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WCPPA Leadership Team
December 8, 2004
9 am to 3 pm
PHSKC – 400 Yesler Way, Suite 510
Attending:
Jane Moore, Liz McNett Crowl, Eileen Finnigan, Diane Evans, Linda Schwartz, Don Willot, Paula Reeves, Gwen Moni, Steve Daly, Florence Sheehan, Amy Shumann, Eileen Finnegan, Jim Eychaner, Shannon Turner, Cheza Garvin, David Levinger
9:00 Call to order and approve agenda
Introductions and Round Table
Eileen Finnigan shared info on obesity prevention; the Tacoma School District PTA was slated to present a policy to the school board on recess in schools, and that the newspaper was following this story. She also introduced Diane Evans, a colleague who is going to start working on obesity prevention in Tacoma. Diane is also with the Tacoma Health Dept. She has a background in exercise science.
Linda Schwartz announced that the Bicycle Alliance of Washington would be presenting a case to the Specialty License Plate Review Board (LPRB), which would ask for a specialty license plate to promote a “Share the Road” message to promote a greater awareness of bicycles on the roadways. Once they get the OK from the LPRB, they will be able to approach the legislature with it.
Don Willott shared information about the remodeling of downtown Bainbridge: the “Access/Mobility” project which focuses on how to design safe, efficient, and sustainable transportation systems to serve residents and visitors of diverse ages and needs. He also shared info on the problem of diminished ferry access to Bainbridge and plans for holding a stakeholders meeting for a foot ferry.
Paula Reeves (Dept of Transportation) spoke of the bicycle and pedestrian program at DOT and pedestrian safety taking a higher priority.
Jim Eychaner talked about the Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation.
Gwen Moni talked about Healthy Aging, revising an audit tool for community use, Shape Up Seattle – a SE Physical Activity Guide for older adults, and Shape UP! King County, which aims to make it easier for older adults living in King County, Washington to find programs which will help them be healthy and active. Web site: http://www.shapeupkingcounty.org
Florence Sheehan talked about the benefits of snowshoeing and inquired as to whether people were interested in getting together to go snowshoeing this winter. Many in the group indicated interest in this activity.
Amy Shumann shared that she has been working on a selection committee for a project focused on the public health-obesity relationship and also on food and physical activity policy.
Liz McNett Crowl spoke of DSHS’ Innovations in Aging grant and redirecting funds for second level training for instructors in Moses Lake and Mount Vernon. She also talked about vending machine and nutrition policy, urban planning, land use and zoning, neighborhood parks, and the property rights issues involved.
Jane Moore reported on the benefits of recess, increasing opportunities for PA in children, and GALS (Girls Active in Life and Sports), an event which will be taking place June 24 & 25 at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, OR. She has also been active in a public health/school health committee.
Linda Jackson of the Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) talked about the “Healthy Families, Active Kids” coalition which has reorganized itself into some working task forces around the core objectives of the Washington State Nutrition and Physical Activity Plan. One group is very active in food choices and physical activity in schools. Another group is working on environmental change, and another is in provider education. She also stated that the SRHD is just finishing up the DOH/UW research project on Falls Prevention for seniors. A note of thanks was received from a 76-yr-old woman who, as a result of being involved in this project, is now able to go to the grocery store, load and unload her groceries and put them away, and is enjoying the benefits of being a “younger” senior citizen now. Pedestrian and bicycle safety is also a focus in Spokane and they are currently working with the city government who are considering charging a fee for the use of city pools in the summer. A group is currently working with the city parks to get secure funding to put some universally accessible playground equipment in Riverfront Park, another group is working on accessibility in walking to schools in Airway Heights. Linda also reported that they approached the SRHD work administration to implement a policy which would enable their employees able to get 30 mins of PA per day but has run into complications with the labor union around financial issues.
Steve Daly of the Washington Recreation and Park Association (WRPA) reported that the city of Edmonds is finishing up the Interurban Trail from Seattle to Edmonds. There is one last paved section to be completed. They are also trying to link their bikeway and walkway routes with the schools and the engineering department. He also talked about WRPA sponsoring fun runs for kids, most recently the Turkey Trial Fun Run where they gave turkeys to kids age 5-12 who ran 4 laps around a small soccer field.
Liz McNett Crowl stated that the roundtable was, in her opinion, the most valuable part of our coalition meetings and that in the future we should allow more time in the agenda for it.
The October 12 minutes were approved.
Treasurer’s Report: Linda Schwartz
We should end the year at about $9400. Two invoices still need to be submitted: 1) the capacity-building money that was made available through DOH, and 2) the invoice for about $6500- the rest of the STEPS work- that Tom Wells is preparing and submitting. For the next year, there is approximately $25,000 available for Active Living follow up work. As Kyle Unland mentioned at the last meeting, there was an additional $20,000 found at DOH for which a contract is being developed now. We have also received a certificate of insurance. Linda also mentioned that in general, if anyone wants to know where our checking account stands, please contact her; she has it all on a spreadsheet.
Executive Director’s Report: Shannon Turner
Recently Shannon has traveled down to Olympia to meet with Charlotte and Kyle, met with Tom Wells and acquired information and files on disk, attended the STEPS contractors meeting on November 19 where she connected with Margaret Kitchell and others, and was present for part of the Active Seattle meeting where Susan Howlett was speaking about sustaining funding. An interesting concept presented at this meeting was that funding organizations tend to give money to many agencies supporting the same cause, so there is no risk in sharing your grantor lists with others who support the same cause. She also connected with Liz and co-wrote the agenda, contacted Charlotte and Tom to revise the work plan, started becoming a member of listservs and reading the minutes of related coalitions, and got connected with the Safe Routes Coordinating Committee. She did not make the Active Transportation meeting.
Liz stated that there is probably no need for Shannon to attend the Active Transportation meeting, as David Levinger, Barb Culp, Paula Reeves, and others are currently participating.
Shannon was welcomed by the coalition as the new Executive Director.
10-minute break
The revision of the 2004-2005 Work Plan was addressed. Liz stated that we needed to make a final revision today and give feedback to Shannon to complete. She also mentioned that the verbage in this document should focus on action words instead “try to,” or “continue to.”
Amy Shumann stated that “support the development of local coalitions, conduct joint meetings” meant that they wanted more opportunities for the local coalitions and the state to be together. Also, “increase opportunity for face-to-face meetings between members” meant between coalition members and WA coalition members. In Public Awareness and Education, under “encourage members to use the Be Active, Be Healthy message and materials, they really thought the members could use a way to assess what’s available now, and to provide access whenever possible for the WCPPA. Not to be a clearinghouse, but to link to useful materials, links to DOH and other entities when appropriate. Somebody at the health dept wanted to use the logo, but they did not want to provide camera-ready access, but it seems to be straightened out now for organizations throughout the state to use this. Also, “clarify subscription for listserv info, who receives info now, and who should or could” posed a problem because it caused confusion on which messages they were getting for the beactive listserv, and weren’t sure who all gets it, and wanted to provide opportunities for people throughout the state to subscribe.
Liz suggested that there should be a clarification sent out by Shannon about which listserv to use (beactive vs. wcppalteam) and types of things that should be posted. Promoting the listserv and encouraging sign-ups should also be addressed. Also, it was stated that it needs to be clear on where the message was coming from, instead of “be healthy, be active” at the bottom we should say “WCPPA.” Liz also said that the state DOH has a “healthy aging plan” that is being developed that is similar to the “nutrition and physical activity plan”. Cheza mentioned that there should be linkages between these.
Amy continued that she and Alex Stone had more ideas on a website workgroup together, and wanted to get the word out about what’s happening across the state; Alex had suggested a state map on the website where you could click on a city and learn about what PA opportunities were available with a more visual approach. Also, they would love to talk more about “success stories,” and create a “story bank” which would be great for legislative advocacy.
Liz said that the http://www.beactiveskagit.org/ site has a “project gallery” where there is a photo related to the project, and a description. You click on it and a form comes up.
Amy said that also under “media awareness” they wanted to be more responsive to media, having a handy speakers bureau and network of members prepared to speak about WCPPA. Members who have statements and editorials, letters to the editor on behalf of the WCPPA to promote itself, also a list of members with good media contacts/resources so we can share resources when we can. She mentioned that she just talked to Bud Turner at the PE meeting who mentioned that he knew a reporter who does a lot of PA coverage, and he could let them know about the PE awards. This was cited as an example of how to share who knows what, and who knows who. Regarding “raise visibility of local coalitions” --it would be nice to post on the website when local coalitions are meeting, and also their agendas.
Amy Shumann mentioned that Alex Stone had jury duty that day, so she couldn’t be there, although she wanted to attend.
Advocacy: Paula stated that legislators are very aware of physical activity. AWC, Association of Washington Counties, and others are also engaged and regard PA as a priority. They are participating on the leadership policy group also, where they learn about PA and nutrition. It was also discussed that their ideas could dovetail with our work plan. Ashley Probart of AWC was cited as a contact person for Shannon to follow up with.
Safe and Active Community Environments: Linda said that the wording was all that needed to be changed, an example is “promote safe and active routes to funders.” She stated that she needed Charlotte’s handwritten notes faxed to her to revise this section.
Liz suggested that this be a 2-year work plan (2004-2006) due to the amount of time we put into developing and carrying it out. Everyone agreed; it was decided that this would be a 2-year work plan and we would meet in the in-between year to make priority changes. A formal vote was not taken, but everyone agreed on this.
Paula brought up the issue of working with planners to develop PA-focused buildings and infrastructure.
Amy stated that she would have to check with Barbara Wright, and that a public health impact assessment is being done with STEPS to help planners develop a tool to see how their buildings affects health.
Don Willott stated that as a non-motorized group he would like the opportunity to meet with other non-motorized groups. Liz stated that this may not work because we need to focus on getting our local PA coalitions together, she thought it was beyond the scope of what we can do facilitate right now. Paula said that DOT by statute has to hold meetings every other year that deal with non-motorized issues. She said that they don’t have a statewide listserv right now for non-motorized groups.
Policy Leadership Group- Liz McNett Crowl Liz led a discussion about the Policy Leadership Group. WCPPA has been asked to prioritize our top three physical activity and three nutrition policies from a list which was sent out on the LT listserv the week before. Paula referred to PA5 (active transportation); she said if we’re looking for this to get funded, this needs to be re-worked—the gas tax cannot fund this issue the way it is worded. Therefore active transportation needs to be defined in another way. Paula will be attending the Leadership Policy Group will be meeting on Dec 15 at 10:00 AM at the Seatac Hilton. The top 3 policies chosen from the Physical Activity and Nutrition Policy ideas were PA1, PA2, and PA5 and N2, N7, and N12. Liz led a discussion on selecting dates for the year’s WCPPA Leadership Team Meetings. The next meeting will be February 2 in Olympia so we can have access to legislators. Jim Eychaner would check on a meeting location.Action for Healthy Kids- Jane Moore
Jane Moore reported on Action for Healthy Kids, which is a national organization that promotes the value of PA and N in schools. On Nov 9, the WA state team had their meeting; Eileen, Jane, and Bob Melson were present at this meeting. There are now 3 subcommittees working on 3 of the goals. These include: to provide age-appropriate and culturally-sensitive instruction in health ed and physical ed, that helps students develop the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviors to adopt, maintain and enjoy healthy eating habits and a physically active lifestyle. Jane is working on that subcommittee, and they are now going to try to develop, find, or publicize tools to help members of the state team publicize the current state of health & fitness in WA, publicize and have access to the WA Healthy Youth Survey data for local policy and program decisions, help provide tools for school districts to ensure the decision-making progress for health and fitness instruction is aligned with the state rules. Also to help provide training on assessment of best practices to help teachers provide better instruction in health and fitness. The 2 nd goal combines ensuring that foods and beverages at school contributes to healthy eating habits and to provide an adequate amount of time for lunch. Eileen went to this subcommittee meeting. This was the senate bill 2436, which is essentially the WA state school director’s association will be posting a draft sample policy of PA and N on their website Jan. 1 st. The legislative mandate is that all school districts in the state by Aug 1, 2005, will have a PA and N policy in place. She stated that the sample policy is very watered-down, and if they go with that sample policy they’ll be missing many opportunities to promote more PA, particularly stricter policies on commercialism/vending in schools. There are some grassroots efforts, Children’s Alliance is giving money to provide school districts more aggressive samples of policy they could adopt. Jane stated that the final state goal of Action for Healthy Kids is to provide all children from pre-K to grade 12 with quality daily physical education that helps develop the knowledge, behaviors, skills, and confidence to be physically active for life. She pointed out that on http://www.actionforhealthykids.org/ website they have a powerpoint presentation called “the Learning Connection” which focuses on the value of improving physical activity in our schools, and can be adapted for individual and state use.Active Transportation- David Levinger
David Levinger described Active Transportation as a group that has been meeting for the past 2 months that includes representation from WCPPA, Feet First, BAW, Cascade Bicycle Club, Transportation Choices Coalition (which has been spearheading it), PHSKC, Puget Sound Regional Council, and WADOT. This group promotes walking and bicycling. The group is still formulating final policies, looking at long-term ways to make gains in policy and trying to take something to the upcoming legislative session. Some of the top priorities right now are: the philosophical issue of furthering the link between health and transportation, and the more material requests of increasing funding for active transportation to 5% of transportation as an initial goal, and then to a “desired modesplit”--15% of all trips to be walking or bicycling by 2030, which includes trips to the store, work, the park, school, and other establishments. He encouraged coalition members to spread the word to their organizations for representatives for Active Transportation. Florence made a comment that active transportation is difficult for people who live in certain locations--where she lives it is just not possible, and David stated that different land use policies will affect walkability (grocery stores located closer to people’s homes, etc). Eileen asked if 1 out of 10 trips were walking/biking trips, would it make a difference? David said yes it would. David stated that he would like to get a contact from AMA from Jane, the group discussed the feasibility of American Lung Association, American Lung Association, WRPA (Brit Kramer), and American Cancer Society, and ADA getting involved in this effort. Jane stated that if people have other ideas, they could talk to David about it later, because we were getting close to only having 2 hours left and need to get to the work plan after a couple of new reports.
STEPS update- Amy Shumann
Amy reported that Lorrie Alfonsi came to the King Co Physical Activity Coalition meeting to give an update. It is a 5 year project and they’re now in the second year. Funding for years 3 through 5 is still up in the air. There was talk about more money coming down, but they are unsure if they can expand to more cities right now. At the time of the KCPAC meeting, it was thought that Tommy Thompson might stay on as secretary of Health and Human Services, but 2 days later he resigned, which may mean STEPS funding will be diminished-- STEPS was his project. We are unsure what the new Secretary will do. There will be positions for STEPS jobs opening soon—these will be emailed out by Amy or Shannon. She also mentioned the Fitness Committee, but she thought this is probably a STEPS spinoff that Carolyn Stemshore Kramer is working on with Brita Butler-Wahl on a Fitness Committee with the Seattle Schools. Carolyn is a staff person for the Seattle School District. She shared a big spreadsheet that she passed around that had a very detailed explanation of all of the projects and what their outputs should be. Jane mentioned that the agenda said that we needed to nominate a rep for Seattle School District Fitness Committee. Shannon stated that Wendy Repovich nominated herself already, and it was agreed that Shannon email Wendy Repovich that she was, indeed, nominated.
Update on WRPA
Jim Eychaner said that a presentation proposal was submitted to WRPA through cooperation with Charlotte Claybrooke, entitled “Seamless Service” and the theme is if you want to get people to ride bikes, you have to pay for paths, trails, etc. He said it is unclear right now where the money starts and stops. He said he presented this to WRPA last year in Spokane and was amazed that people were very interested in this. Steve Daly said that available information could be found on http://www.wrpatoday.org. 1:30 Work Plan Breakout Sessions: Jane facilitated the transition to breaking into groups for discussing timelines, priorities and action steps, who’s doing it, and how it’ll get done—setting goals, identifying people we know who could help. She mentioned that Liz wanted to work on promoting the Local Coalitions, and getting them more active with the leadership team and collaboration under Member Services. The finalized work plan, adjusted with prioritization by these team members, will be sent out separately by email from Shannon. As of the last meeting, certain team members were identified to work on certain sections of the work plan, so we used the notes from the last meeting as a springboard for deciding on groups: Operations: Kyle, Jim, Bob. Will prioritize, do timeline, and report at the February meeting. Member Services: Heleen, Gwen, Linda, Liz, Paula. Public Awareness/Ed: Amy, Alex, Jane. Advocacy: Eileen, Steve, Shannon, Diane. Safe and Active Community Environments: David, Linda S, Don. 2:45 Meeting Adjourned
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