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Monday Mailing Quote of the Week: “We build the road and the road builds us.” ~a Sri Lankan Saying

Oregon Fast Fact:

The Oregon Legislature designated the Oregon Grape (Mahonia aquifolium) as the Oregon state flower by resolution in 1899.

Year 20 • Issue 17 06 January 2014 1. Upcoming Free Workshop "Committees to Task Squads: A Volunteer Driven Action" 2. Cheerios Drops Genetically Modified Ingredient 3. 73-Year-Old Japanese Man Creates Impressive Paintings Using Only Excel 4. Cattlemen at Odds With EPA on Coastal Pollution Plan 5. Ford to Introduce New Solar-Powered Car 6. Ecliptic Brewer: An Oregon Legend 7. Congress to the Unemployed: Eat Confetti 8. Fracking Wells State Map 9. Brown Signs Bill on Fracking, Upsetting Both Sides of Oil Issue 10. 11 Expert Tips to Help You Be More Productive in 2014 11. Kandi Crush: An Electric-Car Vending Machine From China Could Upend The Auto Industry 1. Upcoming Free Workshop "Committees to Task Squads: A Volunteer Driven Action" Are your committees struggling? Need help with building your volunteer base? Plan on attending the Oregon Main Street Winter Workshop to learn how you can transform your committees into active "task squads" on January 24, 9 am to noon, Dayton Community Center, Dayton, OR (606 4th Street). The workshop is free to all communities participating in the Oregon Main Street Network. To register, click on the link below (or cut and paste in your web browser).

Please distribute the attached flyer to others in your organization you think might be interested in attending.

Workshop Description Volunteers are essential to every Main Street program, but it can be a struggle to attract and maintain good ones. Find out how Clovis Main Street in New Mexico, a semi-rural community of just under 40,000 found a way to engage its volunteers. Over the course of three years, the board developed a volunteer action plan to meet its needs and maintain the integrity of the Main Street Four Point Approach®. The new structure focuses on “task squads” that carry out simple events and activities that a volunteer can accomplish in short, specific time frames.

Learning Objectives: 1. Understand the task squad concept.

2. Learn how to develop effective volunteer-driven action plans.

3. Apply this new approach in part, or in whole, in your community.

4. Help volunteers develop tasks they are passionate about within the mission of Main Street.

Speakers Robyne Beaubien is a seasoned non-profit professional with experience in organization, branding and promotions. She has spent 25 Page 1 of 5

years working in and with a variety of non-profits, including MainStreet, and currently consults with the the New Mexico MainStreet Program in Promotions. In this position, Robyne works directly with MainStreet staff and volunteers in image development, branding, special events, promotional events and media relationships. She also facilitates training and strategic planning for promoting MainStreet districts. Robyne has directed the Clovis MainStreet program for more than eight years and her in the trenches experience, brings a fresh and practical approach to her speaking style.

Lisa Dunagan has been working with non-profit organizations for over 20 years that include local chamber of commerce, industrial development, United Way, and Main Street. Working on the boards of these organizations, she has helped make them stronger by using innovative ideas for fundraising, event organization, and volunteer development. Lisa currently serves as President of Clovis MainStreet in Clovis, New Mexico. In addition to her non-profit volunteer work, she has 28 years’ experience in the banking industry as a lender to small business, commercial, real estate and agriculture. She has her Graduate Degree in banking from the University of Colorado. Committing time to economic development, Lisa Currently serves by governor appointment on the Board of the New Mexico Partnership and board chair of the Main Street Revolving Loan Fund. These two appointments recruit business and industry while assisting with loans for small business. Lisa has been acknowledged for numerous awards and recently received the 2012 Citizen of the Year award by the Clovis/Portales Association of Realtors, Inc. Lisa Dunagan says, “It is a privilege and honor to be chosen to share our story with you.”

To register for this free event, click here.

2. Cheerios Drops Genetically Modified Ingredient Under pressure from consumers and activist groups, General Mills says it will stop using genetically modified ingredients to make its original Cheerios cereal.

While the oats used to make Cheerios have never contained any genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the company did make changes to its sourcing — and now, for example, only uses nonGMO pure cane sugar instead of beet sugar, says spokesman Mike Siemienas.

The change was made "many weeks" ago, says Siemienas, who declined to be more specific on the timing. "We do value our Cheerios fans and we do listen to their thoughts and suggestions," he says, in an e-mail.

To access the full story, click here.

3. 73-Year-Old Japanese Man Creates Impressive Paintings Using Only Excel Meet Tatsuo Horiuchi, a 73-year-old Japanese, who creates highly detailed paintings with the most unexpected software – MS Excel. The newly discovered artist has been interested in graphic arts for a long time, but only since his retirement 13 years ago he finally got the time he needed for the new hobby.

Horiuchi has never used Excel at work and got interested in this particular software only for two reasons – it was more affordable than Photoshop (he had Excel preinstalled on his PC) and easier to use than MS Paint. Horiuchi’s artworks have already been presented in many exhibitions and the artist even won Excel Autoshape Art Contest in 2006.

To access the full story, click here.

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4. Cattlemen at Odds With EPA on Coastal Pollution Plan The Oregon Cattlemen’s Association (OCA) disagrees with the current findings of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in “the Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program: Intent To Find That Oregon Has Failed To Submit an Approvable Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program.”

In response to the December 20, 2013, notice by the NOAA and EPA; Bill Moore, Water Resources Chairman for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association stated, “Our region’s strong land use and environmental laws adequately regulate nonpoint source activities to effectively protect the environment, and relevant monitoring indicates those laws are working. Unfortunately, the federal Agencies, and EPA in particular, are demanding more without a sound, current scientific basis for doing so. The shame in all of this is they are threatening to withhold grant funds used for important projects across the State designed to curb nonpoint source contribution To access the full story, click here.

5. Ford to Introduce New Solar-Powered Car Though the company deems it as merely a “concept,” Ford Motor Co. will soon unveil a sunpowered vehicle.

The C-MAX Solar Energi Concept is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle with solar panels on the roof that allow the car to recharge itself. The vehicle’s total range is 620 miles, and it can travel 21 miles using only electric power from the sun.

By tapping renewable solar energy with a rooftop solar panel system, C-MAX Solar Energi Concept is not dependent on the traditional electric grid for its battery power,” Ford wrote in a statement.

“Internal Ford data suggest the sun could power up to 75 percent of all trips made by an average driver in a solar hybrid vehicle.”

The C-MAX uses a special concentrator that acts like a magnifying glass to direct rays to 300-to-350watt solar cells on the roof from SunPower Corp. The compact lens was originally used for use in lighthouses. The system tracks the sun as it moves from east to west.

Ford says the concept vehicle uses a day’s worth of sunlight to deliver the same performance as its conventional C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid. That amount generate the same power—8 kilowatts— that you would get from a four-hour battery charge.

To access the full story, click here.

6. Ecliptic Brewer: An Oregon Legend “That’s not a Black Butte porter,” says John Harris, as he hands over a taster of Ecliptic’s Capella Porter.

He should know. Harris is likely Oregon’s longest serving craft brewer and the man who designed Black Butte Porter, Mirror Pond Pale Ale, and a score of other beers we all know and love. He was the first McMenamins brewer to make Hammerhead as it’s brewed today using all grain instead of malt extracts; he ran Full Sail’s Brewers Reserve program, formulating the Sunspot series, Slipknot and Hop Pursuit among many others. He’s rarely met a hop he didn’t like.

He’s worked as a professional brewer for three decades, but until Ecliptic opened in mid-October, he’s always worked for someone else: the McMenamin brothers, Deschutes --- he was their first Page 3 of 5

brewer --- and then 20 years at Full Sail’s Portland brewery, which he left in 2012 to start his new brewery, restaurant and taproom on the North edge of the Mississippi District.

“Scary? Yes it was scary,” he said. “I was leaving the womb, leaving a salary, benefits, insurance and all the rest, but I figured that I was going to be 50 soon, and if I ever wanted to do my own place, the time was now. Full Sail is a great place to work, a great employer, but I needed to move on. I could see all the beers I wanted to brew and I knew they weren’t going to get brewed there --- I wanted to get away from production brewing and back to the more creative side.”

To access the full story, click here.

7. Congress to the Unemployed: Eat Confetti Is this really how we want to start the new year, by denying unemployment benefits to more than a million Americans who have lost their jobs? The bipartisan budget agreement passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama protects military spending, but promises to throw the most desperate in our economy into increased financial hardship, thrusting hundreds of thousands of families beneath the poverty line. The long-term unemployment rate is at the highest it has been since World War II, while the percentage of those receiving the benefits is at its historic low.

Meanwhile, Wall Street bankers are popping the corks, celebrating a banner year for the stock market. As brokers await their bonuses, many more of the unemployed will head for the breadlines.

“This is the wrong thing to happen at the wrong time for our economy,” Imara Jones told me. He is the economic justice contributor for Colorlines.com, and served in the Clinton White House, where he worked on international trade policy. “Jobless benefits are actually stimulative to the economy,” he said. “Every $1 we provide to someone of unemployment benefits yields $1.60 in economic activity. And that’s why the loss of these benefits is going to rob our economy of $41 billion.” People living on the edge financially spend what they have to get by. Those in the top echelons of our economy, the top 1 percent, can take their income and hold on to it, or stash it away into an offshore account.

To access the full story, click here.

8. Fracking Wells State Map The following map shows fracking wells in each state since 2005. Click a state to view the total number of wells. Please zoom out for Alaska and Hawaii.

To access the aforementioned map, click here.

9. Brown Signs Bill on Fracking, Upsetting Both Sides of Oil Issue The nation's toughest restrictions on a controversial oil drilling technique known as fracking were signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on Friday.

Hotly opposed by the oil industry, the measure "establishes strong environmental protections and transparency requirements," the governor said in a statement.

Brown also signed measures giving law enforcement officers clear authority to take blood samples from resistant suspected drunk drivers; making it easier for police to recover stolen goods; and setting rules for California's health insurance exchange.

At issue in the hydraulic fracturing measure is the injection of sand, water and chemicals to free oil and natural gas trapped in shale deep underground. The oil industry heralds the technique as a way to

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boost domestic oil and gas production; opponents contend it is unsafe and endangers underground drinking-water supplies.

The governor's signature "is a first step toward greater transparency, accountability and protection of the public and the environment," said Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills).

To access the full story, click here.

10. 11 Expert Tips to Help You Be More Productive in 2014 Last year I used a kitchen timer to force myself to focus; I blocked the Internet and email so I couldn’t get distracted; I set an auto-response on my email; I wrote a lot of to-do lists. I even started getting up earlier.

As you can see, I’m kind of obsessed with productivity. Which makes this the perfect place to be because our experts and journalists are constantly coming up with new methods to hack the conventional ways of working.

But trying to wade through so much coverage of how to do things more efficiently can get in the way of actually getting things done. So in the interest of saving you time, we’ve asked some of the most super-productive people with whom we work to share how they manage to accomplish so much: FOCUS ON ONE BIG TASK AT A TIME “It's all too easy to get distracted by ‘work’ that takes up a lot of time and energy but isn't ultimately changing your trajectory,” says David Rusenko, CEO of Weebly. “We see this all the time-entrepreneurs focus on the minutiae instead of just getting started, and getting something out there.”

To access the full story, click here.

11. Kandi Crush: An Electric-Car Vending Machine From China Could Upend The Auto Industry China is growing so fast it’s sometimes difficult to get different sources to even agree which the biggest cities are and how many people live in them. But that said, among them is a name unfamiliar to most Americans, the city of Hangzhou, located in eastern China, and home to 8.7 million as of 2010. That would make it the biggest city in the U.S. even though it’s barely a third the size of Shanghai, the world’s largest. But Hangzhou isn’t just big, it’s also home to an ambitious experiment that combines electric vehicles, giant vending machines and a Zipcar-like business model. Oh, and if it works, private car ownership as we know it is probably going to disappear in the world’s biggest cities.

To access the full story, click here.

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