Since 200, it has helped more than 80 Cleveland companies that have collectively attracted more than $850 million in new funding. In addition, Bob Kington, the CEO of Toobla (available this June) explained how his new company has created a platform for users to discover, save and share any and all pieces on the Web, save it on Toobla and then share it with Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. (A site I hope to be able to use soon) And finally, Pamela Springer, President of ECNext has been recognized as an industry pacesetter within the online media space having created Manta.com, the ninth largest business information site on the web. Manta provides information on small businesses and lists many Central Ohio businesses. If you own a small business, it would be smart to get yourself listed on this site.

Outcomes By Bob Cullen - Education Support Group Member

Hallelujah! The election is over. While some schools were successful with their levies (3 winners, maybe 4), others were not (2 losses). I think that our work group should take time to celebrate the victories and reflect on the losses.

Personally, I think that the Community Capitalism Imitative, and our
Education/Community Support Work Group, contributed significantly to the successes.

We need to ask ourselves what was done that helped our schools win -- and what could we have done, or done differently, to help the others.

There are two documents that reflect, in part, the impact of our efforts.
1. A list of letters of support that were published by The Advocate, WCLT and ThisWeek Community News. Some of these were the direct result of our WG, others were influenced by our efforts. I know more letters were written and published by other papers, but I did not track those. While letters are written for every levy election, I don't think the list has ever been this long or this diverse.
2. One of the columns written by The Advocate that supported the levies. I included this one, because it clearly shows impact of our Work Group efforts.
3. Recent article in This Week talking about the impact of the Community Capitalism group.

I am sure that others can expand this list. I think we should take time to talk about our success and document what we have done -- and the impact.

Community Capitalism Synopsis

Over 1,500 “Community Capitalism” books were distributed to business people in the Licking County area. The book, by Ron Kitchens tells the true-life tale of how the citizens in Kalamazoo, Michigan made bold plans to revitalize and move forward in a failing economy. In Kalamazoo, the leaders realized that talent would come if the community is vibrant and infrastructure is in place, that availability of capital provides a fertile environment for growth, and that great educational opportunities lift the entire region.

The book was given out, not to duplicate the actions of Kalamazoo, but to bring leaders together to discuss how the model may work for Licking County. The open dialogue in the meetings brought out many opportunities for the future of this area, and working groups have been established. See a re-cap of each committee and goals here.

If you want to get more involved, click here for the working group meeting dates. A social networking group has been established, and many group members have joined the group and posted news items and discussions. If you are interested in learning more about this group, join in at www.lc3network.com