MINNESOTA DNR MEETING
AUGUST 27, 2020

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 [captioner standing by] 
>>Gratia Joice:  It is about 1:00 but we are waiting on the majority of people.
I think there's a rush to sign in now so give us a couple minutes to get everybody else connected and we will begin shortly.
[Pause] 
>> If you are just joining, we're giving everybody a couple minutes to sign on.
We usually have a rush right at 1:00.
So just waiting an extra minute or two to make sure we have the majority of our task force members with us before we begin.
So thank you for your patience.
[Pause]
>> Anybody there?
>> Yeah, hey, Greg.
How's it going?
>> Good.
Is that Gratia?
>>Gratia Joice:  Yeah, nice to hear your voice.
We were just giving everybody a couple minutes, getting a big rush of people signing on right at 1:00.
>> Okay, great.
I'll hold on.
>>Gratia Joice:  No problem, thank you.
>> Yep.
[Pause]
>>Gratia Joice:  It's about 1:04, haven't seen anybody sign on so we can get started.
As people join, that's fine too.
Welcome back, everyone, to our second day of meeting this month.
It was really a fruitful meeting yesterday, I thought.
So excited to see where the discussion goes today.
And thanks for being here a second time.
I know it is hard to sit through long virtual meetings but I really appreciate everybody's flexibility and willingness to kind of do this, because it can be challenging.
So just a couple reminders.
If you have technical difficulties, you can either reach out to Madison McGovern or myself.
I have the generic Minnesota Outdoor Rec Task Force account in the chat.
Madison's title is host.
Or you can send her a message to her name.
I'm technically the presenter.
So, if you have any problems or need to communicate directly with one of us please do that.
I also have my email up.
So I will try and be checking that as well.
And remember our task force members if you want to communicate something to the task force via chat, whether a link, comment, something like that, please direct messages to "all panelists" so that the ‑‑ your fellow task force members can see those messages.
To our public joining us today, we do have a Q&A and comment portion toward the end of the agenda.
Please feel free to submit your questions and comments through the Q&A feature of WebEx.
We will be sure to get those read off during that time period and do our best to respond.
So quickly, I'll go over the agenda, then we can just dive right in.
We'll spend the majority of today having the work groups do some reporting out.
Work groups should have gotten together to discuss updating their SWOTs based on some of the conversation we had as a full task force at the July meeting, and then based on some additional content you all were given between July and this month's meeting.
So just hoping work groups can kind of go one‑by‑one, talk through some discussions that the work group had.
And then give a chance to your fellow task force members to comment and give input on your thoughts.
Spend a good chunk of time doing that, then we will move to an exercise of creating a vision statement for Minnesota Outdoor Recreation as a whole.
I know several work groups have done this kind of topically by their work group topic.
So hoping to kind of combine them to create an overall vision.
We'll take a little bit of a break, and then we will come back and talk ‑‑ hear from the public engagement subcommittee and hear about the plan for public engagement moving forward.
We also have a brainstorm activity related to that.
We'll have a little bit of time for public comments, then go over next steps.
So that is the plan.
And so diving right in, we have work group report‑outs.
I decided to do it in inverse order, so reverse alphabetical.
Some where work groups sent new content to share, some didn't ‑‑ groups didn't send things, that's totally okay.
We'll just go through one‑by‑one.
Work groups can kind of share updates or thoughts they have.
You know, we have roughly 20 minutes per work group.
I imagine some groups will need those 20 minutes and some groups may need less.
So we'll just kind of be flexible and see where the conversation leads.
So like I mentioned, any conversation your work group had related to feedback you received at the July meeting, if there was anything in the presentations that you were sent in the last few weeks that kind of changed or shifted some of your ideas in your initial SWOT please share those.
And if it fits, you know, you can reflect on yesterday's conversation too within the context of your work groups thoughts and ideas.
I did ask you all to consider, too, kind of as a way to think about where we want Minnesota to go to think about what would success look like for Minnesota in five years through the lens of your work groups.
So now would be a great time to discuss that, as well.
So with that, I will kick it off to the stewardship and conservation work group to begin the conversation.
If you do need me to pull up any material that was shared at the last meeting I can do that too.
So just let me know.
>> Hi, everybody.
This is Elliot.
Sorry I don't have video or anything.
Busy in the office doing federal grants and stuff.
We did not get [audio difficulty] a chance to meet.
We tried and everybody's schedule is kind of packed but we all ‑‑ I heard back from a couple people.
We're all pretty happy with where we had kind of left our stewardship and conservation.
So we really didn't have very much to add.
I know our last one was pretty robust, was pretty big, but I think we all came to consensus we are happy with where's it at.
Would be happy for anybody else's input if they thought we need a change on that.
>>Gratia Joice:  Thanks, Elliot.
Yeah, I don't know if there is anybody else on the stewardship or conservation workgroup that wants to comment on anything or ideas maybe you had individually since the last meeting.
Or else we can open it up to the general task force if there's any thoughts on this topic here.
All righty, I'm not hearing anything.
If anything comes up down the road we can return to this 
as I know some of our thoughts within the work groups are intertwined with other areas.
So with that, we will move on to the promotion and public awareness work group.
>> It's Joe.
For the group, in case anybody is doing this via telephone, can't see graphics, I will read what we have done.
What we did is based on what we worked on before and based on group input from the last meeting.
We kind of condensed things to different topics.
We approach this as, you know, five‑year vision of success.
But I want everybody to think hard about, you know, five‑year vision of success, maybe it can be done in less.
Maybe it can be done in one year, maybe two years, whatever the case might be.
We would like to put a little aggressiveness into the time frames for outdoor recreation in Minnesota.
So just please think about that as we go through different points here.
We will start with cohesive messaging.
I will read it, not to bore you, in case anybody is on the phone.
The broad nature of outdoor recreation, the many diverse interests in the state, makes cohesive messaging a challenge.
A collaboration amongst the state's outdoor community and varied interests can form a cohesive voice to better communicate to government, individuals in all demographics, and the private sector.
I think what I will do is read through these.
Then I will give teammates an opportunity to chime in.
We can open it to everybody, if that's okay.
The second is parity for outdoor interests.
Unifying the outdoor recreation space by pulling groups together gives the outdoors more of a voice in St. Paul with government to further establish for the [indiscernible] narrative that outdoors and tourism has a similar worth, value and return on investment as mineral extraction, forestry, ag, major league sports and other economic drivers.
What we are getting at is our conversation about pulling ‑‑ even though we have varied interests in outdoor recreation, pulling together to make outdoor recreation a larger voice to get many of our perhaps budgets and initiatives accomplished.
Then we can still be individualistic on the back end.
Great, you can advance.
The next is agency overlap and capacity.
State agencies are spread thin.
Further, the state DNR and Explore Minnesota tourism are tasked to communicate information and promote on similar topics and destinations.
And, ideal future, we see less overlap from agencies.
By no means is it a criticism at all.
We talked about how we thought there is super things happening within both agencies.  But even from the meeting yesterday, it was interesting to hear by having a separate area of outdoor recreation would bring a different perspective and some different initiatives to the table.
Format updates.
Downloadable PDFs.  Paper is old school.
Reach to new demographics.
Give way to maps, mobile first strategy, video and social media as primary forms of communication.
A comprehensive text and graphical materials, maps, et cetera, remain where appropriate.
It was making sure that as outdoor recreation in Minnesota we are on the cutting edge.
Funding.
Dollars for marketing allocated from the Minnesota legislature is very disproportionate, neighboring states.
More budget appropriately allocated of course will help the state better promote outdoor recreation and reach new consumers.
Again, funding came down for a lot of reasons.
We can all ‑‑ we all said we can put time, effort, strategy, intelligence, experience, all those things into this, but without the money to accomplish goals unfortunately we are not going to be as far along as we really need to be.
Next is partnerships.
It came out loud and clear, whether public, private, public‑public or private‑private the opportunity exists for groups to mutually benefit and create synergy in areas not yet explored.
This can be beneficial to parties involved in a variety of areas.  Increased funding, greater exposure, technology, expertise, niche marketing, and the list goes on.
Next, please.
The next is formalized outdoor recreation in Minnesota.
As we heard yesterday many state agencies, destination marketing, non‑profits, and private organizations are doing a good job in their own areas whether an Office of Outdoor Recreation, a position or a workgroup such as this ‑‑ the reason we say it that way, we don't know what it will look like.
We believe that having a more formalized plan and a seat at the table at important events, meetings and the legislature will bring benefit to the state of Minnesota when it comes to outdoor recreation.
Then finally, appropriate funding.
Minnesota's office or department or committee, whatever we decide, of outdoor recreation.
Appropriate funding is vital to the success of Minnesota's outdoor recreation efforts and properly staffed and achieved desired goals and outcomes.
Without proper funding the results will be much more challenging.
With that, I would like to open it up to the promotions and public awareness group to see if you have comments to add.
Any color commentary.
>> Hey, this is Stephen.
I don't have anything to add.
I think it is pretty thoroughly laid out.
I would just say anybody else in the group or else the larger task force can make comments or questions.  Thanks, though.
>> Hey, Joe, Mark Norquist with Modern Carnivore.
I would add I think each is very important.
I just call maybe additional attention to the parity issue and partnerships.
I think those are some real opportunities for us that I see very near‑term.
So as you said, you know, what we have, a five‑year outlook, I think those are the things that we can do fairly easily more quickly.
I would love to hear people's ideas and thoughts around that.
I think it is something that is critical and something we can do near term.
>> Great.
Others?
Comments from anybody?
Hearing none, means we checked all the boxes.
>> This is Andrew Korsberg with DNR, I compliment you.
This is a great pulling together of ideas and taking the SWOT and moving to the next step.
You can kind of almost easily see how recommendations might come out of this.
So just want to say thank you.
>> Thank you very much for that compliment.
>> All right, you are cruising today!
Hope we didn't exhaust you too much yesterday.
If there are not additional comments we can move to economic development.
I didn't get any new content from economic development but I did pull ‑‑.oops, excuse me, their vision statement from their previous slide.
So would somebody on the economic development like to talk about what you all discussed after the July meeting?
Potential shifts or continuations in some of your thoughts and ideas of what Minnesota needs?
>> Yeah, this is Matt.
I can walk through some of the conversations we have had.
Any of the other task force members that are on the call feel free to jump in and to discuss as well.
We did update the vision statement briefly and I'll just kind of read through it here really quick.
Basically the vision statement.
To unite and invest in Minnesota's resources.
To drive a world‑class outdoor economy that facilities  obstacle‑free access, awareness ‑‑ sorry, promotion, awareness, stewardship and conservation.
Then we added:  On behalf of Minnesota's residents.
We talked about from a five‑year vision of success.  We talked a little about bringing together ‑‑ so there is four bullet points.
Bringing together outdoor recreation stakeholders and resources to collaborate on behalf of our shared parks, forests, trails, transportation corridors and destinations.
Building and strengthening and growing public/private partnerships, ensuring all Minnesota's landscapes are positioned as equal tenants in the Minnesota brand if you will.
Sharing resources.
Wisdom, best practices, bringing together the silos that exist out there.
Seeking to see the unseen, hear the unheard, questioning the status quo in that approach.
Number two, to lean out, simplify, make effective the system of both information creation and information sharing that is intended for the consumption of Minnesota residents.
So the messaging, communications and so forth toward our residents.
Focusing on their creating a pathway to get government communication out of government circles.
Make this communication mainstream.
Content any Minnesota resident can find without having to Google it, look online, search for it too heavily, that sort of thing.
Creating metrics of the money that is spent on the outdoors that demonstrates that, you know, it comes to equate for, you know, another return on investment for residents as the primary goal.
Also for the businesses in the outdoor space.
Kind of a secondary goal there.
Creating a path where economic development within Minnesota's outdoors has the ability to have an economic impact for residents as well as businesses.
Kind of along the same lines there.
Make better‑known the SCORP plan for the Minnesota outdoors, as created from a position of reference the plan as decisions are made on an ongoing basis.
Then refreshing the communication tools to speak the language of the 21st century mobile customer, if you will.
So, number ‑‑ that was number two.
That kind of focuses on Minnesota residents.
Number 3 focusing on audiences outside of Minnesota.
Establishing communication partners to distribute Minnesota's positioning statements or brand.
To unique niche or target audiences outside of the Minnesota market.
Local, regional, state, national marketing, so forth.
Number 4 being the creation of an Office of Outdoor Recreation to help us coordinate, create, design, implement, deliver upon all of those goals.
Funding and staffing the office appropriately.
Prioritizing Minnesota residents first.
Building real relationships and unity among varied and different outdoor recreation groups, and industry within the state.
And then understanding and deploying economic development tools and investments where outcome and end product to first build economy of Minnesota's residents and businesses.
And those were our four items.
>> Thank you, Matt.
I'll open it up if anybody else in the economic development group wants to comment or expand on anything Matt shared or if there's any comments or questions from the task force.
>> Anybody, miss anything there?
>> I think you covered it well, Matt.
>> Hi, this is Molli from the university.
One thing I didn't think about for access group, which I think you covered really well here, was making some of this information easily accessible to Minnesotans.  Specifically I think about when ‑‑ I mean, I have two young children.
When we try to find stroller friendly parks or people with disabilities trying to find wheelchair friendly parks I have to use All Trails App to find the resources where we are at in a location.
I think having that information provided publicly, not through the, like, private areas ‑‑ or at least having an accessible way to find that information would be really, really helpful.
I'm glad you brought that up.
>> Excellent.
We can send over our updated document on this, too.
I apologize it didn't get to you before the meeting started.
>> Yeah, no worries with that, Matt.
Yeah, if you send it over I can distribute it to the [inaudible]
Any other comments or questions for the economic development workgroup?
All right, well, we can move on to coordination [phonetic].
I'll hand it off to that team.
>> Hi, this is Aaron speaking for the coordination group.
>> Hi, Aaron.
>> How are you?
>> Good, how are you?
>> I will just, as others before me, I will read what is on the screen in case people can't see it.
The first slide that we are looking at right now is our vision statement for coordination.
That vision is the end goal or the obstacle or where we want to get to.
That reads:  Work together to create a strong, sustainable outdoor recreation community that delivers inclusivity, enhances diversity, builds economy and reduces conflict.
Then going to the next slide, you know, it's kind of the deliverables.
These are what our group is seeing as deliverables in the coordination group.
Number one being bringing together the outdoor recreation stakeholders within Minnesota annually.
Build community.
Drive relationships, facilitate unified understanding of outdoor recreation.
As a subpoint to that point, bring together groups that to date have not had an opportunity or voice to sit at the table.
Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and women in general.
We had opportunities I think as user groups to be at the tables but we learned through this work that we need a lot more people at the table.
As another point, share and make clear the plan.
That plan being SCORP.
The state of Minnesota's currently implementing.
The theory, the thought, the belief, the hope is when more of Minnesota knows the plan, be open to adjusting the plan based on feedback based on response from Minnesota.
Going to 2 on slide 3.
Clearly understand an object is not needed for outdoor recreation.
That is, our group has learned this and heard this.  It is resonating with us.
Being outside is outdoor recreation.
Number 3.
Minnesota has established a culture of outdoors that is welcoming of everyone.
Values of how we will all treat each other when we are outside together could be the next step to create.
We have world class outdoors.
If we can build a welcoming culture of safety, inclusivity, togetherness, stewardship, Minnesota will be a destination for outdoor culture on top of our outdoor resources.
Imagine people coming here for the culture of how people treat each other in the outdoors as the primary goal.
Then what we know to be true today, our actual outdoor resources being secondary reason they come.
I think we have that opportunity.
We think we have that opportunity, the coordination group.
Then number 4, a final point.
An Office of Outdoor Recreation exists to coordinate, create, design, implement, deliver on the goals.
In order to do that, fund and staff this office appropriately, prioritizing Minnesota residents first.
Minnesota residents need to know outdoor opportunities available to them.
Once Minnesota residents learn what is available, this office should continue to ask what they are missing.
We need to evolve, to adapt, to grow.
And promote Minnesota's outdoor benefits to a broader world after our residents are well aware of what we have right here.
And build relationships and unity amongst varied and different outdoor recreation groups within Minnesota.
This is how we explain that, to put it visual.
Relationships where compromise is not considered failure, but creating a win‑win based on total population, total natural resources and funding to make it all happen.
That's the five‑year vision of success that we see within the coordination.
With that, I will also stop talking and allow anyone within the group task force, coordination, to speak.
Or anybody in the whole program, as well.
>> thanks.  This is Hansi, chiming in.
I think it turned out well.
I'm impressed by bullet point 3, the idea of the culture of Minnesota's outdoors.
It really resonates with me.
The fact that a lot of states in the United States have great outdoor opportunities.
Instead of just comparing apples to apples where it is you go outside, that welcoming culture, that idea of inclusivity and togetherness really strikes me as a huge opportunity.
That I think we can all rally around.
>> I would second that.
I love the idea of the establishing culture of outdoors, the values for how we treat each other.
I think that's great addition here.
>> This is Lynnea.
I just want to chime in and say I really like all of it, and particularly the portion that folks have mentioned.
I think that is how you stand out and lead, because it is something that is needed everywhere, not just in Minnesota.
I'll just share we have been thinking about camping.
We normally go to a national forest this time of year.
And we have been really hesitant because we're concerned about what kind of culture we'll be stepping into.
We have friends who live off the Gunflint where we'll go.  We see the things they are dealing with there in their local community.
Around folks being hostile towards People of Color in particular right now.
And so that aspect of safety has got my husband really concerned about us doing that trip.
As a result I don't know we're going to do the exact kind of trip we would have.
So the implications for that are so significant and it is going to take a long time to get over the culture we're dealing with right now, to get back to a place of feeling safe being in a remote location again.
So I think this is really a great way of leading together and leading nationally.
>> This is Joe Henry.
I think pulling together ‑‑ you know, naturally everybody subscribes to their own radio station:  WIIFM.
What's in it for me.
If we can set our interests aside, figure a way to come together within outdoor recreation within the state of Minnesota, it will do us so much good, in so many ways.
I think easier said than done but I like the idea of somehow trying to pull everybody together.
>> This is Mark Norquist.
I'd add on:  Great job, team.
I think the cultural component is also a wonderful element.
I often talk about how I think we have been blessed in this state with these amazing natural resources and just by default we have been able to create an economy because of the wealth of those resources.
But it banked upon those as the primary asset.
It's time for us to be proactive about defining what that culture is around it.
And how we take care of it, and how we embrace everyone taking part in it, et cetera.
So I think it is wonderful.
Great job on all the points.
>> Well, thank you everyone.
This is Greg.
I have to say a lot of this was shaped by Aaron, too.
Our whole group worked on it but giving Aaron some kudos here.
The culture thing, I think we all agree with that.
Question is how do you pull it off.
I think of the outdoor culture now.
You can think of the leave no trace culture.
There is different elements to that.
How we put that forward, make it tangible will be important.
I also want to highlight the other one, number 2.
This was also kind of came from the mind of Aaron.
You know, [audio difficulty] not needed for outdoor recreation, simply being outside is recreation.
How important it is.
In my life, trying to get people outdoors, a lot of them are hung up on things like gear, how will I be viewed, a lot of different things.
And so I think that is an important one too.
So thank you.
[Pause]
>>Gratia Joice:  Additional comments or questions related to the coordination workgroup's work here?
If not, we'll move on to the access workgroup.
All right.
Not hearing any, we will move on to access.
Hand it off to that team.
>> This is Molli from the University of Minnesota.
We are able to meet on Monday of this week and kind of review our SWOT analysis.
We really did spend a lot of time on inclusivity piece.
Lynnea brought up quite a few good points about using terms like under‑represented, underserved, were sort of vague.
We want to make a push to make sure that everybody feels included that has maybe been excluded from outdoor recreation sector over the past, you know, years or centuries.
And we sort of broke things down into, you know, developing strong leadership in BIPOC communities, under‑represented communities, by listing out some of the priorities.
So you know, listing out Black, Indigenous, People of Color, including statewide native communities, finding leaders in all groups to help with the initiative.
Spelling out people with disabilities, L.G.B.T.Q. community.
We also broadened it to consider immigrant communities, definitely people with limited income.
And then people that have limited outdoor experience.
That wasn't something we thought about before that getting people comfortable with outdoor experiences would be an inclusive effort we should push and also varied education levels and the sort of comes back to the point brought up earlier.
I think last week.
About some of the marketing and promotion efforts have been focused on high income families.
Not necessarily representative of all Minnesotans.
Really need to make an effort to include everyone in that.
It can be a great economic opportunity by including everyone.
I think just, you know, moving forward some visions for the future.
We didn't get too much into it yet.
We were trying to better define what our audience would be for our goals for the next five years.
But just thinking into our diversity goals of increasing leadership positions with diversity for park programs.
Obviously building bridges with community liaisons represents BIPOC, disability groups and all the groups listed.
And then also with just equity.
So reorganizing cost structures to be able to provide more free and lower cost outdoor recreation opportunities.
Then educating.
You know, promoting stewardship, considering the younger generations of educating on these opportunities.
Then I think one of the other important things, looking for the future, is safety in general like Lynnea was talking about.
Taking a stand on systemic racism, creating a welcoming place for all communities in recreation and a zero tolerance policy for racism against community members.
Anybody else would like to add anything, happy to hear from you.
>> Any thoughts from the access team in addition to Molli?
Or else any of our task force members?
>> Hi, this is Sarah Milligan‑Toffler.
Part of the access team.
Thanks, Molli for that good summary.
Obviously we didn't get as far as other groups so acknowledge we have work to do to pull together the recommendations.
But Molli, I think you really summarized well the direction we are headed.
We will be working on that next piece.
[overlapping conversation]
>> Oh, go ahead.
>> Oh, just Gratia saying thank you.
Go ahead, Lynnea.
>> Thanks.
I was going to share one of the things that led me to talk about being more explicit in defining what we mean by under‑represented, underserved came from a lesson we are learning from legacy funds.
When we weren't explicit enough, funds are getting used for things other than what was identified as targets.
So the lesson I have been taking away from that and in the statewide advisory committee work, was really that being super explicit about what it means especially when talking about equity is essential.
Or even inclusion and target audiences.
Because people will default to seeing how close they can stay to what they like or are most comfort with or most knowledgeable about doing.
And it can be really hard if there is any vagueness or they can say, you know, we are working with older adults and they are an underserved population, which isn't an untrue statement.
But not working with any other populations, for example.
So that's one lesson learned from, I think, that process.
Is needing to be really explicit when you are looking for something particular to be an outcome.
>> Lynnea, this is Greg Lais again.
Could not agree with you more.
I would just say that, you know, how you do that is tricky because, of course, there is a lot of different interpretations of things.
But if we can get there I think it's a great goal.
>>Gratia Joice:  Additional thoughts before we move on?  This wraps up going through all the different workgroup presentations today.
I just want to make sure if anybody wants to go back to anything else said earlier, or remark on ideas in general, now would be a great time to do that as well.
All right.
Well, we can move on, keep truckin', maybe get out of the meeting a little early today.
So you know, last week we had a small group get together for the public engagement subcommittee conversation.
One thing that was discussed and Aaron has really emphasized through the beginning, you can see some of his ‑‑ workgroups he is participating in, is this idea you kind of need a vision or impossible goal that you are reaching for ‑‑ to, to kind of center the work and really focus what you are doing.
I think it is great a lot of our workgroups have developed those vision statements.
You know, I think through the SWOTs we have seen there is a lot of overlap between the work that falls, you know, between the five buckets we identified early on.
Access, coordination, economic development, promotion and public awareness.
Then stewardship and conservation.
But you know, as we move towards making recommendations on behalf of outdoor recreation as a whole, we thought it would be a good exercise to kind of take what we have learned from our individual workgroups and develop a ‑‑ an overall vision statement or impossible goal, as Aaron likes to call it, for outdoor recreation in Minnesota as a whole.
We have some really strong vision statements for the individual workgroups, but I was hoping we could work together to formulate a statement more broadly.
Then the recommendations that y'all will be developing will be working towards meeting this goal, if that makes sense.
So I don't have, you know, ‑‑ I think if we were in person this would be work shopped in a very different way.
But I was just hoping we could have a conversation, throw out ideas.
I can ‑‑ I'll be actively taking notes here.
And people can throw out ideas and then if we have time, I know word smithing in a meeting is kind of painful sometimes.
If somebody has a great idea that people ‑‑ we can reach consensus on we can come up with one now or take this info and do refining and send it back to you offline to kind of finalize the vision statement.
So I just will open it up.
You all can throw out ideas for components that should be in this.
Then we will kind of go from there.
>> This is Aaron.
>>Gratia Joice:  Hey, Aaron.
>> This is hard work.
[Laughter]
I mean, if people have something, definitely would be great to talk about it.
But I also think to some degree it is like getting all of these statements that we just went through in one document for us all to look at, to find and feel that commonality would help.
But I'm totally open to if someone zinged it and that's the whole thing.
But I just want to say when you create the impossible dream sometimes it's impossible to start.
With all the content we've been given, it is personally, I'm only speaking for me, like I have to let that really sink in.
And then come back with, okay, here's what I feel.
I'm not trying to get out of a meeting.
Just trying to be honest.
If other people feel differently I will gladly listen, please know that.
>> No, I can totally feel that, Aaron.
Yeah, if this isn't the best way to do that I'm totally happy to alter course.
I know some workgroups didn't get a chance to really form vision statements so it can be hard when we are missing pieces of the puzzle to really get that cohesion.
So if you all feel you want to do this another way I'm happy to accommodate that.
>> This is Greg.
I kind of do agree with Aaron, appreciate your openness to things.
Realize how difficult this is, especially by Zoom, you know, with 20 people.
You know, maybe one idea here ‑‑ the good news to me, when I heard everybody's statements from all the different groups, it seems we are ‑‑ I haven't heard anything incompatible.
I think we're all on the same page.
The question is how all‑encompassing is this vision statement going to be.
Maybe one thing we do is delegate it to one ‑‑ maybe if one member of each group would volunteer to help shape a vision statement together, then bring it back to the group?
That might expedite the process a little bit.
Just thinking out loud.
Putting out ideas.
>> This is Aaron.
I'm having an old‑fashioned raging agreement with you, but that's just me so I would gladly volunteer for any group I worked in to do that.
>> I think ‑‑ this is Mark Norquist.
Greg, I think it's a great idea.
>> I agree with that.
>> Yeah, I agree as well.
It gets the perspective from every group to create a more holistic vision.
>> Yeah, I'm totally in favor of that.
I really like that I want it to come from you all, task force members, that would be great.
I'd be happy to help facilitate a conversation or meeting around that.
You know, maybe since most of us are on the call, I know Aaron already volunteered on behalf of one of his groups, it would be great if I could get volunteers now.
Because I think it would be good to get this process ‑‑ I'm going to go over the timeline in a little bit.
But we are in a little bit of a pinch point where we need to start moving toward recommendation.
I think the vision statement will really help with that.
And so it is something that we probably should get moving on pretty quickly.
If we could leave here, it seems we have a plan, we just need the participants.
So you know, be great to have at least one person from each workgroup.
And I think if there's an interested person beyond that or so, I think that is fine too.
So, yeah, if folks would not mind raising a hand now we could get this process rolling soon.
That would be great.
Any volunteers besides Aaron?
[overlapping conversation]
>> I was going to say it's J.R. from Polaris.
I'm happy to help either on economic development workgroup or in another capacity if that would be useful.
>>  Thanks, J.R. 
>> This is Lynnea.
I'm happy to pitch in.
>> Awesome.
>> This is Elliot.
I'm happy to help out with stewardship and conservation.
Doing that stuff.
>> Awesome.
Aaron, you are in coordination and promotion?
>> Ah ... yeah.
>> Okay.
>> I guess I'm representing coordination right now?
Is that true?
>> Yes.
[Laughter]
[overlapping conversation]
>> I see how it is, Greg!
>> Anybody from promotion that wouldn't mind steppin' up?
>> I'm hesitating as I give everybody a chance, but if nobody else would like to I would certainly ‑‑ Joe Henry.
>> Thank you, Joe.
>> Awesome, thank you.
I know it's a little hard to volunteer right on the spot.
Okay, so Aaron, J.R., Lynnea, Elliot, Joe, I will email you after this meeting with the vision statements we do have.
We can make a plan of attack for how to develop one to share back with the task force related to kind of the overall vision.
So let me go back to my PowerPoint real quick.
So in the agenda we did have time for a break.
We are, like, significantly ahead of schedule.
So we could ‑‑ why don't we take a slightly shorter break.
It is 1:54.
If we meet back at 2:00, we will hear from public engagement subcommittee, we have another brainstorm activity related to that.
And then we have time for Q&A.
And next steps, then we are out of here.
So take the next five minutes.
Get some water, go to the bathroom, all that good stuff, and we'll see you back here at 2:00.
[Pause]
>> All right, everyone, welcome back.
Hope that quick break was useful.
Next we are going to talk about public engagement which I know has come up a few times as questions from members about the plan for that.
So first off, I forgot to mention at the beginning of the call both chairs, Randolph and John, are unfortunately not able to be here today.
I will say that Randolph has definitely taken the lead with the public engagement work and so I don't know completely all the details so if you have questions I will do my best to answer.
But any additional thoughts or questions you have I will make sure to pass on to Randolph and get back to you once I have the best information.
So thank you to our volunteers who are willing to join the public engagement subcommittee.
We have Aaron, Greg and Katy.
Who offered to join.
We all met last week, me, Andrew, Randolph and the three of them, and had a really great conversation around public engagement strategy related to getting feedback on recommendations that y'all are soon to be developing.
And so we ‑‑ Randolph kind of outlined a plan that was two tiered with formal engagement opportunities and informal opportunities.
I'm actually going to pass it off to our task force members who are on the subcommittee to talk through some of the ideas that were brought up at last week's meeting.
So, Greg or Aaron, I don't know, either of you want to take over?
I know Katy had a conflict, she was going to be a little late to the meeting so I don't think she has joined.
>> This is Aaron, I think Greg should do it.
[Laughter]
>> Guess that's payback!
Well, what ‑‑ we were going to review what we talked about at the engagement plan?
That what you wanted to do?
>>Gratia Joice:  Yeah, I think just talking through the formal versus informal opportunities and kind of the plan, yeah, we discussed last week.
>> Yeah, Randolph kicked it off.
I thought he was right on.
He ticked off an approach to which was one or two, you know, large virtual public engagement sessions where you share background information, [indiscernible] solicit feedback, and then to make sure we didn't leave any group out, you know, I mean I guess it's in recognition that outdoor recreation in Minnesota is a big swath of people.
You know, to have some more focused public engagement opportunities.
Specifically seeking groups that may not be at the table or traditional have not been at the table.
So we can further engage them in conversation.
That kind of covers the first slide there.
Is there a second one, Gratia?
>>Gratia Joice:  Yeah.
>> So people can read that, see, that the shareable information, survey to collect feedback.
Giving background information on why we are doing this.
Draft recommendations.
Soliciting their input of what they like, not like, what's missing.
And so you know, I think that in terms of the who is involved ‑‑ oh, yeah, now I remember.
We were talking about having task force members who represent organizations also use their networks and their constituency or listservs to help build engagement and involvement.
So for all of you that work at organizations, you know, to try to do that.  Also to identify other groups that maybe are not listed here.
So we can get a broad‑based level of engagement.
I think we all want people at the end of the day feel they had a chance to engage and speak to this plan and not have people coming forward afterwards that they were left out or, you know, ignored or not engaged.
Is there another slide, Gratia?
>>Gratia Joice:  No, that is it.
I can speak a little, too, to some differences between the formal and informal.
I think Randolph in his role had kind of ‑‑ you know, we are all aware not every voice is on this 20‑person task force and there are perspectives missing.
And so hoping we can pick, you know, ‑‑ prioritize maybe two to four groups to engage a little more thoroughly through a more formal engagement setting.
Then using an informal opportunity to seek feedback from, like Greg mentioned, your own networks as task force members.
We have a listserv of like 500 people who are interested in this topic that we can email information out to.
And then other groups that maybe we don't have the capacity to do formal engagement with but can still seek their feedback.
So we have a platform that should be launching hopefully pretty soon that could be great for this.
It is called bang the table.
I know one idea Aaron brought forth was having like a really, really short video.  Or presentation.
Chime in if you would like.
That kind of provides quick information that gives folks enough info to know, you know, what the task force is all about, what we're trying to do, so when they review the draft recommendations in whatever form that is, they can really provide us with good feedback.
I think keeping it pretty simple.
I think questions were what do you like, what don't you like, what's missing.
As a way to kind of capture their feedback with the two ideas.
So it may be confusing the way it is listed here but we have a formal bucket then this informal bucket.
The informal bucket we'll kind of use a more one‑size‑fits‑all platform to share [inaudible]
I don't know, Aaron or Greg, if you want to chime in there?
>> This is Aaron, I would say you both captured it.
And the real goal being that, you heard it said earlier, but getting government communication out of the government circles, if you will.
Then how do we create this link to a website, if you will, that clearly states what is the goal of this work and allows people to know what's behind it so we're not just asking opinion without context.
I think that is challenging in itself, just to say that.
But once it's done well and done quickly, then being able to provide, if we have it, the vision for the whole program and then the recommendations coming out of each group, then just simply allowing people to know what those recommendations are and context of what the greater work is.
Then we each as stakeholders I guess, within this group, to use that simple, online link to share it within our circles of influence.  If it's just shared on state communication networks, I have no problem with any of 'em, but it won't reach our people where our people are.
And how do we do that.
If we don't do that, we still haven't done our job yet.
That's the opportunity I think each of us as members of the group have, is to use the network you have.  Hopefully with all us doing that together with a simple link to bring people to, we can feel better about making sure we haven't missed something.
Because I think we are all sensitive to, and should be, every time we get together we all learn something new.
There might be another opportunity to keep learning and we don't want to miss that.
>>Gratia Joice:  thanks for that additional context, Aaron.
>> I think it is spot on.
This is Greg again.
When I look at the list of people from Matt, Lynnea, Breannea, Girl Scouts, REI, there is a lot of ‑‑ and Sarah from Children and Nature Network, collectively there's a big network of people here that can be reached.
I don't know, you know, maybe one question I would ask, Gratia you are in charge, you can stop this, but how would people share about ‑‑ feel about sharing this once we get it online, how would they feel about sharing with their networks.
Does that seem like something your organizations would go along with?
>> Greg, this is Sarah.
And we would certainly be happy to connect with the Minnesota Children and Nature Collaborative to get out to that Minnesota network.
Be happy to do that.
One thing I just wanted to highlight something Lynnea actually brought up on her conversation this week.
Which is a lot of data has actually been collected from folks already about how, particularly in terms of how they feel about access to the outdoors.
So I'm wondering if there is maybe an opportunity to also, you know, collect and sort of summaries information we already ‑‑ summarize information we already have heard from folks.
Then sort of build on that.
So not necessarily asking people maybe who have been asked some of these questions already to answer again.
Lynnea, is that a fair summary of the question you were raising?
Don't mean to speak for you.
>> Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.
That's what I brought ‑‑ did mention that.
And I did take some time to kind of scan and look for some of those research articles.
And survey documents and I found a number of them.
I mentioned that Met Council did a very extensive focus group study just a few years ago.
It is focused in the metro area.
And with BIPOC populations.
But there are others as well.
So I started collecting links of where these things live in the hopes we can include that information at a minimum.
But to be also just thoughtful that we keep asking people.
And I think especially on the public and non‑profit side of things.
I don't know that that's the case.
I think that is probably not the case in the context of the for‑profit industry side of the industry.
And I think maybe some of the information that would be collected would be a little bit different.
But ... yeah.
[overlapping conversation]
>> Steve from REI.
I would have to look into the ‑‑ I was going to say we have to look into the mechanism, Steve from REI, of how we do that.
But I would think it would be something our organization and members would definitely embrace and want to be engaged in so, yes, I think it's a great idea.
>> I don't know if I heard this but did someone want to ask a question.
>> Yeah, Lynnea, hi, it's Gratia.
When you talk about the articles, studies you have been collecting, when you said:  Including that info at a minimum, can you clarify a little what you meant?
Terms ‑‑
[overlapping conversation]
 ... how you want to use that?
>> Just saying not to ‑‑ that I don't know I know enough to say we shouldn't do the process that we're talking about doing.
But to at least, in addition to that, at a minimum, also include information that is already been collected and research that's already been done.
Does that make sense?
>> Yes, perfect sense, thank you.
>> This is Greg.
I think it does make perfect sense.
It is something that perhaps has a homework or takeaway representatives here, like Sarah, I know, she sits on a big body of research.
You know, maybe we somehow pitch in ‑‑ I don't know if we would have like a resource on a website that already acknowledges that or puts it out there, but maybe that is something members of this task force could look at.
Because the way I look at it, what our real goal, we are trying to do here, we are trying to engage Minnesota, the broad Minnesota community really from, you know, hunters to the tree huggers, to the whole gamut here, get them in a common conversation, and celebration of the great Minnesota outdoors.
And so I think ‑‑ and my guess is we all have been ‑‑ filled out way too many surveys especially in COVID‑19.  So I hear, Lynnea, what you are saying.
Maybe we could ‑‑ maybe part of this, part of the Office of Outdoor Recreation, is having a ‑‑ steering people to where all of this information already exists so ...
I'll sign off here.
>> This is Sarah.
Yes, I would be happy to pull, you know, research and information that we have in our collection to help inform this.
But I think maybe what we would think about is, you know, ‑‑ and this ties back to the previous conversation, which is sort of build some of our recommendations.
Not only out of our own SWOT analysis, looking at some of these surveys done and recommendations folks have made that have come out of those surveys.  Then identify if there are gaps in the information that has been asked.
Focus our survey on questions that appear to not have really been asked.
Just a thought.
>> I also think, and I'm just wondering, there are things I found in looking at the surveys that either are bubbling up from communities who are ‑‑ have historically been underserved and also I would say from the public sector point of view.
I wonder if there are different types of questions that would be coming out of the for‑profit side that would be uniquely different.
So both gaps.  But also, are there things uniquely different?
I just don't know, coming from just that I haven't worked in that part of the sector.
For example, a lot of the surveys talk about what kinds of amenities or activities or supports people would like.
How they like to spend time in the outdoors.
And what are barriers to them participating in the outdoors.
Those are the things that we know a lot about.
Are there other types of questions than those things that particular industry might value knowing.
>> I think that's a great question.
I would ask that the Katys and J.R.s and the people that represent kind of the north ‑‑ Lake of the Woods, tourism associations, that kind of thing, what kind of surveys or things or information are you guys collecting.
Is it the same? 
>> Yeah, this is J.R. 
I'm not ... I'm not sure what we have.
We have a lot of customer data internally.
And then, um, kind of ‑‑ but mostly around use of our products, how they like to recreate using them.
Don't know if it's broad enough as we're thinking here.
Correct me if you think I'm wrong.
>> This is Joe.
For Lake of the Woods tourism, as far as information we get, a small to mid‑size tourism bureau, we get a lot of detailed research information from Explore Minnesota tourism.
I know they have lots and lots and lots of research available for the state of Minnesota, anyway.
>> This is Asha.
[audio difficulty] so I'm here representing [indiscernible] outdoors but I also work for the city.
Just listening to the conversation makes me think about ‑‑ you just said it J.R. 
Like you have existing customer information.
But it is like I wonder about all the folks not currently reaching, how do we get them connected in ways like an online survey.
And so what comes to mind for me is like, this is just a personal example, I'm doing the work, specific outings, specifically with and for the BIPOC community.
We're getting folks who are trying things like who have never fished before or kayaked before.
There's a lot of interest around camping.
I would be willing to bet if I put on this BIPOC outdoor Facebook page we have going, who wants to ride an ATV or wants to go snowmobiling or blah blah blah, do archery.
Because it is something that a lot of us may not have had opportunity to do.
I feel like there's potential ways to get some really good information from folks by providing opportunities, if that makes sense.
So whether it's ‑‑ I'm not necessarily trying to ask y'all to throw me support and money to do this.
But like but if there is ways, right, to plug in to existing communities and existing groups and say, hey, come try this and let us know what you think, right, it's like ‑‑ again, just making things up at this point.
If you said to me, hey, we got 12 ATV's, y'all can come to whatever place.
Like you can ride the ATV's [audio difficulty] you let us know afterwards how it was, what would get you to do it again.
Do you know anybody else who does this.
You know, just getting like ‑‑ I don't know, I think there is value in putting experience out there.
I would say for the BIPOC outings I have been doing we have had ‑‑ like I do have a survey at the end for everybody.
But just being in the space together, listening to conversations, being part of conversations, just gives a lot of really, really good insight in addition to like the more [audio difficulty] surveys.
When people come back to do an outing or sign up for the next outing, or tell me how they took their family members to do the thing they had done with us.
Like those indicators, right, I feel there's a lot to be learned in there.
From folks who's may or may not want to ‑‑ want to or be able to go online for that survey.
>> Asha, this is Mark Norquist.
I completely agree with you.
I think there is a ‑‑ I think there's oftentimes a focus on trying to get quantitative insights through surveys and other measurement tools that are definitely important and helpful but, as somebody who has worked in the business world for many years, the value, my mind, just as much comes from the qualitative insights gained from things like exactly what you described.
Experiential events.
Getting people out and getting them on a trail, getting equipment in their hands, et cetera, those types of things.
And I think that's something that we don't do often enough.
I've actually transitioned to putting more of an emphasis on qualitative rather than quantitative insights in recent years because I think there is such great value in that so I completely agree with your perspective on that.
>> This is Lynnea.
It's been a while since I was really involved with, like, industry folks.
But one of the things I perceived, and J.R. I wonder ‑‑ curious if this is more of a norm, is helpful.
That the research that is done around customer base is really focused on who is currently buying.
There's not as much resource or dollars put into understanding who could be a client or who could be a customer.
Is that ‑‑ just curious.
Is that accurate?
That perception?
>> Lynnea, this is Mark Norquist again.
I will quick jump in on that.
I've been involved with a lot of market research over the years.
I'll speak specifically to the hunting, fishing community, because that is the work I focus on and recruitment and introduction of your non‑traditional individuals into those worlds.
And there is no data on that.
And I actually ‑‑ that is something I have looked at doing, have talked to different people about possibly putting together some ‑‑ that would be a space I think there is good opportunity for quantitative insight.
There is really very little insight on the psychological aspects toward tendency, openness to activities that aren't currently engaged.
Almost all research out there is based on the community [audio difficulty] already rather than the technological side of the potential, people who are open to new activities.
So I think that is a wonderful area of opportunity.
>> [off mic]
>> Hey, this is Andrew Korsberg.
This is a really, really interesting conversation.
The one thing I want to maybe add is that the sort of the focus for the stakeholder input will be around task force recommendations.
And so maybe, you know, this topic of better customer research and expanded understanding of diverse groups and how to ‑‑ what ways to facilitate better access could be part of the recommendations.
Just wanted to add that in.
>> Thanks Andrew, and thanks everyone for your good input.
I think there is clearly a lot of good ideas and passion around this topic at the table.
So I do hope that, you know, by having such diverse interests at the table via this task force, hopefully there can be some good recommendations going forward that call for a need for more or better understanding of this research, filling in to the gaps that were mentioned.
Are there any other thoughts on the public engagement plan?
Like I said, you know, it's not quite fully fleshed out with the specifics of the timeline or anything like that yet.
But I anticipate it happening pretty darn quick, just given the fact it is almost September.
So if there aren't any other thoughts, we can move on to our public Q&A.
But I will give it a couple more minutes in case people want to chime in with any last‑minute thoughts.
>> Andrew again.
This is just me stating my opinion, right, a little bit.
But I think it's ‑‑ one things that would be interesting, you know, at the DNR, we're an agency that has a lot of public land.
One thing I have been thinking about is how do we facilitate everyone like to have, you know, maybe new uses or unique uses of public land.
So instead of just assuming that different groups are going to want to use the land in the same way but, on the other hand, to think about how do they want ‑‑ how do other people want to use the ‑‑ diverse groups want to use this public land.
An example I think of.  We have a lot of cross‑country skiing opportunities.
This originally was ‑‑ there were a lot of Scandinavian people who have come to Minnesota in the past.
So now that is a recreation that is there.
But maybe there is other ways, other activities that different groups want to use that same land.
So anyway, that's something I've been ruminating on that.
>> That's a great thing to call out.  In the short time I was managing a nature center one of the things I observed were people coming from all over the world and having different ways, different knowledge of nature, different knowledge of different types of animals or use for plants than what dominates here.
And that oftentimes they're viewed as our need is to translate to them as opposed to creating a culture of exchange and find opportunities.
And it really struck me, the nature center I ran was at West Bloomington, Richardson and Highland Park reserve, every year is a chair lift ride in the fall.
My first year, there was a huge population from southeast Asia, in particular India.
And I started to ask ‑‑ they were such a huge number of the people who came.
This event was a traditional nature center event.
Folk music playing.
And furs on tables, things like that.
They were super interested.
I thought, well, what would happen if we did this event with Sitar music playing instead?
Or try to find out what are some ways of being in nature from their homeland that we could incorporate?
I think it doesn't have to be a loss of other things, because people love that exchange.
But I think for folks from ‑‑ who are from the U.S. and may not have had experience with that, that could make for a really amazing new nature experience as well.
So I think that opportunity for cross‑pollination and when that's the approach, as opposed to seeing it as an either/or, but seeing it as both/and can be innovative and welcoming kind of approach to the work.
>> Thanks Andrew, Lynnea, for those perspectives.
Not hearing additional comments so we will move on to public Q&A.
I'm not seeing any questions in our Q&A chat box.
But I'll give folks a couple minutes in case they want to submit a question.
[Pause]
You know, maybe we will move to next steps but keep the Q&A open so if folks want to type a question while we're still chatting, do that.
And we'll have time to come back to those.
In the meantime we can keep movin'.
So I wanted to go over some next steps.
So in a ‑‑ in the next slide, I believe, I'm going to kind of review the overall timeline.
But maybe this will change a little bit given the fact we didn't end up coming up with that grand vision statement for overall for our body of work.
But our next meeting is September 21.
We're, you know, as outlined in the charter we are hopeful to have recommendations to Explore Minnesota and Department of Natural Resources by December.
So kind of working backwards from that, we do need to have some draft recommendations ready soon so that we can share them back with each other.
So we'll be asking workgroups to get together.
You know, if you haven't finalized the vision statement, be great to do that.
And then within the context of that vision statement work on a suite of draft recommendations based on your workgroup topic.
I would love it if those recommendations could be to me in about three weeks, by September 16th, just so I have time to send them out and folks can read them in anticipation of the next meeting on Monday, September 21.
At the September meeting, we will go over and discuss draft recommendations.  I'm sure there will be good conversation related to people's ideas.
We will see kind of where there is overlap, enthusiasm.
One note with these recommendations, the charter kind of outlines that these recommendations should be actionable.
You will want to put some thought into kind of how to make ‑‑ can you put any action in there so it is something that could be implemented by Explore Minnesota or some other agency.
Between September and October we are hoping we can have a small group meet.
I don't want to volunteer the same group that volunteered to the do the vision statement but something similar where somebody from each workgroup that can get together to collate the draft recommendations and kind of finalize a suite of draft recommendations which will be the recommendations we ‑‑ recommendations we set forth in our public engagement efforts.
So we will fine‑tune the draft recommendations before we go to the public.
So expect an email from me seeking volunteers again.
I think this work will be pretty fun.
I don't necessarily see it being a totally heavy load.
You know, Andrew and I are there to help facilitate the process but we really think it's important that these recommendations come from ‑‑ come on behalf of the task force.
So it's really important we have folks willing to do the work offline.
I know with our virtual format it can be hard to get the work done in the meetings.
So hopefully we will get volunteers for that.
And then just kind of reviewing the timeline.
We have got two more meetings definitely on the calendar.
September 21, we'll review draft recommendations.
October 21 we'll finalize draft recommendations.
And we're really, you know, we don't necessarily expect the group to meet full consensus, though that would be great if there was, you know, broad agreement on the draft recommendations.
But depending on kind of how the group is doing we may do some voting on those as well.
We'll spend October and November doing public engagement.
We are hoping to actually get work done soon scheduling some of those events and communicating with some of the groups we would like input from.
So we can get that scheduled.
And then we will take the feedback we received from the public and fine‑tune recommendations based on that feedback to create a suite of final recommendations that will hopefully be submitting by I would say mid to end of December to DNR and Explore Minnesota.
So as you see there's a lot to accomplish before our deadline of December, but I think there's been so much good work that has gone into your SWOTs, so much thought put forth already that I'm hoping you already have some good context and background to help you make those recommendations pretty smoothly.
So that is the plan.
You know, definitely open to feedback if people have ideas or comments on this timeline.
Just thinking backwards from December, this is what we came up with as kind of the most reasonable path forward.
But if folks have other ideas we're definitely open to those, as well.
And so that's the plan.
I do want to open it up to see if there are comments or questions now.
[Pause]
I just had a freakout where I thought I was speaking on mute this whole time.
I wasn't, that's good!
And I'll obviously be sending out information about, you know, kind of recapping all this stuff.
We had a few members that weren't able to make the meeting today.
So if any other questions or things come up and you want to connect with me please feel free to reach out.
I really, really appreciate everybody's hard work that they have put forth so far and appreciate kind of your patience with this process.
I know it can be really challenging to have these exciting conversations, put things on pause a little in between meetings.
But I really am appreciative of everybody's grace with this process.
I still don't see any questions or comments coming in from the public.
To our public.
I definitely want to urge you, if you would like to connect with anybody on the staff team, you know, outside of the meeting, we would be happy to do that at well.
Please feel free to email the task force email address which you can find on our web page and we can connect that way as well.
>> Gratia, this is Lynnea.
And I can't take credit for what I'm about to email the group.
So I just want to be fully ‑‑ or disclose that.
But I just sent a pretty extensive collection of research links including national and local, to the email list that I added some things to it.
But rain tree [indiscernible] has been super supportive of our work trying to do the same as Metropolitan parks and space commission.
She did a lit review for me, so I want to give her full credit for pulling all the research, resources together.
This question about what do we know.  We need to know more comes up so often.
Our commissioners are like, no, no more, no more need to know.
We need to act.
And so I share that with you and the group in an email just now.
>> Thanks Lynnea.
Thanks for sending that.
All right.
It did say thank you here.
I don't know what happened to ‑‑ so this is the last slide.
Just saying thank you to everyone for your participation today and yesterday.
Please look for an email from me.
If you would be willing to step up to join the team that kind of goes through all the recommendations I think it will be kind of a fun and interesting process, so we would really appreciate volunteers for that.
And that's all we have for you all today.
So we got out quite a bit early.
I hope you all get to enjoy your less hot afternoon.
>> All right, thank you.
>> Thanks Steve.
>> (Chorus of thank you's) 
(meeting concludes)