Upcoming Trainings

What is Regional Flavor Strategies?
Regional Flavor Strategies (RFS) engages a broad spectrum of communities, business owners, not for profits and other institutions in collectively reclaiming and reshaping a region’s economic destiny while preserving its landscape, heritage and other assets. RFS creates strong networks among entrepreneurs and community sparkplugs while fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within these networks and beyond. Business owners grow and help one another, communities become more effective in supporting entrepreneurship, community pride is nurtured, and local economies become more resilient and sustainable. This holistic and inclusive approach, has been tested over the past four years in rural Arkansas, Colorado, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, and Ohio.

Building Support for Regional Flavor Strategies
The Center is currently engaged in assuring that the important Regional Flavor work that has been accomplished over the past four years in six rural regions of the U.S. not only continues, but expands. Our vision is to double the current number of Regional Flavor networks by 2011. As part of this process, we are hosting a Regional Flavor Strategies Discovery Day in central Appalachia in December, 2009.

The following event is made possible by support from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation and the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.

            

Please join us for

Regional Flavor Strategies Discovery Day

Tuesday, December 8^th in Abingdon, Virginia!

This daylong program will feature an overview of the Regional Flavor approach by project director Natalie Woodroofe and presentations by Leslie Schaller of ACEnet in Appalachian Ohio and Beth Wiedower from the Arkansas Delta Rural Heritage Development Initiative. Leslie and Beth have been part of the Regional Flavor Learning Cluster since 2005 and will share how this innovative model is creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and communities in their region. They will describe their efforts to build partnerships, to brand their regions, and shape regional policies in support of this exciting economic development work.

 

Attendees will:

• Learn how the current 6 Regional Flavor Networks are creating new economic opportunity while maximizing the regional assets and the entrepreneurial spirit in their regions.
• Receive Regional Flavor tools that can be put to use immediately in their own communities and regions
• Determine their level of interest in pursuing RFS technical assistance and becoming part of the larger RFS learning community/RFS Nation

 

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: Those working in microenterprise, economic or community development, Main Street programs, Chambers of Commerce, town, county and state officials, arts, culture, heritage preservation not for profits, local and state tourism office staff, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in developing more sustainable rural communities.

 

COST: This is a free event and includes lunch. However, you must register so we can have an accurate count for lunch and materials. 

TO REGISTER: Go to:

http://regionalflavordiscoveryday.eventbrite.com

WHEN: Tuesday, December 8^th from 10 am to 4 pm

WHERE:  Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center. The SVHEC is located .4 miles off Exit 14 of I-81 on the Virginia Highlands Community College Campus, between Interstate 81 and West Main Street in Abingdon, Virginia.

From Bristol, Tennessee, and west:  Take I 81 north to Exit 14, bear right off the ramp toward Abingdon, go ¼ mile, and turn right at stop light onto Route 372E.

 

From Wytheville, Virginia, and east:  Take I 81 south to Exit 14, bear right off the ramp toward Abingdon, go ¼ mile, and turn right at stop light onto Route 372E.

 

From Bluefield, West Virginia, and north:  Take Highway 19 south to the stop light at West Main Street (Highway 11), turn right, go one mile to the second stop light, turn left onto Jonesborough Road, left again at stop light onto Route 372E.

 

About our Discovery Day presenters:

Leslie Schaller is Director of Programs at the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), where she has worked since 1992, developing infrastructure and public policy that enables farmers and food producers to receive entrepreneurial support, resources and capital they need to access markets and improve sales/equity. ACEnet addresses rural economic development, entrepreneurship, and local food systems as a trainer-practitioner and peer-learner.

 

In the early 1980s, Leslie operated an organic market garden and raised livestock, selling at the Athens Farmers Market (AFM) and area restaurants. In 1992, she founded a food security organization, Community Food Initiatives, which collects product donations from Athens Farmers Market vendors for area pantries and food banks. Since 1985 she has served as the Business Director of the Worker-Owned Restaurant corporation that operates Casa Nueva and Cantina and Casa Manufacturing in Athens, Ohio. Leslie is a current member and former Board member of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, and a member of the Governor’s Ohio Food Policy Council. She serves as an appointee to the Governor’s Ohio Food Policy Council, is a member of the Ohio Department of Agriculture Market Connections Task Force, the national Farmers Market Coalition’s Board Treasurer, and chairs the Athens Municipal Arts Commission.

 

Beth Wiedower is a preservationist with experience in the fields of community revitalization and cultural heritage development.  She currently serves as the Arkansas Delta Field Director for the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Rural Heritage Development Initiative - a multi-year pilot program focusing on heritage-based economic development in the 15-county Arkansas Delta.  Beth serves as a board member of the Historic Preservation Alliance of Arkansas, as well as a member of the Historic District Commission of Helena, Arkansas.  She is a graduate of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Leadership Training.

 

An Arkansas native, Beth received a Master of Public History degree from the University of South Carolina with an emphasis in Historic Preservation.  During her graduate studies, she worked as the Executive Director of the Congaree Vista, a historic urban arts and entertainment district in Columbia, SC. Beth was also honored with a National Council on Public History award for her preservation work in Richmondshire, England.

 

Prior to her graduate studies, Beth served as a Tourism Consultant for the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.  She traveled the state and the country promoting Arkansas as a tourism destination and developed innovative programs to bolster the natural and cultural heritage of her home state.  Beth gained experience working in Washington, D.C. as a legislative aide to the United States Congress after graduating from Hendrix College with an interdisciplinary degree in Southern Studies. 

 

Natalie Woodroofe is the owner of Rural Strategies Consulting and is leading the RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship’s efforts to build the Regional Flavor Nation. From 2005-2009 she has managed the Association for Enterprise Opportunity’s rural initiatives including the Kellogg Foundation-funded Regional Flavor Learning Cluster. 

 

Woodroofe has lived and worked in rural communities for over 35 years. She was the founding executive director of the Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network (WREN) in NH for 11 years, leading the organization as a national model for microenterprise, community, and rural economic development.