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HOME | ABOUT US | WORKGROUPS | YOUTH | RESOURCES | MINUTES | NEWSLETTER | CALENDAR | LINKS | ||
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Minutes for the Meeting of March 14, 2008 |
Present:
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BJ Valente |
Pat Bebo |
Jamison Souza |
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Mike Coughlin |
Bea Medeiros |
Fran Fuller |
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David Weed |
Pat Fanning |
Susan Dickens |
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Marcia Picard |
Paula Harrison |
Joan Gancarski |
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Maureen Estes Ryan |
Marie Chase |
Jenny Rulison DiBlasi |
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Lina Rebelo |
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A meeting of Partners for a Healthier Community was held on Friday, March 14, 2008 at the Jackson Conference Room at Charlton Hospital in Fall River. BJ Valente called the meeting to order at 8:30 AM.
BJ Valente announced that she would have to leave the meeting soon and Mike Coughlin would take over.
Minutes
The minutes of the February 8, 2008 Steering Committee were circulated in advance.
VOTED to approve the Minutes of the February 8, 2008 meeting of Partners for a Healthier Community as circulated.
Financial Report
Financial Report was circulated at the meeting.
Marcia pointed out that she noticed a $20.00 discrepancy in the checkbook. She tracked down the error and will be Emailing new financial reports to Kathy King to replace others on record.
VOTED to approve Financial Report through March 13, 2008.
Report of Work Groups
Access to Health Care And Healthy Lifestyles
Paula asked David Weed to take over. David discussed the Healthy Cities web site updates. Click on Personal Health and it will bring you to the 6 topics they are working on. Behind each topic is basic information on how to get started with a client. There is also an important page that contains a directory of Fall River resources. Each resource will either have a link to that particular agency’s web page or other information if they do not have a web page.
No date has been determined for their next meeting.
Youth of the Year has been determined. His name is Antone “Tony” Almeida.
He is 18 years of age and has been through much in his young life, such as, being homeless as a child, drug involvement, has taken in a homeless child himself. He is also being nominated for student of the year, a nationwide award. He is going to Washington DC to advocate for Youth Build programs.
Tony Almeida will be honored at the annual BOLD meeting BUT he is unable to attend because he is currently in Mississippi helping to build houses for victims of hurricane Katrina!
However, a press release is being worked on to announce his award plus plans are being made for him to talk on WSAR radio.
Work is being done on a marketing campaign to highlight Fall River’s award for 100 Best Communities. Designing “seals” that may be used to add to letterhead and/or envelopes.
2008 Poster Contest – Making changes this year. As in years past the awards will be announced at a celebration following the June CHNA meeting. Location for this year’s contest and meeting will be announced later.
The June meeting will not be at Charlton.
May 8 – Mayor’s Youth Summit:
Looking to recruit about 40 adults to participate. Jamison encouraged all those at today’s meeting to get involved. Contact Christian McCloskey. Would like to come up with 5 ideas/issues related to improving Fall River. Goal is to have kids/adults work together on this and continue to meet again in Fall 2008.
Healthy City Initiative
David Weed opened by saying that there are 3 very active areas of projects underway in Fall River under the following topics: Community, Schools and the Workplace.
Jamison took over with the following:
Fall River’s Fitness Challenge: GOING STRONG! Sent out a survey that about 50 people answered. This was related to an effort to continue with this challenge in the Fall. SO FAR OVER 1800 LBS LOST. So at this point it would appear that the goal of losing a total of 1 ton is reachable. There has been an amazing turnout for all CD Rec activities related to the challenge.
May 10 2:00 PM at CD Rec will be the final celebration. There will be TV and press coverage and the Mayor will be there. Looking for a guest speaker. Some original participants have dropped out but that was expected.
March 22 Challenge to Walk 7 Hills. 10:00 AM Run, walk or crawl up and down President Avenue! Meet at Morton School parking lot.
Massachusetts Parks and Recreation Dept Planning a 3-day conference in late October at White’s. Theme is “Healthier Communities”. They are very impressed with the accomplishments in Fall River regarding healthier lifestyles, etc. They are looking for participation from Partners to be at the conference. More information to come.
Maureen spoke to the group regarding the Walk to School initiative starting up again in April. More Schools are participating this time.
American Heart Association is also impressed with what Fall River is doing. They have given Fall River permission to use their AHA logo. Plans are being made to develop signs which will contain the AHA logo on them. The signs will be posted along the “Healthy Lives Walking Route” stationed around the city and hope to be in place by April 18. There is a rally being planned for March 27 at 12:30 – Mayor in attendance. Another rally is planned for May 3 to raise money for the AHA. Looking for sites along the route to have fitness informational boards listing Fall River as a “Fit Friendly Community” and will be shared with info about the American Heart Association.
Summer Lunch in the Park – Begins right after school ends and is an opportunity to introduce fitness games, such as old-fashioned field games. Involve youth to establish goals to increase activity and give them rewards for accomplishments. Will end the summer with competitions. During the summer about 35,000 lunches are served – 900/day for 8 sites all including nutritional items – milk, fruit, a protein and a grain.
Important announcement – Children in Balance - Fall River has been awarded a very large grant - $300,000.00 over 2 years! Only 3 in the country were awarded and only 1 in Massachusetts and Fall River was picked! Targeting grades 1 – 3 in public schools – “How to positively change fitness and nutrition”. The Food Service Departments with get some funds to help with the changes. Grant monies are through TUFTS from “Pepsico”.
DPH / Diabetes Association Previous study done at Lightolier was very successful in diagnosing pre-diabetes in employees. They and other companies are being asked to do more along this line by introducing new ways to target wellness in staff within Bristol County.
April 22 -- 8:30 – 10 AM at Chamber of Commerce – 15-20 people will be invited to brainstorm ideas.
Save the Date - April 30 – is the date for the Healthy City Celebration and Spring Awards 5 – 7 PM. Commissioner Auerbach will attend – Perhaps the Mayor also.
Location is “Our Lady of Light Band Club” on Quarry Street across from Burlington Coat Factory.
Sit down dinner - $10.00 per person. Giving 30 free tickets to award winners.
March 19 Conference at BCC - 25 have committed. It will be video taped so it will be available for health care providers that cannot attend. Christina D. Economos, Ph.D. will be presenting from Noon to 1 PM. Creating a Vision for Community-Wide Health Improvement. Information tables will be available on local fitness and nutrition resources.
Announcements:
Jenny spoke about the United Neighbors Community Partnership looking to develop a web site. Possibly getting help to do this from U Mass students and funding from a United Way venture grant. After setting up the web site maybe they could get sponsors to fund it and keep it self sustained.
Paula Harrison –
Health First Walkathon on May 10 and
Paw Sox tickets are available to buy for $6.00 for May 9th game at 7:00 PM.
Also on the first Saturday in June is the annual Family Fun in the Sun Day. To encourage kids to get exercise. This year there will be a Frisbee Champion giving demonstrations.
For further information please contact Paula Harrison.
Paula also talked about the upcoming American Cancer Society Relay for Life last weekend in June.
And the American Cancer Society has also asked Paula and Health First to coordinate another run of their play “Chemo Brain” which this year will be staged at New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School.
ACS phone = 1-800-ACS-2345 for more info.
Health and Human Services is recruiting 2 Wellness Coordinators that was advertised in the Herald News on March 21. School department is also looking to hire a Wellness Coordinator.
Meeting Adjourned at 10:00 am
Next Meeting – April 11, 2008
Southcoast Hospitals – Charlton Site
NOTE CHANGE BELOW:
* Change in meeting room location for April 11, May 9:
The Surgical Conference Room at Charlton has been reserved for the two displaced meetings.
Directions:
Enter through the main entrance and go down the main stairway to ground level. Turn left. The first set of double doors on your left will be Cardiac Surgical Services area. There is a paddle on the wall to your right, which will open the doors. The conference room is the first room on the left. (There is an elevator in the main lobby just before the Admitting area that will take you to ground level if needed).
Links to Minutes of Previous Meetings
minutes 11-12-04
minutes10-8-04