Watch the meetings of the MTN Commission.
The MTN Board of Directors is beginning a complex strategic planning process for our organization. To oversee this important work, the Board has contracted with Tom Borrup, a leader and innovator in non-profit community and cultural work for over twenty-five years. His work explores the intersections between culture, community building, and economic development.
Borrup is the former Executive Director of Intermedia Arts and in 2006 published a book, The Creative Community Builders' Handbook. It tracks communities that have transformed their economic, social, and physical infrastructures through the arts, and includes a step-by-step planning guide. MTN's planning process will explore the organization?s fundamental purpose and role, examine its key assets and challenges, and formulate scenarios for its future.
The plan will include a recommended and vetted organizational structure, financial plan, and action steps to move MTN into its next generation. This process will involve research, opinion and idea-gathering, deliberation of options, and detailing steps to move forward.
To do this planning, the Board has designed a "study commission," a think tank. It will be a semi-formal body with two televised open meetings during which the group will receive public and expert testimony.
The following people have agreed to serve on this commission:
Abdi Aynte, Journalist, Minnesota Monitor
Eduardo Bernal, Access Producer
Hattie Bonds, Assistant Principal, Patrick Henry High School
Katherine Fennelly, Professor of Public Affairs, Humphrey Institute, University of Minnesota
Elizabeth Glidden, Minneapolis City Council, Eighth Ward
Mary Hanson, Producer, The Mary Hanson Show
Leola Johnson, Associate Professor and Chair, Humanities and Media and Cultural Studies, Macalester College
Sheldon Mains, Technology Consultant and founding member, MTN Board
Elise Marubbio, Assistant Professor, Native American and Film Studies, Augsburg College
Ralph Remington, Minneapolis City Council, Tenth Ward
Wesley Walker, Executive Director Northway Community Trust
Marcus Young, City of St. Paul Artist-in-Residence
The MTN Study Commission is a group of twelve individuals who come from a wide background, including MTN producers, the Minneapolis City Council, community journalists, educators, and others. They will be meeting over the fall and winter, developing, with your help, a long-range plan for MTN.
The October 23rd public speak-out in front of the MTN Study Commission was a huge success (for a taste of what people said during that two hour televised meeting, see the spread in the Winter 2008 Monitor newsletter).
-Pam Colby
Watch the meetings of the MTN Commission.
