LIGHTLY EDITED FILE

         Minnesota Outdoor Recreation Task Force

                     July 20th, 2020

     Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR)

                         Remote

              9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. (CDT)

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>> Gratia Joice: All right, well, it looks like we

have most folks here, so for the sake of time, it's

kind of a tight schedule today.

I'm going to get going.

Should -- so we do have live captioning today.

It should automatically be on your screen, but if it's

not, you can always pull it up in a web browser with

this -- with this website you see below.

Unfortunately because it's a PowerPoint you can't copy

and paste.

So I'll give you a second to write that down in case

you need it, and then I'm just going to go over a few

reminders and housekeeping items before I pass it to

our chair, John Edman for some opening remarks today.

All right.

All right.

So just a couple of reminders.

You all have seen many of these before since this is

our third time doing WebEx.

But should you have any technical difficulties today,

you can use the chat to reach out to Madison McGovern.

She's acting as the host role today, or myself via the

chat and let us know and we'll do our best to

trouble-shoot.

I also have my email pulled up in case you want to get

ahold of me that way.

And like we've done in previous meetings, you can use

the chat function to raise your hand or if you have a

comment that you'd like put out there, feel free to use

that.

And directed your messages to all panelists so that the

entire task force can see your comments.

And then when speaking, please state your name and

indicate when you're finished and feel free to use your

camera when you're speaking just so we can continue to

get to know one another here.

And please remember to mute your mic when you're not

speaking just to eliminate some of that background

noise.

And then a note for our public who are in attendance

today, if you have questions or comments throughout the

meeting today, please feel free to use the Q&A function

to submit your questions or comments.

Our public question and comment section is actually at

the end of tomorrow's meeting, but we'll record

anything that you have today and go over those

tomorrow.

So that's all I have for housekeeping, so I'm going to

pass it over to John to kick off the meeting with some

opening remarks, and then, John, when you're done, you

can pass it directly to the access work group which

will be the first to present their presentation.

>> John Edman: Great.

Well, thank you, Gratia.

And good morning, everyone.

Thanks, everybody, for being part of today's call and

thank you so much for all your efforts up to this point

in time.

I think this is our third meeting together as an entire

group, and I know a lot of the individual work groups

have been meeting over the last several weeks to really

looking at strengths and weaknesses and opportunities,

and I really look forward to hearing about everything

that a lot of you have been talking about.

I've had the pleasure of being in one of the groups and

I know there's been a lot of robust discussion, and I

know that that's been true with all of the five work

groups.

So today, as I understand the agenda, we're going to

hear from three of the work groups today.

And then two of them tomorrow.

And hopefully after we hear from every individual work

groups, we can have a little bit of discussion back and

forth with all of you, and then when we're done at the

next two days, we'll start to get a little bit clearer

picture on where we're going and trying to fine-tune

exactly where we see as the opportunities, and where we

see as the threats and where we want to thread that

needle.

So this will be very helpful.

I'm very interested in hearing about what everybody has

been talking to over the last several weeks and then I

want to quickly begin with that.

But before I do, there's one other thing I just do want

to mention, and I shared this with the promotion and

public awareness group.

About a year ago, when this whole effort first began, I

was -- when there was efforts in the legislature to

create an Office of Outdoor Recreation, I wanted to

find out what is the status of these fesses of outdoor

recreation.

We're not the only state that's doing this.

And I wanted to find out a little bit about what the

status of what's happening in various states, and I

shared that with the promotion/public awareness group.

I also did a similar survey just about a week ago, and

I didn't get, you know, a complete response from all of

the respondents, from all the tourism directors in all

the states, but these are all in various stages right

now, and during the pandemic, some of them that were

actually making some progress have actually halted

their efforts.

Others are continuing October but if you'd like to see

that, I think I sent that to you, Gratia, and feel free

to send that on to the rest group because it's really

important to see what others are doing.

It's not like we have to be like others.

We are our own state, but it's just very interesting to

see how everybody is navigating through all of that.

Today I will be here for most of this meeting.

I have to bow out at 10:45 for another meeting.

But I will be here tomorrow and throughout the entire

and able to listen and to provide any feedback or to

basically take in all of the thought and conversations

that all of you have been having.

So that's really, Gratia, all I wanted to do.

It's mostly just say, welcome, good morning, and thank

you, everybody, for all your efforts.

And I think the first -- the first group that we're

going to hear from is the access group.

So I think with that, we're just going to turn it right

over to whoever is going to report for the access work

group.

>> Katy Friesz:  Great, thank you so much, John.

This is Katy Friesz with the Winnebago Industries

Foundation and Winnebago Industries.

Really proud to be able to partner with my co-chair,

Elliot Christensen, as well as all of the really, you

know, just thoughtful members of the access work group.

On behalf of our team, we do welcome you all into this

and invite you into this conversation.

And as John mentioned, has been a really robust

discussion, and so as a group and individually, we've

really spent time digging into the aspects of outdoor

access as well as outdoor equity that are really

imperative to our state.

Essentially in at this topic, your voices as well as

more voices are really needed to fully understand and

think through how we can be accessible and make sure

that the outdoors really are for all and welcoming to

all.

Also, a high level point that became clear in our

discussions as was the case in so many other work

groups is that there are tons of points of connection

and synergy between the topics and discussions that we

had as well as, you know, the topics and points that

came up in the other groups, so, really, also excited

about today to be able to thread that needle, as John

said, and think through our topics really do

intertwine.

So with that, Gratia, if you want it go to the next

slide, please.

So we, as a group, put together an imperative that, you

know, is definitely a draft and something that we can

think through, but, you know, Minnesota's beautiful and

varied outdoor resources contribute to our health and

well-being, quality of life, and economy, our

imperative is to understand and remove barriers that

prevent all people, especially those disproportionately

excluded, such as individuals with disabilities,

low-income individuals, underrepresented and Black,

indigenous People of Color communities from accessing

Minnesota's outdoors.

We wanted to share some relevant data that we have come

across.

There are -- there's a plethora of really rich data,

and so I do think an opportunity for us in the spirit

of continuous learning is to be able to look through

and round out some of these data points.

A couple of the data points are heavily focused on

children and youth, but do have applicability to adults

and, you know, the entire population.

So some things that we were using as framework, as we

continued on in our discussion are that Americans are

spending more time indoors than they did 20 years ago.

We spend 90% of our time in closed -- in enclosed areas

such as buildings and vehicles.

Youth of course are spending less time outdoors.

Children and youth also are struggling with mental

health and obesity concerns.

This is, again, not unique to children and youth.

Our entire population is -- struggles with these

issues, and there are nuanced differences in different

segments of the population.

We also are aware that concerns about public safety may

deter underrepresented communities from accessing

nearby parks and green spaces, so close proximity to

outdoor resources don't necessarily mean that -- that

they're being accessed and welcoming to all

individuals.

We also were thinking specifically kind of a zoom in on

Minnesota, and we know that Minnesota, with all of its

strengths, is also home to some of the nation's most

egregious gaps in education opportunity, income

equality, home ownership, health, and all of this is

based on racial inequity.

Minnesota's population is also aging and diversifying,

so we know that by 2030, 1/5 of our state's population

will be 65-plus, and more than 50% of our state's

population will be comprised of People of Color.

Meanwhile, the good news, the most direct route to

caring for the environment as an adult is participating

in wild nature activities before the age of 11, so

positive impacts of the outdoors.

We also know that and research shows that nature can

improve -- among, again, a lot of health and beyond

benefits that exist.

So a couple of the resources we shared links on this

slide, and we can share them, you know, Gratia has them

so she can share them out with the group, but of course

Minnesota Compass has some great demographic data

produced by Wilder Research.

The National Wildlife Federation.

Colorado Outdoor Rx, this report is really interesting,

it takes a really public health focused angle, but it

is a group of folks who came together to identify and

make a case for outdoors as a remedy to some of the

public health issues that are existing.

As well as of course the Child and Nature -- sorry,

Children and Nature Network.

Next slide.

So I won't spend a bunch of time on this.

This is our overall slide.

For strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and

challenges.

This is the slide that you saw that Gratia included in

the advanced materials, and what we will be doing now

is diving a little bit deeper into each of these areas.

So with that, I will turn over the conversation to Asha

to discuss strengths.

>> Asha Shoffner:  All right.

[ voice echoing ]

>> Asha Shoffner:  All right, can you hear me?

>> Yes, we can.

>> Asha Shoffner:  Okay, great.

I'm going to turn my phone off.

Can you still hear me?

>> Yes.

>> Asha Shoffner:  Sweet, all right, sorry about that.

Okay, so our group went through and looked at all of

these different components for access, and top of the

list for us was simply that we just have great parks,

trails, green spaces, and that we have, you know, all

four seasons, which means there's, like, so many

different ways that we can recreate in ways that other

environments can't.

We talked about how, you know, like, at least for the

Twin Cities, most folks live within, like, 10 minutes

of green spaces, and just that really there's this

whole, like, wealth of opportunities throughout the

state, both urban and rural.

Yeah, and we haven't, like, we have national parks in

our state.

We've got the Great Lakes.

We just -- we have an amazing state.

Like, so the natural infrastructure of our state is a

strength as far as access goes.

We also talked about or identified that we have a lot

of, like, high-quality cross-sector programs.

And resources and initiatives that we can look to and

learn from.

As we had talked about this, we talked about things,

like, there's youth employment programs that can get

young people into internships.

There are, you know, just straight-up current programs

that are already in place, and we can use other states'

models and initiatives that have worked.

We also talked a little bit about how existing

non-profits are focused on outdoor access in some

areas, but then there's also, you know, the

conversation around who's leading those non-profits,

you know, what -- who's involved in the decision making

around that.

So that's both a strength and perhaps an opportunity.

Something that I think most of us agreed to is just

that the outdoor industry acknowledges the disparities

that exist and wants to do better, right?

So that's why, you know, a lot of us have come to this

group even is knowing that something needs to change.

With that, too, I think there's both -- there's kind of

extra energy around serving Black, Indigenous, and

People of Color.

Especially after the murder of George Floyd, even more

so it seems like.

The outdoor industry is acknowledging -- yeah, those

disparities.

So, existing networks.

So one of the things that we had kind of noticed is,

like, both in Minneapolis and St. Paul, are part of

like the cities connecting children to nature

initiative.

We've got a lot of, like, coordinating bodies that

exist now, so, like, Minnesota Children and nature

connection, the national park and Rec association.

The Minnesota park and Rec association.

So we have these existing networks of, you know, great

people that are doing the work to connect folks

outdoors.

And then kind of finally here, we -- we recognize that

there's strong leadership in Black, Indigenous, and

People of Color communities, and that there is a

desire, right, to work together and I think this, too,

though is a strength and an opportunity of we can do

better in connecting with this strong leadership that

exists in communities.

To really -- to do this more collaboratively.

So I think -- I mean, it was fun putting this together.

I feel like, and I don't want to speak for the whole

group, but I feel like just really recognizing that we

do have a lot of strengths, and something as simple yet

as powerful as having this -- this natural

infrastructure of just amazing Parks and Trails and

waterways really is a huge asset to our -- to our

state.

So, yeah, that's it, I guess, for strengths.

Kick it over to some of our weaknesses.

>> Katy Friesz:  Thanks, Asha.

And this is Katy again.

Matt Gruhn will be presenting on weaknesses.

Matt, are you connected?

>> Gratia Joice:  I know we were having some trouble

getting Matt connected to his audio earlier, so --

>> Katy Friesz:  Sure.

>> Gratia Joice:  I'm not quite sure on his status.

>> Katy Friesz:  Okay, sounds good.

Well, just given that we want to have a lot of time for

discussion --

>> Matt Gruhn:  Can you guys hear me now?

>> Katy Friesz:  Oh, yeah, perfect.

>> Matt Gruhn:  Okay, sorry.

Good morning, everybody.

This is Matt Gruhn with the Marine Retailers

Association.

So, yeah, we talked related to weaknesses as well, and

as Asha pointed out, we've got some great

infrastructure.

We've got some great natural resources here.

But we do have some weaknesses that we feel we need to

address.

We're going to start those off with just kind of

addressing the idea that we have some outdoor industry

created barriers that disproportionately impact and

affect BIPOC and the underrepresented communities here

that we're trying to get more engaged with the outdoors

and so forth.

We talked a little bit about some of the lack of

multi-lingual, accessible, interpretive centers and

resources, the limited community engagement, lack of,

you know, culturally appropriate opportunities for our

diverse residents and so forth.

And really just kind of giving people the knowledge and

understanding of, you know, maybe people in

historically underrepresented communities may not know

how to participate in outdoor recreation, may not have

a path to get there.

So those are first conversation related to weaknesses.

Then we also talked a little bit about the -- the lack

of diversity in leadership and in decision making

around -- around our outdoors, and whether that's the

park program lacking the diversity, lack of awareness

in general about the outdoor recreational preferences

and needs of our underrepresented communities.

And that sort of thing there.

We also talked a little bit about some of the economic

barriers that people are faced with.

You know, sometimes there can be pretty high level cost

of participation.

There can be some barriers there to prevent people from

participating.

The infrastructure takes cost and that sort of thing.

So some of these costs and lack of funding and possibly

even lack of scholarships and that sort of thing to

make participation, you know, a reality for people,

we're faced with that.

I mean, it's pretty much everywhere you look, right.

I mean, winter gear can be expensive.

Whether it's some of our higher end boating, RVing,

whatever it might be, just getting people into those

and helping kind of with some of those economic

barriers.

Is something that we noted here as one of the

weaknesses.

There is a identified lack of program support as well.

Again, this kind of overlaps a little bit with the

economic barriers.

But when we talk about things like transportation

barriers for those who are looking to participate in

the outdoor recreation, maybe it's the gear necessary

to participate safely and that sort of thing, those --

some -- we kind of lumped that under a lack of program

support and maybe there are, you know, ways that we can

create better support structure to welcome more people

into the outdoors.

We also identified that there was a safety concern.

You know, sometimes being outdoors, people in different

communities and different underrepresented communities

and so forth have a lack of feeling safe, and that's

something that we need to address there as well.

We had a number of other weaknesses that we identified

that we kind of lumped under an "Other" section if you

will.

This is certainly not a Minnesota-specific topic.

This is prevalent everywhere.

But the definition of outdoor recreation can be

somewhat limiting, something that we might be able to

address there as well.

And then there are also -- there's also a need for us

to address the weakness of having full access for

people with disabilities.

And so forth.

So I believe that covers our weaknesses that we

discussed as a group.

And I think I'm throwing it over to Sarah to talk

through the opportunities.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler: Hi, there, good morning,

everyone.

Can you hear me?

Yep?

Great, awesome.

So we identified six areas of opportunity.

Relevancy, equity and inclusion, and cultural change

opportunities, revenue models, school-based

opportunities, COVID response, funding and grants, and

health and well-being opportunities.

So to dive a little bit deeper into this, what did we

think specifically we could do around relevancy,

equity, and inclusion.

We think there's really huge opportunity to increase

cultural relevancy.

For example, cooking classes with indigenous Minnesota

ingredients.

Black Lives Matter, LGBTQI, sensory friendly events.

We have an opportunity to learn more about what outdoor

recreation opportunities are desired by Black and

indigenous, People of Color communities, LGBTQI, and

citizens with disabilities.

We think there's real opportunity to lift up the

leadership that already exists within Black, Indigenous

and other communities of color.

Leadership and skills programs for Black, Indigenous,

and People of Color communities.

Including providing funding for these organizations to

participate in outdoor recreation.

Intentional diversity, equity, and inclusion lens

applied to outdoor leadership and decision making

across sectors.

We thriving there's an -- we think there's an equity

opportunity to do an analysis of policies, fees,

procedures, those sort of things to see where sort of

structural barriers might lie.

Expanding the definition of outdoor recreation to

include more culturally relevant and accessible

activities.

More collaboration between organizations and companies

that serve citizens with access barriers and outdoor

recreation companies.

I think there's a huge opportunity for increased

community-based decision-making.

And then looking at models from other states.

I was glad to hear you say that, at the top of the

call, you know, for example, we know that there's -- in

New Mexico, with their Office of Outdoor Recreation,

Representative Rubio included an outdoor equity fund,

and so there's some things to learn from New Mexico and

other states, but particularly around equity and

inclusion.

That's one to look at.

Second, the revenue models.

We think that there's some opportunity for income-based

pay models, park passes, programming, fee events, kind

of that sliding fee scale.

Opportunity for ride share options such as Uber and

Lyft vouchers, public transportation vouchers,

et cetera.

And we think there's economic positive to local

communities that could be created by increased

participation in outdoor recreation.

School-based opportunities.

We think school partnerships, you know, weekly field

trips to local, regional, and state parks.

As we reopen schools and other parts of the state from

COVID-19, we think that Minnesota's abundant outdoor

resources can be recognizes, you know, as part of that

reopening strategy and part of our critical public

health infrastructure.

Outdoor learning provides some opportunity to get back

to in-person learning safely.

And experiential learning, to close achievement gaps.

COVID response.

Is the fourth area that we identified.

We think that COVID really has increased interest in

Minnesota outdoor recreation opportunities, so there's

an opportunity to really leverage that.

Outdoor recreation, you know, is a safer option during

a pandemic for family gatherings and recreation and

getting out, you know, to do -- to do things outside

the home.

There's a revitalized appreciation for nature as well.

Due to COVID.

So how we take advantage of that or leverage that I

guess.

We think there are some opportunities around funding

and grants.

Grants and funding streams, you know, that would be

directed towards future growth in outdoor recreation

opportunities and funding for individuals, not part of

a program to recreate outdoors feels like an

opportunity that we identified.

Health and well-being, potential to improve the health

and well-being of the population by creating learned

behaviors through increased outdoor recreation and

really helping people to understand the connection

there.

Of the mental, physical, and other health benefits with

nature.

And then, you know, finally, just a couple of other

things that we identified is that it's -- there's an

opportunity for Minnesota to be a role model as a

leader for other states, and increasing outdoor

recreation, particularly for Black, Indigenous, People

of Color communities, and creative interpretation

centers that could combine history, art, and nature in

community, to sort of recognize that nature doesn't

exist separate from other parts of our communities.

So with that, I think we will go on to the threats.

Which will be taken on by Katy.

>> Katy Friesz:  Thank you, Sarah.

All right, so our threats and challenges that we've

identified, limited or negative outdoor experiences

could threaten or prevent the next generation of

outdoor enthusiasts.

So that could look like people who don't necessarily

see the value of outdoor recreation.

Or a lack of connection with nature early on that then,

you know, prevents them from having that life-long

sustaining bond with the outdoors.

Potentially some cultural norms or lacking

infrastructure that make engaging with the outdoors

more difficult.

We also are aware of shifting populations demographics,

and, again, the unique -- unique perspectives or

history that different populations bring to the

outdoors.

Some potentially historical trauma related to -- trauma

related to the outdoors.

We also want to make sure that Representatives from

underserved communities are engaged in making sure that

folks are aware of the outdoor opportunities that exist

and make sure that they are a welcoming opportunity for

all.

We also talked about funding, and how this could be a

threat or challenge.

Again, you know, as with all of these, there are

opportunities and challenges within -- within these

categories.

So limited funding, competing priorities, potentially

excessive restrictions on funding, and also aging

infrastructure that exists in the outdoors that does

require funding.

We also identified a lack of -- a potential lack of

authentic engagement with low-income, underrepresented,

and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

So really emphasizing here that the importance of

listening, asking tough questions of ourselves or of

the dominant culture within outdoor industry and

hearing answers, even if they don't meet the

expectations that we initially brought into the

conversation.

So also understanding what this means to populations

currently with limited or decreased access, and someone

in our group brought up a great point about meeting

people where they are in order to understand where to

go.

Safety is also a threat that we identified.

Again, people, you know, making sure that our outdoor

spaces are safe.

Also, systemic racism within the outdoor industry and

the sector.

So perhaps a lack of understanding of how systemic

racism works and how it functions to keep outdoor

spaces predominantly white.

The tokenizing of individuals and burnout of

individuals from BIPOC communities and other

underrepresented communities who are being perhaps too

heavily relied on to diversify programs or be a

spokesperson for an entire -- an entire population.

We also obviously recognize a barrier and a threat in

climate change and perhaps a disregard or

misunderstanding of outdoor stewardship.

So with the increased interest in the outdoors, you

know, we've seen some examples of individuals taking

advantage of outdoor recreation opportunities and not

approaching it with a stewardship mind-set.

So climate change and lack of stewardship are threats.

We also recognize that collaboration is so vitally

important.

It also requires time, resources, and aligned and

shared goals.

So that can present a threat or challenge to -- to

making the progress that we all want to make.

So with that, I will turn it back over to Gratia, if

you'd wants to flip to the next slide, and I'll turn it

over to Sarah to facilitate a discussion with all of

you.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  So we'd love to just hear

from all of you.

You know, when you think of access in your part of the

state or your area of expertise, what are the most

resonant barriers or challenges that we're seeing?

And do you think did we miss anything, I guess is a

question.

And what should we do as a group to understand -- to

better understand and address outdoor access issues?

And just, I guess from any of our sections, we just

would love to hear from any of you what resonated and

what you think is missing.

So with that, I don't know if we're doing hand raising

or how we're doing the interactive piece, Gratia.

>> Gratia Joice: Yeah, I think if folks have stuff

to share, just feel free to jump in, turn on your mic,

and participate that way.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Great.

And if you have a question for folks, I'll try and

direct it to the right person on our group.

Okay, good jokes?

[ Laughter ]

>> Aaron Hautala:  Hey, this is Aaron.

Can you hear me?

From Cayuna.

I'll just be the brave soul to say something first, I

guess.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Thank you.

>> Aaron Hautala:  But I think it resonates.

I hear it.

I feel it.

And I want to understand more about it.

When I think about being in central Minnesota, it's

harder to understand all of this.

And not that I don't.

I certainly do, and I certainly want to understand it

more, but it's like a next step for me would just be, I

would like a baptism in what all this stuff means at

some point because I've always lived in the north and

it's really hard to understand that there might be a

different story, but I think we need to be open about

that story and embrace that story and seek to learn

about that story and create the solutions accordingly.

But it will be hard unless we immerse ourselves in it

to really understand it.

Something I feel like I would like to do.

On my own behalf personally.

So I just thank you for the work you did.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Thanks, Aaron, and thanks

for your openness to -- well, first of all, being

vulnerable, and say that you have more to learn.

We all do.

And for your commitment to doing that.

So thanks.

Any other questions, comments?

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  This is Lynnea.

Can you hear me okay?

>> We can.

Good morning.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson: Hi, I just wanted to

introduce myself -- well, not introduce myself, but

just to say I -- when it's appropriate, I'm happy to

give some thoughts or share more.

I know it's kind of surprise I'm here.

Maybe situation.

But I think this is a great start.

I have some -- maybe not questions, but I have some

thoughts that I'm happy to share.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Great.

And sounds like maybe you'd prefer to share those

offline, and which we would welcome.

And --

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson: I can share them now.

If it's appropriate, I can share them now.

I just didn't want to --

>> Randolph Briley:  Hey, Lynnea, this is Randolph.

Let me just give a quick contextual background as to

why is Lynnea is here?

So over the past few months, our goal was obviously to,

one, have 20 voices at the table for this, at least in

the immediate task force.

And due to some difficulties stemming from just the

unique times we're in right now, we have only had 19

voices.

And so we really wanted to get that 20th voice.

So we invited this past Friday, we had a discussion,

myself, John, commissioner Strommen, had a discussion

on who that -- who should we invite to be that 20th

voice, and we determined it would be great to have

Lynnea join the task force for the remainder of our

term and this activity.

So that's a little bit of the background.

We're super excited to have Lynnea here.

She got a ton of institutional knowledge.

On these issues.

And so if you want to quickly introduce yourself,

Lynnea, that would be great.

And thanks again for joining us today.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  Sure, thanks, happy to be

here.

And so I'll just really quickly -- my name's leadership

atlas Ingebrigtsen.

I live in golden valley.

I live now about two miles from where I grew up.

Right on the other side of Theodore Wirth Park which is

where I really was able to spend a lot of my time as a

young person and I spend a lot of my time today skiing

and mountain biking, walking, and leading groups of

diverse folks in those kinds of activities at Wirth and

other facilities around the state.

I was the first chair of the Parks and Trail Legacy

Advisory Fund Committee, which was an amazing

experience, working with people from across the state

in all kinds of different industries.

And with interests.

And we had a -- in my time there, I think an amazing

experience of being focused on the work.

And I was an outdoor adventure guide for about four

years in Colorado.

And working throughout the southwest.

And spend a lot of my time in a lot of Minnesota.

With my family.

And helping to facilitate in a comfortable way diverse

populations, experiencing all that they own in our

state.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Wonderful.

Well, thank you, Lynnea, and welcome to the -- to the

group.

And thank you for that great introduction.

What an incredible addition you are to this group.

And I think we do have time here, so I would welcome

any specific feedback.

Or, you know, additional things that you would like us

to think about for this group.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  On the weakness slide, I

think it's good, and I think it's talked about.

I want to amplify that one of our weaknesses is that

People of Color experience verbal and physical threats

and attacks in our nature spaces by non-BIPOC people.

And unfortunately, I've been reflecting on this after

having an experience like this at a mountain bike trail

near my home.

With my son and another family.

And I think that we have to be concerned about how

other users treat BIPOC users in our spaces.

So as I reflected on that, I -- every time I've been

called a derogatory name, it's been in a nature space.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Hmm.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  In my reflection on that

in my life.

And that, I really hadn't come to that realization.

I think I had tried to hide that that was my -- a part

of my nature experience, because it's such a critical

part of my life to be in the outdoors.

So on the opportunities slide, I think maybe we're

getting at this, but I think it's good to be explicit

about talking about things like hiring diverse staff at

all levels of outdoor companies.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Mm-hmm.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  And not just companies,

but also within outdoor institutions, like my work at

the met council or at the DNR or at regional Parks and

Trails facilities or local parks facilities.

That's our biggest way of integrating is to ensure that

folks are included at all levels of what we do, not

just as clients or customers, but as co-collaborators.

And able to benefit from business.

I think another opportunity is right-sizing fees.

And aligning business plans for inclusion.

I was just talking to a friend who was out at Vail, and

a lift ticket for a day is now 200 bucks.

When I lived in Colorado, it was 85.

But we saw that happen here at Afton with Vail took

over.

We used to use it for our diverse downhill ski club,

and we no longer can use it.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Yeah.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson: I think another

opportunity is innovation during COVID.

And particularly around bathrooms.

I feel like that's a huge barrier for people being

willing to do outdoor activities right now.

They want to, but trying to figure out how can they

travel safely to a space where they can social distance

and be outdoors, but trying to figure out how do we get

that innovation.

I know that's really in the weeds, but it's something

that we hear a lot about in my role on the met council

and on the metropolitan parks and open space

commission.

And I hope we can get at that, especially soon.

The last thing is on threats.

And I think I just want to reemphasize that threat of

individual user racism.

I realize we talked about systemic racism, and that is

maybe a part of it, but we got to own that other users

when they're out there do crazy stuff.

And we all know it.

We've all experienced that group on the river who had

too much to drink.

For example.

Or on the lake or in the campground.

But that is something that women, children, people

experiences are targeted and seen as vulnerable.

We have to acknowledge that that happens.

And I think also, I think this is what someone was

trying to say, but I'm not sure.

If we just focus is a philanthropic solutions or a

scholarship approach, we miss a business model that is

inclusive, and that can actually bring revenue to

agencies or companies.

And then making sure there's always a focus on

accountability and measures.

In the threats.

We tend to go for intent as opposed to, what are we

actually accomplishing?

That was my list.

Thank you so much.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Thank you, Lynnea.

That's incredible -- incredibly helpful and, you know,

really good feedback.

And I just want to make sure, Gratia, and team, are

these comments being captured so that we can include

them and revise our -- our analysis?

>> Gratia Joice:  Yes, yep, so I'm taking notes.

We also will get a transcript from the live captioner,

and the meeting is being recorded.

So we've got a few different avenues.

To get those added to your SWOT.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Perfect, because I think,

you know, Lynnea, I think you're right that some of the

points we sort of stated that we can state them, you

know, more explicitly.

And I think we -- it will be much stronger if we do so,

so thank you for that.

Anyone else?

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, this is Greg Lais.

Hi, Sarah, hi, everybody.

Lynnea, it was great to hear your comments, and I just

wanted to mention here, you know, I guess one of my

concerns about the access issue overall, and that is

just, you know, this month is the 30th anniversary of

the Americans with Disabilities Act, and, you know,

when that passed 30 years ago, it triggered a whole

bunch of things in the outdoor recreation space for

access within the State of Minnesota.

And around the country.

And the access board has put forward all kinds of

standards for everything from parking spaces to, you

know, trails and so on.

And I, you know, being a participant in that for many

years and observing that for many years, I think -- and

looking at the state of where we're at now, we've

certainly made huge improvements in access in Minnesota

state Parks and Trails and all over the country.

But it's also kind of faded in the rear view mirror in

a way, and I would just say that what we really have to

work on is making sure that these issues we're talking

about with equity and different communities are not

just kind of a flash in the pan.

I mean, how do we sustain -- how do we sustain the

interest and the focus on this for many, many years and

that this becomes part of our -- part of our overall

culture?

And I think that's a challenge.

I mean, I -- I would just say that, you know, we're

going to need to focus a little bit on that.

That's all I got.

Thanks.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Thanks, Greg.

Appreciate that.

>> J.R. Burke:  Hey, this is J.R. Burke from Polaris.

I just wanted to add a little bit to what Lynnea said.

And I was just -- I'm really moved by the

thoughtfulness of her commentary and recommendations

because I -- I full throatedly support everything that

she laid out.

I think one of the things is we look at the

opportunities and I'll talk more about this during the

economic development task force's comments, is when we

talk about our partners in the public sector like the

DNR and Explore Minnesota and others is there's also a

great opportunity to think about it in terms of the

individuals who become your customers from the DNR

perspective, the business community is usually the ones

that they have the first level of interaction with,

because they go out and get the tools and resources

that they need to go out and then experience the

outdoors.

So if you think about it, you know, from a Polaris

perspective is, you know, the customer of the DNR is

first our customer, Polaris's customer, or, you know,

the fishing gear customer.

Whatever the case is.

And so what's interesting about Lynnea's comments and

maybe where there's some correlation is that these

companies spend significant amounts of money

researching and better understanding who their current

customer is and who their future customers are and

really what drives their decision making processes to

really go out and enjoy the outdoors to how they think

about where the value proposition is for their

purchasing decisions and so on and so forth.

So to Lynnea's comments, I think there's also an

opportunity for better collaboration between these

public agencies and the private sector where the public

agencies and the non-profits may be able to gather some

really important data and really do it efficiently and

economically as we try to really better understand who

the outdoor consumer is.

And really what drives their decision making processes.

And the reality is, that for companies like Polaris,

just like the DNR and Explore Minnesota is we're always

up against the challenges that come along with

encouraging people to continue to recreate outdoors and

how do we overcome those things.

And so there's a lot of learnings that I think can be

interwoven in this -- under this idea of collaboration

that can expand the discussion to issues around

diversity and inclusion and how do we make more safe

environments for outdoor recreation of people of all

types and desires for the types of recreation that they

do.

So more to come on this, I'm sure, but I really hope

that this remains a very top of mind and relevant part

of the conversation.

So thanks to Lynnea for bringing all that up.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Great, thank you.

>> Perry May:  Hi, this is Perry.

>> Sarah Milligan Toffler:  Hi, there.

>> Perry May:  Hi.

Say, I want to go back to one of Lynnea's points.

I, too, grew up in the Theodore Wirth neighborhood area

and one of the opportunities at least when I was a

young kid was the park board system.

And the park board system at that time was not really

focused around sports.

It was getting people outdoors.

I mean, we did things.

Made canoe trips, kayak trips, hiking trips.

We had archery.

We had all kinds of things at the park board level.

And that really inspired me.

I now live in Northern Minnesota.

But I think there's a great opportunity there to give

more people outdoor access through the park board

system.

So I'll leave it at that.

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler:  Thank you, Perry.

That's, you know, not included specifically in our

opportunity section, so that's a really great point to

add.

Thank you.

Anyone else in the few remaining minutes here before

our next presentation?

This is really great discussion.

Really appreciate all the feedback.

Okay.

I think I'm not hearing anyone else raise their hand,

so I'll pass it back to you, Gratia.

>> Gratia Joice: All right, thank you, Sarah.

And thank you for the access work group for being the

brave souls to go first.

I know you didn't have much of a choice, but thank you

for all the work you did and for that great

conversation.

We're a couple minutes ahead of schedule which is

great.

So with that, I'm going to move on to the next work

group, and that is the coordination work group.

And I believe Greg Lais is going to facilitate this

conversation.

So, Greg, I'll pass it to you.

>> Greg Lais:  Great, thank you, Gratia and everybody.

You can all hear me okay?

>> Yep.

>> Greg Lais:  Great.

Yeah, so my name's Greg Lais and I'm with Wilderness

Inquiry and we're here to talk about the coordination

group.

I have to say that the access group was very good.

Well done presentation.

So this is kind of a tough act to follow.

And we're only the second one.

You know, we had a -- we had a robust group, a lot of

discussions.

Hansi Johnson who was the co-chair of this group, is

not able to join us today because he's on a canoe trip

in the Boundary Waters with his son, so he's practicing

where he preaches which is a good thing.

And what we did is we generated a whole list of SWOT --

SWOT statements, I guess you could say, like too many

of them, 19, so we condensed them into this slide,

which Gratia, I don't know if you have that slide or if

you could put that up there.

At this point.

Kind of the summary slide.

But what we did, though, was we -- Aaron halve la who

is in the group, kind of came up with our end goal was.

And I don't know if that's in the slide.

I don't think it's.

I'm just going to read it to you and it'll get in the

chat here.

So the end goal is to work together to create a strong,

sustainable outdoor recreation community that delivers

inclusivity, enhances diversity, builds economy, and

reduces conflicts.

And that was I guess what I would just say was sort of

our over arching vision statement there for this

coordination group.

And from that came our strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities and threats.

So what we're going to do is just go through those kind

of person by person here.

And I think to kick off the strengths part and have a

little discussion is Perry May is going to start with

that.

So, Perry, would you take the strengths?

>> Perry May:  I can.

Thank you, Greg.

Hope everybody again is hearing me okay.

Is that a confirmation?

Can I get one?

>> Yeah, we're here.

>> Perry May:  Thank you.

Yeah, so again I'm calling in from beautiful Outing,

Minnesota, in the middle of the Land O' Lakes State

Forest in -- so it's great to be part of the

coordination group.

Minnesota really has an abundance of world-class

outdoor resources and this is combined with good public

and private outdoor rec organizations.

And that really drives a relatively high outdoor

recreational participation rates.

So it's kind of all connected together.

Great resources, great organizations, gets people

outdoors.

There's also a history, both public and private

partnerships, and a desire, you know, to work together

to increase outdoor recreation.

That's exactly what we're doing here today.

You know, how do we increase this?

And again, most Minnesotans have that genuine desire to

increase outdoor recreation.

There is a recognition among decision makers, our

legislators, you know, the business community, that we

have a great outdoor legacy that we need to maintain,

promote, and grow.

And it's kind of an intrinsic Minnesota value that we

recognize our outdoor spaces.

And we, again, we know that we have to maintain and

grow this.

And finally, one of our strengths, you know, if it's

national, statewide, or regional communication

networks, we have a lot of ways to get the

communications out about our outdoor spaces, outdoor

recreation.

Could we be more coordinated?

Yes.

I think that will fall a little bit in our weaknesses.

But we can, you know, really strive to have a

comprehensive statewide outdoor recreation network.

And so that's kind of our top strengths.

As Greg mentioned, we had, you know, quite a few other

things in our SWOT analysis that we combined, kind of

grouped together.

And these were kind of our top four in the strengths

area.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Breanne.

For weaknesses.

>> Breanne Hegg:  Thank you.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm Breanne Hegg from Girl Scouts River Valleys.

No unifying plan, vision, or end goal, and no office

entity unifying the goal or coordinating a

comprehensive plan.

So there's a lack of sense of what we're working

towards.

And what steps would be needed to take -- get us there.

As a state.

The second is organizations and populations from

underserved communities are often not at the table.

Often they're an after thought at best.

Perhaps what's most top of mind are organizations or

companies that have lobbyists that are more active,

probably have bigger PR, organizations and things like

that, and so that we're not comprehensively thinking

about underserved communities as well when we're

thinking about coordinating together.

The third is that many associations work in a bubble

creating user group silos, and we need to reduce

redundancy of efforts because we're not working

together.

We may think we're the only ones working on something.

We may not realize who we could partner with, and

that's hurting our state when we're just duplicating

efforts or not working as effectively as we could.

The lack -- last is a lack of effective definition of

outdoor recreation.

Which contributes to a lack of clarity and who to

coordinate with.

This kind of echos some of the comments made by the

access group that outdoor recreation can be defined in

a traditional or narrow way.

Often tied to, you know, expensive gear purchases or

equipment or specialized opportunities.

We talked about that as a group.

And thinking about and having a more effective

definition by helping everyone realize and who we can

be working with and kind of working towards a broader

goal.

So with that -- so that wraps up the weaknesses.

We can move on to opportunities.

>> Steve Voltz:  Hello, everyone.

Can you hear me okay?

Hello?

>> Yes, we can hear you.

>> Steve Voltz:  Great, hey, this is Steve Voltz with

REI and just to talk about a few of the opportunities

related to coordination.

We originally identified as Perry had mentioned 15

different opportunities as they related to

coordination.

And we thought we -- there were definitely some common

themes in there, and so we wanted to narrow it down and

talk about those common themes and -- and -- and know

taking that some of the opportunities that were

identified were either related or possibly even action

steps that would help achieve the goals that we're

going to talk about.

And the first one is just overall to create -- there's

an opportunity to create a master vision, a big giant

goal.

I think Aaron had stated it.

A state master vision and objectives for outdoor

recreation.

There's so many things, so many great things going on,

at different agencies, different companies.

Non-profits.

All over the place.

But what is that master vision for outdoor rec?

And we definitely think in terms of coordination,

that's a big opportunity.

The second one would be, and it's been talked about and

Breanne even talked about it, is to expand and find the

big tent of outdoor recreation.

There's a lot of organizations and populations,

underserved communities, who just aren't at the table

enough, and so that's a big opportunity in terms of

coordination.

There needs to be a voice, and -- and they need to have

a voice into what that is that we're talking about in

terms of outdoor rec.

It's -- I think it was talked about how we -- in terms

of, like, companies that sell, outdoor equipment or

thinking about customers now, our current and our

future customers, and that tent definitely needs to be

broadened and brought to the table.

The third one is using the outdoors to promote health

and well-being in a more coordinated system.

You know, recognizing that there's definitely building

body of science that shows time outdoors improves

health and well-being.

And there's lots of great things happening in this

state and other states as well, but a more coordinated

effort is definitely needed for making that more a part

of our daily lives.

And then lastly is in terms of an opportunity of

coordination is to create an office that can help us

create a bigger plan for outdoor recreation to increase

outdoor users and further group goals.

There needs to be -- and that would bring all this

together, it would help create that vision.

We need some entity or someone to create those visions

and objectives and that can be charged with the

coordinating of the stakeholders so that we can achieve

all these objectives.

And that summarizes our opportunities, and with that,

I'll hand it over to Aaron who's going to talk about

threats.

>> Aaron Hautala:  All right.

Can everyone hear me?

About threats?

Yep, great.

So we have three main points, three main bed rock

points, and then we have little bullet points trying to

explain it a little further to make a visual.

But the first threat/challenge is a territorial threat

to change which means two things, existing state

department or agency can default towards self-serving,

or the advocates within user groups can be

self-righteous or overzealous.

Another main bed rock point is internal biases and

stereotypes we have within broad outdoor recreation

community.

And an example there is competing companies, user

groups, may not want to work together because they may

not know what's in it for them in the big picture and

we need to understand how we're all interconnected, and

when we don't have a big picture to grab from, all you

can see is your own, but if we had a much bigger

picture, I think that would help that working together,

extending hands across the aisles and making it happen.

And then the definition on what outdoor recreation is,

and you've already heard it, is currently too narrow.

An object isn't always necessary or needed to recreate

outdoors and I'll use myself as an example there.

In Cuyuna, I always thought prior that you have to have

a mountain bike to recreate in Cuyuna, no, that's not

true.

Last main bed rock point is no state agency focuses on

engaging Minnesota's population in outdoor recreation

as its primary mandate and the risk there, the threat,

the challenge is that if no one's responsible, no one

does the work, and then a secondary risk is if there

was no budget appropriated for this agency for this

outdoor group to do, the work still can't be

accomplished.

So first of all, someone needs to be responsible, and

then if someone is responsible, it needs to be

appropriated a budget to make it happen.

And if both things don't happen, it's a lot of good

ideas that won't come to fruition.

Back to you, Greg.

>> Greg Lais:  Great, thank you, Aaron, and everybody.

As I mentioned earlier, or -- and also Perry mentioned,

we created a really -- 19 strengths and once 45

weaknesses, I mean, a long list of all of these things,

which I think Gratia you had in that other PowerPoint

that you sent out, so all of those things are in there

and available to people if you want.

But this was kind of our summation.

We decided to limit it to four really for each area.

And I just think that one of the -- one of the issues,

if I can paraphrase for our group, that we struggled

with a little bit was kind of the scope of

coordination?

You know, what is the definition of outdoor recreation?

You know, and what -- where do you begin to coordinate

all within a state as big and diverse as Minnesota?

Was one of you are issues.

And I meant different government agencies, federal,

state, local, NGOs, or non-profit companies, but with

that, I guess we would like to turn it over to

discussion and questions and see if any of you have

comments, questions, or discussion points.

And we'll look for that brave soul who will go first.

Katy, is that you?

>> Katy Friesz:  I'll be brave today.

So one of the things -- great work.

I think this is really lays out some interesting

points, and the threats and challenges I think are

right on.

One of the things that occurred to me as -- especially

from a coordination standpoint, as you all were

presenting is it would be really interesting and

helpful to have a stakeholder map or some kind of echo

system -- ecosystem map or kind of document that does

attempt to kind of lay out what are all of the

different stakeholders involved that do need to be

coordinated or could be coordinated?

And so that, you know, I just share that out to the

group as something that could be a great next step for,

you know, whatever the right group to do that would be.

But that could be really interesting to just visually,

I'm kind of a visual person.

To see it.

We might be able to move forward in figuring out what

some synergies might be where we otherwise might not

have guessed that they're there.

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, great, thank you for that.

I think that's a great idea myself.

And I'm sort of a visual person too.

We call that sort of a meet map.

On to see where the people are I think would be

awesome.

Anybody else on that issue or others?

Heat map.

I'll ask a question then of the group.

Do we think that right now we have good coordination

across the state?

In this realm?

>> Sarah Milligan-Toffler: Hi, Greg.

It's Sarah.

I'll jump in here.

Sarah from the Children and Nature Network.

I know I was part of this group, but I wanted to just

build on something that Katy said.

You know, I think it's interesting to think about

mapping the different constituencies and groups that

could be coordinated but I also, you know, and the

agencies and organizations, but I also think it's

interesting to think about, you know, policies that

exist remember, you know, that support or don't support

good coordination.

And then, you know, really understanding, you know,

sort of where the places are and what the opportunities

for recreation are and what the quality of those is.

And how much the -- the local community feels that

those spaces are for them.

So I mean, it's, you know, I think that that mapping

function is something that could really, really help

with coordination and help that, you know, I'm sure

there is some coordination, but it's certainly not

where it could be to really -- to really address, you

know, that these issues of everyone having access to

the outdoors.

Thanks.

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, thank you, Sarah.

I think that's really a good point.

And I, you know, I'm -- we've talked, and I'm a big

proponent of the stakeholder map and the ecosystem out

there.

And I think that goes into kind of the recommendations

category perhaps here.

But I love the idea myself.

Anybody else there want to make a comment?

>> Asha Shoffner:  Yeah, this is Asha Shoffner.

I finally was just able to connect as a panelist.

So with the map, the idea of mapping out, like, folks

that exist already, I feel like that's still going to

leave out all of the communities and folks that have

been left out.

I think that in general, the outdoor -- doesn't do a

very good job of just valuing the voices and

experiences of underrepresented folks.

Specifically BIPOC folks.

Well, not even specifically BIPOC specifically.

I think in general the outdoor industry doesn't do a

good job of listening to folks or valuing or validating

their experiences.

There's that risk of when you're mapping out those

existing folks to try and coordinate those efforts that

it's still going to be the voices that have continued

to be left behind and the communities that have

continued to not be seen by us that won't be a part of

that map or won't be included in the coordination.

So I think there just have to be really intentional

work around bringing in new folks on that map as well.

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, thank you, Asha, I couldn't agree

more.

And I think that, you know, how a map could

conceptually put forward would require some thinking

and doing.

I know in my conversations with people, one thought we

had with the map was that could also be used to

identify those gaps and places where people aren't

being served and to help identify groups and people who

are not currently, you know, being served.

Which could be a part of that too.

But it's a very good point.

It's easy to show kind of -- easier to show what's

currently happening, not necessarily as easy to show

what should be happening.

So we would need that.

So I agree with you -- I agree completely with your

comments.

Anything else that anybody would have here on any of

these strengths or weaknesses or opportunities?

>> J.R. Burke:  Yeah, hey, Greg, this is J.R. from

Polaris, and I would, you know, as I've listened to

some of the comments that just came before me, it would

seem to me that, you know, the opportunity of creating

a -- an office of some sort, and I think you'll see

that in some of the other SWOT analysis too, but

because you have a coordinating entity to bring these

deficiencies and opportunities, more top of mind, and

bringing those disparate stakeholders whether it's the

state agencies, the legislature, you know, the

different types of communities and other stakeholders

out, you know, whether it's local units of government,

you know, manufacturers like Polaris and others

together, I think it's -- it's an important point to

say that we almost need some sort of entity in whatever

form it takes, to really elevate the conversations that

we're having rite now around -- right now around these

important issues and then really coordinate them so

that those people who may operate in their own function

are forced to operate outside of the traditional norms

and customs that they otherwise would and really bring

that collaboration and coordination to the forefront.

So I would just add that as something that's really

standing out to me as we have these conversations is

the importance of having some organizing function that

can really metastasize all of these concepts so that

the different stakeholders come together around some

overarching themes and objectives of the work around

outdoor recreation.

>> Greg Lais:  I think that's a good point, J.R.

Thank you for raising that.

And I would just say that from our discussions on this

committee, I mean, that was very much in line with --

with our conversations and how do we -- how do we

include everyone at the table?

You know, back to that vision statement of, you know,

inclusion and diversity being, you know, kind of main

themes and broadening our -- or making the bigger tent

here.

I think Steve made his point in the opportunities thing

of expanding the big tent of outdoor recreation.

And I -- yeah, how do we go about doing that would be

one of our challenges, but clearly one of the

opportunities too.

Anybody else have any comments?

>> Mary Bauer:  Hi, this is Mary.

And I am looking at the opportunities just using the

outdoors to promote the health and well-being in a more

coordinated health system, and to me that seems really

huge.

A big opportunity to jump onto some of the bigger

health corporations and try to get their buy-in to be

able to bring some funding to this.

And coordinate this.

So maybe it's a really good time now also.

But anyway, I'm glad that's on there as an opportunity

for coordination.

Thank you.

>> Greg Lais:  Well, thank you, too, Mary.

I think that's great.

You know, and I'm mindful.

I know Gratia was saying to us way back when, I know as

far as the SWOT analysis, I know we're going to move on

the in the process here it seems.

Gratia, I'm not wrong there, am I?

>> Gratia Joice: Yeah, you are correct, Greg.

Working our way there.

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, but so I mean, how do we do that

would be obviously the next question there, and, you

know, simply put, I mean with the feeling of our group

was, is if we can really unify the state in an outdoor

recreation context broadly and communicate broadly,

then we have a much better chance of persuading, you

know, the health systems that this should be included.

So it's kind of was one of our themes for coordination.

Other questions or comments that people might have on

this particular topic?

I have one question of people -- if people don't.

And when I saw it here, and it just, you know, we were

thinking about this when, you know, no unifying plan,

vision, or end goal.

You know, we do have SCORE, the state comprehensive

outdoor recreation plan.

And I'm just wondering if there's anybody here who's

familiar with SCORP and how that might fit into this

coordination discussion.

>> Erika Rivers:  Greg, this is Erika.

I can comment a little bit on SCORP.

So if there's something specific I guess please let me

know.

Otherwise I can give you the overview of it.

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, that would be helpful.

>> Erika Rivers:  Are you asking for the overview?

Okay.

So the SCORP is a product that is required by the Land

and Water Conservation Fund.

It is supposed to be a comprehensive plan for outdoor

recreation across all the states and what it does, a

SCORP is required every five years right now and helps

the National Park Service understand how the state

agencies and -- not just the state agencies but how

outdoor recreation comprehensively is managed in the

state and what the goals and priorities are of our

SCORP.

SCORP.

So since our Legacy Fund was passed ten years ago, our

SCORP has taken from the very robust public input

process that occurred for the Legacy Plan ten years

ago.

There's a 25-year Parks and Trails Legacy Plan.

That guides the investments in those Legacy Dollars.

And our SCORP has taken the four pillars in the Legacy

Plan.

So the four pillars that are in Minnesota's SCORP which

was just approved last year are connecting people to

the outdoors is pillar number one.

Pillar number two is taking care of what we have.

Investments in the infrastructure that already exist in

the State of Minnesota.

The third pillar is acquisition and new development.

So creating opportunities for a changing Minnesota, a

changing demographic, and understanding that many parts

of our outdoor recreation system are quite old.

And are in need of revisioning and revamping.

And then the fourth pillar is called the coordinating

with partners pillar, and that pillar really tries to

integrate the many different outdoor recreation

providers within the State of Minnesota.

And try to build what you've talked about, some of that

collegiality and collaboration.

So that's what -- where the Minnesota SCORP is right

now, is building on Legacy and, again, I think

you've -- there have been several comments about not

wanting to reinvent the wheel, but also wanting to

create a bigger tent which I think is fantastic.

I would say that the one place that -- and I would say

that Legacy has changed the -- changed the game as far

as people coordinating with one another differently

within the State of Minnesota.

I would say, though, that I would say one of the

weaknesses is that, Legacy does tend to have some of

the more ardent advocates that are already part of the

system, and they themselves recognize the need for

broadening the tent.

And so I hope that there's opportunity to build on that

Legacy Advisory Committee, the coordination that

happens through Legacy, with whatever this group would

come forward with, because I think that is the sweet

spot, especially when it comes to business and industry

in the State of Minnesota.

And how do those voices come to the table as well as

those have mentioned in the previous group and this

one, BIPOC communities as well.

What else can I answer about the SCORP itself?

>> Greg Lais:  You said it was mainly for the National

Park Service?

Could you elaborate on that for just a second?

>> Erika Rivers:  Sure can.

So there's a pot of money at the federal level, it's

called the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

In the State of Minnesota, we used to call this law

con.

And it is an investment in outdoor recreation

opportunities across the nation.

What's interesting about what the Land and Water

Conservation Fund is in the State of Minnesota, we --

the legislature has divided those funds equally between

the state outdoor recreation system and the local

outdoor recreation system.

So just to the point of Perry and Lynnea earlier

talking about, you know, their connection to the

outdoors starting at Theodore Wirth state park,

Minnesota has long recognized with the federal funds

that come to the State of Minnesota, you have to start

at the near home part of the spectrum in order to get

people outdoors and so have made a significant

investment were those Land and Water Conservation Funds

into -- into that locally units of government.

So we run a fairly sizeable grant program that utilizes

those federal funds that way.

In order to be eligible for those federal funds,

though, you have to have a SCORP.

That's how the SCORP initiated and every state in the

union that participates in land and water conservation,

has a SCORP, statewide, comprehensive, outdoor

recreation plan.

And the reason for that is that many states across the

nation didn't do what Minnesota did.

They didn't have a way to coordinate local versus state

versus federal recreation opportunities.

And so, you know, we have several opportunities within

the State of Minnesota to coordinate amongst our

partners, especially now with Legacy Fund over the last

ten years, there's been lots of coordination between

regional, Greater Minnesota, as well as state outdoor

recreation.

But other states did not have that.

So -- so the S CORP is required from -- to have access

to those federal funds, and, again, what Minnesota has

recognized is not wanting to reinvent a wheel and

duplicate efforts again and again, we built off the

Legacy Advisory Plan, which was written ten years ago,

in those four pillars, and use that as the basis for

the scaffolding or framework for our SCORP.

>> Greg Lais:  Hmm.

>> Erika Rivers:  Is everybody in this group familiar

with the Legacy 25-year plan?

That's another very useful document that had very

robust public engagement.

And then we had a ten-year check-in on that plan just a

year or so ago.

So that -- that's also another opportunity for, you

know, building on work that's already been done I

think.

>> Greg Lais:  Yeah, thank you.

Erika.

My guess is not everybody's familiar with it.

At least I'm not completely.

And also, with the current SCORP, you know, I parted in

a few of them over the years, but -- and that may be

something worthwhile sending around to everybody on the

committee here or the task force.

We're kind of in an interesting situation of not

wanting to reinvent the wheel, but also, broadening the

tent and to some extent, reinventing the wheel.

So, you know, we're kind of at this cross-roads.

>> Erika Rivers:  Maybe building a better wheel.

>> Greg Lais:  Building a better wheel, yes.

>> Erika Rivers:  No, that certainly would be useful

and then I think the other thing as far as tapping into

what does the public want?

I mean, we've got a really great group here on this

team of folks that are advocates who bring that

perspective, but we also have a ten-year check-in on

the Parks and Trails Legacy Plan that we did at the

state fair as well as some regional workshops across --

across Minnesota.

And so there was some nice bit of public feedback and

engagement on, how are we doing with Legacy after ten

years?

What do we want to see more of?

Which also might be a useful document.

Now, all that said, I do want to just again emphasize

something that I said earlier, but I think broadening

the tent is the big -- the big sweet spot here as far

as opportunity, because I think that a lot of times

with those plans, the way public engagement has run,

oftentimes we do miss critical voices at the table.

And so I think there's a huge opportunity with the, you

know, the previous group as well as this group if we

identify that we need a better way, a more authentic,

robust way, to include BIPOC voices in particular, to

make sure that the investments we make, like let's say

in the ten-year Legacy Advisory Plan check-in, there's

strong commitment and desire across Minnesota to

connect more people to the outdoors through innovative

programming, and awareness, basic awareness.

So that's great.

But that's a good start.

That's a good piece of information.

And then the next question is, is how?

How do we do that?

And I think that's where the new sort of sweet spot of

engagement comes is really targeting engagement from

BIPOC communities to say, you know, how do we do that

better?

How do we as a outdoor collective of providers engage

more meaningfully and provide the resources and

opportunities that are needed to get more people

outside?

>> Greg Lais:  Thank you.

I think that is the question.

That's very well put.

And really appreciate your input here, Erika.

Erika, do you want to just briefly say who you are?

>> Erika Rivers:  Oh, yeah, sorry about that.

This is Erika Rivers.

I'm Director of Minnesota State Parks and Trails.

So I'm mostly here as a consulting entity if you have

questions that about things that are going in the state

system or coordination of efforts now.

Thanks, Greg.

Sorry about that.

>> Greg Lais:  No worries.

Well, that's great.

And, you know, obviously there's a lot of work that has

been done here but extending the tent and how do we do

that seems to be a central teem.

Does anybody else have any other comments about the

coordination group's SWOT analysis here?

Silos or existing forecasts or anything else?

If nobody has any further comments then, Gratia, I

don't know where we're at in the time table here.

But we could go on to the next -- to the next group if

you'd like.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Greg.

Yeah, we're a handful of minutes ahead of schedule,

which is great.

We actually do have room for a ten-minute break if

anybody needs to grab some coffee or run to the

bathroom or stretch your legs.

So we'll do that.

According to my clock, it's 10:32.

So let's meet back here in 10 minutes at 10:43, and

then the economic development team will present.

And we'll probably wrap up a little bit early today.

So, yeah, take a moment, stretch your legs, and we'll

see you back in ten minutes.

>> Greg Lais:  Great.

Thank you.

>> Gratia Joice: All right, everyone, welcome back.

We'll just dive right in.

I think I'm passing it off to J.R. to begin the

economic development conversation.

So, J.R., I'm passing it to you.

>> J.R. Burke:  Great, thanks, Gratia.

And as we go through this material, I will just the

cadence here is I'll talk about what we created around

a vision for what we think our work group feels will

enhance the outdoor experience across Minnesota.

We'll talk -- I'll talk about the strengths and

weaknesses first and then I'll turn it to Matt Gruhn,

my colead, to talk about the opportunities and threats.

Just real quickly, this certainly was a collaborative

analysis that we put together.

And thanks to Aaron and Steven for really grounding us

on this idea first around we need to come together

around a vision.

And Gratia, I don't know if you can advance to show the

SWOT.

That we submitted.

Yeah, great.

Thank you.

>> Gratia Joice: Can you see it?

Okay.

There's a little delay I think.

>> J.R. Burke:  Sure.

No problem.

We struggled, to be honest, and we think, and let's

just run directly into the development of a SWOT.

And then Steven and Aaron really grounded this group

around what do we want to achieve?

And the underlying themes there were really around

trying to be aspirational and to be ambitious and to be

results driven.

So what we came up was to unite and invest in

Minnesota's resources to drive a world-class outdoor

economy, that facilities greater access, promotion,

awareness, and stip and conservation.

 stewardship and conservation.

During our first meeting as we talked about the results

of our own submissions to the broader team.

That these were really aspirational objectives of many

of us.

So we really sat down and tried to build our SWOT

analysis starting first with this vision and going from

there.

So in terms of the strengths, I know it was mentioned

in other groups.

You know, seasonality is certainly one of those

strengths.

It builds into this idea that we, in Minnesota, are

able to offer a wide array of outdoor opportunities.

And, you know, some folks tend towards, let's say,

winter sport.

Some may tend towards summer activities.

And, you know, we provide a lot of diversity in terms

of the opportunities that are available based off of

our seasons.

You know, along those lines too is, it's also provided

Minnesota a great advantage of some really strong

headquartered stakeholders with resources here, and

this is not only businesses, but, you know, consumers

and our citizens themselves have a long legacy of

outdoor recreation and they're very engaged.

We also have strong public agencies at the local,

regional, state, and federal level who have access to

resources, manage those resources, have

responsibilities to talk about and to communicate the

available opportunities for outdoor recreation.

And then of course, Minnesota, as we all know and many

of the folks on the call also represent, we have really

strong non-profit community here in Minnesota.

So we're really blessed in certain respects that we

have a lot of great resources here that can be

leveraged by our stakeholders.

In line with that, though, there has to be, you know,

collaboration, and while we do tend to have a strong

spirit of collaboration here in Minnesota, there

certainly is some distance to go as we've all talked

about here already today.

You know, we have a really good base of infrastructure.

And points of access.

You know, if you think about the local, regional,

state, and federal parks, forests and trails here,

there are a lot of opportunities.

I think it's really connecting those dots that I'll

talk about here in a second.

But we do have a lot of great opportunities to recreate

outside.

We have some very recognizable destinations, whether

it's the North Shore, or Southwest Minnesota if you're

into, you know, birding or upland bird hunting or

whatever it is, down to the bluff country in Southeast

Minnesota.

And certainly like Lake Country and so on and so forth.

You know, we also as we talked through some of our

strengths, we talked about transportation.

And that plays into access and just the availability of

transportation corridors to get us to those places

where the opportunities exist.

And, you know, certain respects, we have, you know, I

think at least three interstates that run in different

patterns across the state.

We also have a strong state highway system, county and

city roads that can help us get to those places.

I think there's other questions around transportation

availability that come into play and we could talk

about those more in the weakness category, but we do

have as a fundamental base some transportation

corridors that can help us access those places where

the opportunities exist.

And then switching to finally around our regional

geographies and landscapes, you know, if you look at a

map of Minnesota, you can kind of see where, you know,

we -- we're unique in certain respects that we

transition from, you know, hardwood forest in the north

with a multitude of lakes, and river systems, into the

prairie and grasslands.

And just a different geography as you travel across the

state, and that also presents a greater amount of

opportunities to find new types of recreation.

The -- as you do that, though, you also travel from

rural areas to urban areas where new and different

opportunities might also present themselves for you to

experience the outdoors in different ways or maybe even

see outdoors that you would think in urban areas, let's

say Minnehaha Falls, for an example, you might not

otherwise recognize or appreciate that you can have

those really strong outdoor experiences right there in

the metro area.

And then we also have the -- kind of the, I don't know,

really how I would say this, but you have the benefit

of using reclaimed restorative lands to decrease your

footprint for how new opportunities are created.

So whether you think about how some fisheries are

created by the use of old mining pits up in the Iron

Range, to forest roads that were cut for logging or

whatever the case might be, to provide access for

hiking, biking, off-highway vehicle, or snowmobile

trails, things of that nature, it's really, how do we

reclaim some of these -- these lands that were

otherwise used for other purposes to create new

opportunities to get people outside?

And so as we switch to weaknesses, I think it's

important to understand context here, that strengths

can also be weaknesses and weaknesses can also turn

into strengths.

So some of the themes that you'll see here I think pair

well with -- where you kind of see those parallels

between our strengths and weaknesses.

And so one of the themes that really built to the

surface I know early on in our discussion and certainly

during the conversations with our work group colleagues

is how do we connect these dots and how do we

coordinate these varies resources -- varied resources

around a central theme and objective?

How do we really get them to buy in to that mission?

Skoe, you know, you look at these differentiators and,

you know, you have rural areas of the state versus

metro.

And some of the challenges that come with people's

different types of thinking.

Sometimes Minnesotans can tend to be somewhat disparate

and insular.

You know, even thinking about how do we replicate

successes of other states.

So we can expand the scope of our potential consumer.

So how do we get out beyond Minnesota's borders and say

we're willing to compete with a Wisconsin or a Michigan

or a Colorado, or other people that or other states

that may be viewed as doing things better than us.

You know, and that really gets down to figuring out

what are our goals, what are our measures and how do we

monitor those things?  You know, there's -- that's also

going to require us to be really open about

collaborating between different types of stakeholders.

You know, there's sometimes there's maybe a hesitancy

between the legislature and let's say the DNR to really

rally around central themes for a grand vision for

outdoor recreation.

You know, some might want to do certain things that are

related to their own legislative district rather than

looking at, you know, how do we create an entire system

of outdoor recreation that works for everyone, and that

requires us to embrace, you know, public-private types

of thinking and getting away from the reluctance to

engage with new stakeholders.

You know, we do have, you know, kind of going back to

that idea of the legislature, is, for all of its

Representativeness of Minnesota, there's also some

challenges that come along with how do you properly

allocate resources?

And there's sometimes clunky systems for determining

what those needs are, allocating those resources, and

then getting them out.

And then, frankly, measuring them too.

So we need to do a better job of coordinating those

processes to make sure that we get the desired result.

The -- you know, I talked earlier in one of my comments

about leveraging non-profits and other folks in the

private sector to better understand customers, and I

think that's one thing that is a great opportunity

here, and, frankly, this task force is an example of

it.

Is how do we bring to light the voices of our own

stakeholders in a way that has never been done before?

And, you know, really be the voice of the customer.

And then, you know, also I think we're in a really

unique perhaps to some extent but also exciting time

where we can and have brought in new voices to the

conversation that helps us right-size and level-set

these opportunities, and no disrespect to those on the

phone who may be of a different generation to me, but

really to enhance an aging population of decision

makers and really, what's the reality of today?

Where are those threats?

And because it's their legacy that they need to leave,

and hopefully they leave a legacy of opportunity down

the road in terms of outdoor recreation.

And they're not thinking about today, but they're

really thinking about what does outdoor recreation look

like and mean to Minnesotans 5, 10, 15 years down the

road?

One of the ways we need to do that of course is to

think about how do we break down those barriers and one

of the ways that our group really thought about it was,

you know, how can we leverage data and statistics to

understand what the challenges are and how to

substantiate and make credible the recommendations that

we made on how we meet those challenges?

So, you know, we also acknowledge that we don't have

access ourselves to all the data that's -- that perhaps

the DNR or Explore Minnesota has or other stakeholders

might have about what's being done today.

So I perhaps should have prefaced this by saying that

we don't have -- while we've identified some

weaknesses, we don't have a full understanding, and

that's also part the opportunity here is, how do we do

a better job of being transparent about the information

that we have so that we can make better informed

decisions, and then at the same time, we figure out

better ways to message and to market and brand

Minnesota's outdoor economy and its opportunities to

current and future customers.

You know, jumping down to economics and funding, you

know, going back to the stakeholder concept again, you

know, think about it in terms of a value chain of, you

know, our own organization.

That's how we tasked ourselves with looking at this is,

you know, if you don't have strong suppliers with an

identified resource to provide and a willing customer

for it and somebody to coordinate everything together,

and bring that value out to the customer, then you have

a break in that chain and you're only as strong as your

weakest link, so we looked at it as an opportunity to

think about how do we work together to make each other

better?

And that goes around establishing strategic objectives

and measuring the return on that investment and being

candid and credible on those things.

You know, we talked about this idea of bringing an

entity that kind of stands above all the other stoles

and -- stakeholders and this idea around coordinating

these resources.

So, for instance, if, you know, one of the examples we

had here is, you know, this ad hoc project by project

appropriations model.

I mean, anybody who has reviewed an omnibus bill in the

legislature recognizes that there is a lot of specific

projects that might be funded in those bills, but we

don't really talk about how that builds into a broader

strategic objective or vision, if you will, of what we

want Minnesota to look like for outdoor recreation.

So doing a better job of communicating those things

out, and bringing some certainty around the process in

which these objectives are funded and measured in terms

of effectiveness.

And, you know, the final thing is, you know, as we all

know, I mean, it's logical that what happens is, when

people go out to recreate, the purchasing power is

first recognized at -- or at least to the -- to a

greater extent, recognized at the local level.

These are folks that are going out and, you know,

they're purchasing gas at gas stations, and lodging,

and eating at the restaurants and cafes, wherever they

choose to do these things.

And, you know, how do we -- how do we work with our

local stakeholders as well to enhance the opportunities

that are made available?

And then finally, going back to that theme around

administration.

You know, having some sort of oversight function to

push forward this idea of a vision first, then mission.

And then branding that mission to execute on

established objectives.

You know, we -- it's easy to -- and I think Minnesota

has a tendency to be viewed as a society of doers.

But, really, you have to first break down barriers and

really think about what you want to be known for and

that's one of the challenges we have here and frankly

one of the great opportunities I think we have with the

broad array of stakeholders we have on the phone today

to really think in new and elevated ways to -- to

further enhance the outdoor economy here in Minnesota.

And then finally, You know, how do we get some clarity

around where we can further leverage our competitive

advantages?

That might be through Explore Minnesota with marketing

and advertising and pushes out a brand that's

established by this coordinated approach that we're

talking about here.

So with that, I will -- I'll kick it over to Matt Gruhn

to talk about some of the opportunities an threats.

And threats.

>> Matt Gruhn:  Thanks, J.R.

Everybody hear me okay?

Yep?

Okay.

You know, you're seeing a lot of this in a lot of these

different conversations, the collaboration, the

coordination.

You know, working together and that sort of thing.

And you're going to hear more of that here with our

opportunities as well.

And just kind of build off of what J.R. was saying, you

know, our group really felt pretty strongly about this

idea, this administration and having some sort of a

Office of Outdoor Recreation to kind of oversee the

opportunities that we're looking at as a state.

With the creation of such an office, you know, when we

talk about economic development, you know, one of the

biggest priorities here I think is something where we

can pull together all of this data and demonstrate the

impact of that outdoor recreation already has in the

state, throughout the state, and all of its various

seasons and all of its various forms, and approaches.

But at the same time, it gives us a focus on our

ability to really identify and establish new revenue

streams, new diversity and inclusion programs, expanded

access.

We talked a little bit about this idea of creating

some, you know, localized economic development programs

to focus on outdoor recreation.

But just really developing that narrative and

demonstrating the economic value that outdoor

recreation has for the State of Minnesota.

For -- for the state itself, there are many businesses

that support the outdoor recreation industry.

So forth.

Using that data to really talk about it, to have a

louder voice throughout the state.

You know, J.R. mentioned a little bit of this

public-private sector collaboration.

We can create new economic models for the -- for that

to help, you know, with all of the challenges that

we're facing, and we talk about the access issues

already this morning, and there are ways that we can

expand upon that through some of the this

public-private collaboration.

You know, the need to work together as an outdoor

industry to encourage advocacy is a huge opportunity

there as well.

You know, we talked about this idea of possibly

creating some sort of a membership association where we

can get more people involved in outdoor recreation, but

I think, again, that kind of falls under this idea of

what this outdoor office of recreation would look like.

As we -- as we focus on something there, in this

economic development opportunity, also gives us the

means by which we can go out and educate, creating

tools, scaling up educational programs, for, you know,

all kinds of outdoor recreation purposes, expanding

multicultural education, diversity and inclusion,

programs and policies and so forth.

And then of course, you know, all of that helps to

support the marketing and branding of Minnesota's

outdoor recreation opportunities.

We have Explore Minnesota.

Leveraging that brand, strengthening that brand, you

know, creating marketable messages that we can leverage

through kind of an omni-channel strategy to, you know,

to send that messaging downstream to spread it more

widely, again, to demonstrate the inclusivity that

we're all targeting here, with outdoor recreation.

And, again, you know, we talked a little bit about

leveraging the facts and the data of the economic

impact.

Obviously we're all the aware of the health and

wellness benefits of this as well, and sharing that

story.

Becomes part of our opportunity here as well.

So a lot of different opportunities.

I know we created quite a list there, and we had to

change our font size here just to fit it all on the

slide.

Then we look over at the threats and the challenges.

They're always -- there are always financial concerns.

Can we get the funding?

Will there be public resource constraints?

Or there socioeconomic factors that need to be weighed

in here to talk about that?

The prioritization topic as well, again, competing

funding priorities and the policy makers that are

making those decisions, competing customer priorities.

You know, again, we feel like the opportunities that we

just discussed address some of those threats.

Again, if we can -- if we can unify around the outdoor

recreation industry here in the state, we can talk to

policy makers about the impact that that outdoor rec is

having already and can have with a greater

prioritization on outdoor recreation.

And the same goes for the marketing and branding.

We can get more customers to prioritize, the use of

outdoor recreation, and participation there.

Through that messaging.

We talked a little bit about the competitiveness of --

of outdoor recreation and other avenues and choices

that people have.

We talk a little bit about the infrastructure and

balancing the demand that we'd like to create with the

availability and capacity of that infrastructure.

How do we -- how do we ensure that we're investing in

the infrastructure to maintain access for everybody to

ensure that access is modern enough to meet consumer

expectations?

You know, the, you know, facilities and so forth that

are growing tired, the technology that today's

consumers are expecting to have as part of their

experiences, that type of infrastructure, we need to

make sure that we're maintaining it and we're

developing it for further future use.

And then the awareness and stewardship part of this.

We're aware that we have shifting population

demographics.

We are aware that there's fragmentation in the outdoors

and gentrification and privatization of these resources

and so forth.

We're aware of environmental factors, whether those are

invasive species, whether that's climate change, that

sort of thing.

And then we have some fairly weak deterrence and

enforcement of some of the responsible recreation that

we need out there to make sure that people are

recreating responsibly.

So a little overview on the opportunities an threats

there.

I'll throwback over to you, J.R., for further

conversation.

>> J.R. Burke:  Yeah, thanks, Matt, and I want to take

just a brief minute to recognize that, you know, what

we presented this material is certainly Greg and Katy

and Aaron, Joe, Steve, Hansi, who isn't able to be on

the call today, contributed to this, so I just wanted

to just take a minute or two to see if they wanted to

elaborate on any of the information at all from their

own perspective.

So anybody from the work group have any additional work

group.

>> Katy Friesz:  Hey, guys, thank you so much.

This is Katy.

I don't have anything to add.

I think you did a great job of representing the group

and just appreciate some of the key themes that

continue to come across as far as, you know, finding

opportunities for coordination, just being aware of the

current situation, as Matt was just going through with

the threats and challenges.

And to the further -- the previous discussion about

just, you know, building a new wheel or making sure

that we're including everyone, whether it's, you know,

private business to -- to government entities to

non-profit organizations, to the broader

community-based information, and kind of engagement and

leadership that we want.

So nothing extra to add, but just thank you both for

representing the group so well.

>> J.R. Burke:  Yeah, thanks, Katy.

Anyone else from our economic development group want to

add anything?

Otherwise we're turn it over to the broader group for

some comments and questions as well.

>> Joe Henry:  Hey, J.R., this is Joe Henry from Lake

of the Woods Tourism.

One of the things that was interesting is we really,

really broke this topic down well.

You know, Jared did a nice job and Matt of leading us

to break this topic down, but, you know, again, this

topic is really diverse.

When you talk about economic development, there's a lot

of different directions you could take economic

development.

Economic development is the definition about bringing

more financial resources to the state through outdoor

recreation?

Is economic development, is your definition about

creating more opportunities for people that live in

Minnesota?

I mean, we could go on and on with pock definitions,

and it's a very broad topic I guess, and again, it's --

how do we define what our end goal is as a group?

And I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you.

>> J.R. Burke:  Yeah, thanks, Joe, and I, you know, I

would echo Joe's point.

We really thought about it.

You know, there's this concept between economic

development and community development.

And they're somewhat related.

I think even we went back to the University of

Minnesota and there's a cohort around community

development and one of the silos within that idea of

community development is economic development.

And so we did, you know, frankly struggle a little bit

with really recognizing what is the -- what is the

definition of economic development and it's -- there's

a lack of consistency amongst various folks who claim

to be experts in this space.

So I think this -- that really enhanced the importance

of getting back to a vision -- vision-centric model of

thinking for our work.

And I think it also goes back to some of the themes

that have emanated from the discussion today.

In some of the other work groups' activities is really

understanding, you know, who is our customer?

And if we want to just really boil it down to an

economic development perspective, it's who is our

customer?

And then in order to enhance the customer experience,

to enhance the opportunity that results from a

greater -- from a higher quality customer experience,

it's all about advancing investments and advancing this

idea of who your core customer is, and thinking about

new themes, new opportunities, new categories of

customer.

And -- and then creating those high quality

opportunities for them to experience that, and then in

this concept of demand creation is, you go through a

cycle of consistently making investments, measuring the

return on investment, and then taking those learnings

and enhancing, again, and again and again, over and

over, those experiences, irregardless of the type of

customer that you have.

It really becomes nondenominational if you will, it

really becomes more about the experience and making it

inclusive rather than saying we're only going to serve

this type of population versus this type of population

or only be known for 10,000 lakes versus all the other

expansive opportunities for outdoor recreation that we

have.

So that was really the -- I just wanted to add that

additional commentary to give the group of a better

sense of how exhaustive our minds were thinking as we

developed this list.

So why don't we go ahead and just open it up to others

on the task force for any comments, questions, or

otherwise.

Thanks.

Hearing none?

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  Oh, this is Lynnea.

>> J.R. Burke:  Hey, Lynnea.

>> Lynnea Atlas-Ingebretson:  So I think that you guys

did a really great job.

I'd just like to share an affirmation with you about

the importance of this particular aspect of the work is

that this is really where the rubber meets the road on

equity and access.

If you're explicit about those target audiences and

delivering on them, this is where you can see growth,

especially at a time when we have the traditional

populations who have been overrepresented in these

activities are declining, this is where your

opportunity comes with that population shift.

So I think that might eighteen be able to be -- even be

able to be more strongly communicating in the marketing

and branding aspect of your opportunities to really

call out that there's a huge growing population that

isn't currently contributing to the economic aspects of

this work.

Representationally to their portion of the population.

That they make up, maybe, we don't even research it

well enough to really, truly know.

But definitely not across all the different outdoor

recreational opportunities.

And they have specific -- those target audiences,

whether it's BIPOC folks or people with physical

disabilities, they have uniquely different

opportunities for things that they can benefit from,

from the health and wellness aspect of it, in addition

to the resources they have to contribute.

One of the things that I like to highlight to folks is

of all of the BIPOC communities, none of them are a

majority of their population in poverty.

And people often think about them synonymously.

In our club activity that -- or club activities, our

population tends to be solidly middle class, and even

upper middle class, and it's majority African-American.

People -- we don't think about that in Minnesota.

We treat synonymously people of low income or low

financial means with People of Color, and as industry,

you're totally missing out, and agencies, totally

missing on a population that has to be built.

It can't just be Cherry picked.

You have to build a relationship like you would with

any other customer base or client base.

But I think just an affirmation for maybe getting a

little more explicit under that marketing and branding,

and the economic opportunity and impact of that is

really tremendous.

I think the biggest thing is, like, the sustainability

and threats that can come with failing to do that for

any industry right now.

And for those who are able to really pivot on this, and

do that fast break for really getting inclusive, all

they have to look forward to is growth.

You know, so I just want to share that.

One other thing that I thought of, and this really is

informed by time working out west and in Colorado.

Is that I really appreciated you bringing up the topic

around -- I can't remember if it was you or the other

presenter on gentrification.

Last year, my family, we did a mountain bike trip to

Cuyuna, and it was a really great experience for us,

but, man, it was quite lavish, and it was nothing like

the community I remember growing up in the '80s or

the '70s, and I just thought, who's getting

displaced?

By this?

Where are these folks going?

What are they doing?

Can they afford to live in town or near town?

Or, man, and it really made me think a lot about what

I'm experiencing living near Wirth with all the new

mountain bike trails and ski trails and how it's really

changed North Minneapolis and is changing north

Minneapolis and all of a sudden the place that I grew

up going as a child is no longer really welcoming to

me.

And so I just think that is something to really think

about.

And I don't know if that's what folks from Cuyuna

experience now, but it definitely made me think about

it and I felt a little guilty actually for going last

year with my family there.

Just wondering, were we a part of displacing people.

Were people from the community able to participate and

benefit from what's happening?

And I think we really have to think deeply about our

are activities so exclusive and privilege based that

they threaten our rural communities, whether they are

in rural Minnesota or urban Minnesota?

And what's our role in that?

I don't have an answer.

It's more of just kind of a question I have and a

wondering.

Thanks.

>> J.R. Burke:  Yeah, Lynnea, I think both of the

points you made are very well taken and certainly are

great feedback for us to further elevate the

conversation through our SWOT analysis.

You know, on your point of -- on the first point that

you made, You know, it's -- and really thinking about

inclusivity in a new way and frankly the opportunities

that come from being more inclusive, there's a lot of

other work that's happening here in Minnesota, even

more specifically in the Twin Cities around a lot of

reforms.

And I think we're at a really unique time.

I think that's kind of how I describe it -- and

exciting frankly.

Because we're being forced to break down these barriers

of thinking.

And the business community, which I'm a Representative

of, is certainly a part of that right now and Polaris,

you know, is one of those organizations that I

represent of course, but also where we're really

thinking about new ways to become more diverse and

inclusive ourselves for our customers, for the

stakeholders that we collaborate with, because I do

think there's a lot of opportunity to -- to create new

customers, if you will, and not just for Polaris, but

for Minnesota in general and to give them opportunities

to go out and have experiences and really -- it's

almost our obligation as this group sits here and talks

about what we do going forward, I know we talked about

this during the work group.

It's our obligation to make sure that there is equal

opportunity, if you will, to steal a phrase, for having

access to the outdoors and having the type of

experience that others seem to have access to.

So kind of tying those two points together is making

sure that the opportunity exists that we recognize that

there is value and there's opportunity that comes from

it.

And then also making it accessible.

And that comes from, you know, whether it's things

around transportation or cost or even making people

feel welcome in the community and you brought that up

earlier, just how there's been times where you've felt

unwelcome by other people who are there, even though

you have the same right to the access to those

resources as anyone else does.

So I think those are all great points and certainly

even though they're not maybe comprehensively reflected

or reflected deeply enough in this analysis, those are

certainly themes that we discussed as a work group.

So any other questions or thoughts that other folks

would like to share?

Otherwise, I'll turn it back over to Gratia.

>> Elliot Christensen:  Hi, this is Elliot Christensen

here is he Lower Sioux Indian Community.

>> J.R. Burke:  Hey, Elliot.

>> Elliot Christensen:  Hi, glad you guys can hear me.

Thank you so much for your presentation and everything.

I would just like to kind of say that in the inclusion

and the collaboration, not to forget about Indigenous

communities within the State of Minnesota.

I know we have our own sovereignty and our own

government to government relationships, but a lot of

time we're overlooked.

In the inclusion and in the collaboration.

Just figuring well, you know, it's not native land or

poor, you know -- they can do for themselves, you know,

it's not always the case.

 and as far as doing inclusion and collaboration, you

know, a lot of these communities have stories and

history that go back to a lot of these places in are

being used for outdoor recreation that I think the

history and the knowledge should be shared to the

general public.

As they -- as a way of knowing these places and what

they were prior to them becoming recreational places,

and some of them still are, you know, sacred places and

sacred sites.

For our people.

And that's just kind of my thoughts and just something

I wanted to share.

Thank you.

>> J.R. Burke:  Yeah, thanks, Elliot, and I -- I think

the point that you made really around the history is an

important narrative that I think we can all rally

around as we think about outdoor recreation and

encouraging stakeholders to think innovatively, but

then also be responsible and acknowledge that, you

know, outdoor recreation, if you think about it, has a

long history here and we have a really strong culture

here in Minnesota of outdoor recreation, but it extends

to also, you know, we talked about it in our work group

is, and I know we talked about it as a broader group I

think during our first meeting is this idea of

stewardship.

And conservation.

I think we kind of bantered around which was the best

way to go, but that also -- the stewardship of it is

not only just in terms of the resources, but also the

various stakeholders, you know, I think, personally,

and I know Polaris thinks about this, is how do we

change the narrative about those people who use the

outdoors as not just a consumer of the resource but

also a steward of the resource.

And so I think that goes back to making sure, as you

said, to be inclusive of all stakeholders.

And not suggest that because one has a different

experience or perhaps different governing structure,

whatever you want -- however you might describe it, as

isolated from the broader conversation or need to be

thought of differently.

So really good points.

Any other closing comments or thoughts?

Otherwise I'll turn it over to Gratia.

All right.

Well, I appreciate everybody's hope the work group.

Certainly thanks to Matt for helping colead this work.

The thoughtful analysis and inputs and certainly to the

rest of our colleagues on the task force.

Lynnea and Elliot, for providing us some opportunities

to even make this work better.

So, Gratia, I'll turn it over to you.

Thanks.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, J.R.

And thank you to all the work groups who presented

today.

And for all the members who contributed to this

discussion.

I was really exciting to -- it was really exciting to

see all the work that you've done over the last six

weeks or so and see some of the synergies come together

between the various different topics and I'm excited

for the conversation to continue tomorrow.

And it seems like we're really kind of on the edge of

some great ideas that can really improve outdoor

recreation in Minnesota.

So thank you, everyone, for your contributions today.

We're wrapping up a little bit early, but I think

that's fine.

I just wanted to go over the plan for tomorrow.

Just let me get to the next slide here.

I think there's a slight delay.

But, so tomorrow, the meeting starts at 9:00 again.

And we'll have presentations from the promotion and

public awareness work group and the stewardship and

conservation work group.

That will be followed by some full group discussion and

reflection on kind of everything we've heard over the

last two days and where we're seeing synergies and

possibly, you know, some recommendations going forward.

We'll leave some time to take some public comments and

questions, and then I'll spend a little bit of time

talking about next steps and preparation for our August

meetings.

So that's the plan for tomorrow.

I did want to say that I put this in the comment, but

in case you missed it, I will send along a copy of the

SCORP, the 25-year Legacy Plan, and then the 10-year

anniversary report that Erika mentioned so that you all

can take a look at that.

You know, obviously you don't have to do so by

tomorrow.

They're hearty documents, but just so you can have them

in your back pocket and look through at your leisure.

And then I'll also send along the survey results that

chair Edman mentioned.

[ audio cut out ]

And the status of those.

So that's the plan for tomorrow.

If you have any questions in the meantime or you had

trouble connecting to today's meeting, please reach out

to me because I'd be happy to reach out to you this

afternoon to make sure it's more streamlined tomorrow.

So with that, that's all I had.

I don't know if our chairs or anyone has any final

departing words before we jump off the call for today?

All right.

Hearing none, I hope everybody has a great rest of your

Monday and I'm looking forward to continuing the

conversation tomorrow.

Thank you, everyone.

>> Thanks, a lot.

Bye-bye.

>> Thank you, Gratia.

>> Thanks, Gratia.

>> Thanks for having me, everybody.

>> Thanks, Lynnea.

Great having you.

>> Bye-bye.

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