 Tulsa Partners
Newsletter
December 2009
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Program Updates
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| MILLENNIUM CENTER
GREEN BUILDING RESOURCE CENTER
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| Tulsa Partners Newsletter |
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| Greetings! |
Happy Holidays! The staff at Tulsa Partners want to wish you a happy holiday season and a great start to the new year! 2010 is going to be an exciting year for Tulsa Partners, with lots of plans and ideas already at work! Please remember Tulsa Partners in your end of year giving and we hope we have made an impact in your life this year!
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Tulsa Partner's Would Like to Know What's Important to You!
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Please let us know what you would like to receive from Tulsa Partners. If a certain topic interests you more then others, or would prefer to only hear about certain items, LET US KNOW! Click on this link and your preferences can be changed when receiving our monthly newsletter and topical emails: Preferences
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Megan, our Graduate Intern, Graduates!
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Megan Quickle, our Graduate Intern, completed her Bachelor's Degree in Political Science on December 12th, 2009 from Oklahoma State University. She started her Master's program in Emergency Management as well this past year and will complete the program in 2011. Megan is now working for Tulsa Partners, Inc. and is excited to complete this milestone in her life!
Tulsa Partners is now in need of new interns. If you know of anyone that would like to fill the intern positions at Tulsa Partners, please let us know: TulsaPartners@gmail.com.
We have the following intern positions available:
- Language and Culture Bank Intern
- Emergency Management Intern
- Green Building Resource Library/Millennium Center Intern
- Historic Cultural Emergency Response Team/Disaster Emergency Response Team (DERT) Intern
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Congratulations Penni and new baby boy, Bradyn!
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Tulsa Partners office manager, Penni Chandler, had a 9lb. baby boy on Monday, November 30th. Mom and baby are doing great and we look forward to having Penni back after some much needed time off with baby Bradyn!
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2009 Tulsa Partners Inc. Annual Meeting
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 Tulsa Partners Inc. held our Annual Meeting on Wednesday, October 28th at Ryan's Steakhouse at 21st and Garnett at 11:30 am.
Photo: 2010 Board of Directors and Executive Director, Tim Lovell. Not pictured, Dr. Charles Stewart and Pam Nielsen.
New candidates for our Tulsa Partners Inc. Board included:
David Hall from State Farm Insurance
Andrew Moss from TRC Solutions
Pam Neilsen from the Oklahoma State Insurance Department
Jason Stockinger from Bank of Oklahoma
Captain Brett Bailey from the Tulsa Police Department
Board Members that were appointed during the year and was voted upon by the Board included:
Bob Roberts from R.D. Flanagan and Assoc.
Dr. Charles Stewart from Oklahoma Institute for Disaster and Emergency Medicine at OU-Tulsa
Michelle Royal is a Homeland Security Consultant
Re-election:
Neil McNeil retired City of Tulsa Attorney
Mary Ann Summerfield retired City of Tulsa Parks and Recreation Director
Kathy Champion from PSO
Michelle Barnett from URS Corp
Robert Smith from Williams
At a later meeting date the Board voted Michelle Barnett as President, Bob Roberts as Vice President and Mike Evanson as Secretary-Treasurer.
A link to the 2009 Annual Report is available now on the Tulsa Partners website.
The annual awards formerly given at the Annual Meeting will now be given out at the Nania Awards banquet in Spring 2010.
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Disaster Management for Long Term Facilities Workshop held in Tulsa and Oklahoma City
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 The 5th Annual Long Term Facilities workshop was held this year on Thursday, November 19th at the Elks Lodge and on December 3rd also held in Oklahoma City at the Moore-Norman Technology Center- Penn Campus.
It was a great success at both workshops! 134 people attended these events and learned of the possible disaster situations a long term care facility could face.
Lorine Spencer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided the attendees with the most up-to-date information on the H1N1 flu and Dr. Charles Stewart from the Oklahoma Institute for Disaster and Emergency Medicine held tabletop exercises for the attendees to participate in. There were five different sessions that Tulsa Partners brought in guest speakers for. We look forward to providing this information again next year for long term care facilities across the state of Oklahoma!
The powerpoint presentations from each speaker can be viewed at this link on the Tulsa Partners website.
Comments from the workshop evaluations included "Enjoyed this seminar; the best of 2009!" - "Very thought provoking and informative" - "Eye-opening!"
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Millennium Center Update, Green Directories and Green Bag Lunch Update
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The Millennium Center project has made some changes in it's original plans. The Tulsa Park Board has decided not to house the facility at the Tulsa Zoo. The Millennium Center Steering Committee is now deciding where we will place it in the Tulsa area.
The Millennium Center received a $60,000 endowment check from the Brannin Foundation, now making the total of the endowment to $160,000. We are thrilled to have this amount of support behind this project and Tulsa Partners will keep you, the people of Tulsa, updated on any new information we have on the new placement of the Millennium Center.
You can read the Millennium Center Letter to Donors, and see a report given to the Tulsa Park Board on our progress with the Millennium Center.
- The Green Building Resource Library now has Green Directories available for purchase. They are only $3 and have an extensive list of green resources throughout Oklahoma. Come by today to pick up your copy!
- The 4th Friday Green Bag Lunch Series will begin again in January. Our guest speaker will be Corey Williams, speaking about the Green Directory in print version as well as an online tool. The luncheon will be held at the Kendall-Whittier Library on Friday, January 22nd at 11:30am. A press release will be sent out as well to remind you of this event.
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Executive Director, Tim Lovell, speaks at Biosecurity Conference in D.C.
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 Tulsa Partners Executive Director, Tim Lovell, attended and spoke at the Resilient American Communities: Progress in Practive and Policy conference held by the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC.
The goal of this 125-person summit was to apply state-of-the-art
knowledge of resilience in the design of federal policies for
strengthening local communities and their environments to withstand
disasters, epidemics and other extreme events. Attendees included
Administration officials, policy analysts, scholars, public health and
emergency management practitioners, Congressional staff, and members of
the media.
Mr. Lovell was in a panel discussion of an "Action Plan to Make Community Resilience a Reality". This was a great opportunity for Tulsa Partners to have a platform in such a large capacity during a biosecurity conference.
Mr. Lovell's "ground truth perspective on what makes a resilient community was much appreciated" was one comment made by the conference organizers.
Congratulations to Tim for a job well done and representing Tulsa Partners at the national level!
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Tulsa Area United Way "Open for Business" Classes are Completed
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 After 8 weeks of "Open for Business" classes, the Tulsa Area United Way agencies are well on their way to complete their business continuity plans.
Sharon Gallagher, Vice President of Community Investments at the United Way said "the United Way is thrilled to have been able to offer this class to our agencies. To be able to have a complete business continuity plan after just eight weeks is astounding! Thank you so much to Tulsa Partners for offering this class!"
Tulsa Partners is planning on holding this class again in 2010 and is
looking forward to helping other small businesses and non-profit
agencies be prepared for any type of disaster situation they might
encounter.
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Historic and Cultural Resource Community Meeting
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Be a part of a history-making process to protect precious resources in our community!
WHAT: COMMUNITY MEETING ON PROTECTING HISTORIC AND CULTURAL RESOURCES FROM DISASTER
WHEN:THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 6:00 P.M. TO 8:00 P.M.
WHERE: PHILBROOK MUSEUM OF ART, 2727 SOUTH ROCKFORD ROAD, 74114
Photo of Philbrook Museum in Tulsa, OK
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City of Tulsa was awarded a Predisaster Mitigation grant from the
federal government to update our community's Hazard Mitigation Plan. A
portion of this grant has been designated to create a historic
preservation/cultural resource annex to this plan. According to FEMA,
ours will be the first hazard mitigation plan in the country to
incorporate the issue of protecting historic properties and cultural
resources, including archival materials, from disasters.
A
planning committee made up of historic preservationists, museum
curators and other community stakeholders has worked with the City of
Tulsa, Flanagan and Associates and Tulsa Partners, Inc. on ways to
protect our historic and cultural resources.
An important part of the annex planning
process is receiving input from community members on this plan. A
meeting to go over the annex will be held on Thursday, January 7 from 6
pm to 8 pm at the Philbrook Museum of Art, 2727 South Rockford Road.
Please come and attend this important meeting, and please share the
information on this meeting with others.
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Historic/Cultural Disaster Emergency Response Team (DERT)
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On October 28, 2009, Tulsa started
making history again. Ron Flanagan and Bob Roberts of R. D. Flanagan
and Associates and Tim Lovell of Tulsa Partners have led a group of
stakeholders from the historical and cultural institutions community
on a pilot program for hazard mitigation (see Community Meeting in above article). From our meetings we found
a weakness that had to be addressed.... Disaster Response.
Disaster is a relative term. For one
institution everyday emergencies can be a disaster, for others even
an ice storm can't keep them down. Some facilities have over a 100
folks to help during a disaster and others only have 5 to handle the
situation. The group realized that a cooperative and collective approach
to disaster response is the answer.
On this sunny Wednesday afternoon representatives
from Philbrook, TU, the Osage Nation, the Sherwin Miller Jewish Museum,
the City of Tulsa, Tulsa Air and Space Museum, Chubb Insurance, the
Tulsa Area Emergency Management Agency, R.D. Flanagan and Associates
and Tulsa Partners met to form a model for the nation in disaster response
to historical and cultural institutions.
The group decided a variety of items.
We propose to formally join together as a group under the auspices of Tulsa
Partners. The Tulsa Partners Board of Directors generally supports this work and is still considering what relationship TPi will have in the project.
We will all endeavor to complete the
Dplan, an online emergency operations plan for museums and libraries,
for our institutions. The group would act as Technical Specialists for
Incident Command during an event that affected a historical/cultural
institution or property. The group will involve the community colleges
and universities' museum and library studies to assist during time
of disaster. The group will involve other state's organizations that
would be concerned with emergency management and disaster response.
The next meeting is scheduled for January
14th at 1:30PM at the Philbrook Museum. Anyone interested
should contact Ron Van Voorhis at Philbrook Museum at 918-748-5386.
Article submitted by Ron Van Voorhis
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Woody's Web December 2009
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 Can you believe it? 2009 is just about to skate on out of here, and 2010 is knocking at the door...unbelievable how quickly this year has escaped! But - there is still lots to do before the calendar advances to the New Year...so let's get back to business here!
HOT TOPIC - So...what's the big news right now? Silly question, huh? A major discussion point right now is of course anything connected to H1N1 or the seasonal 'flu. Here are just a few of the many sites offering reports, statistics and planning assistance.
Go to work sick, or stay home? Unfortunately, many people are faced with this dilemma, and it is definitely a hot topic. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/17/business-groups-oppose-em_n_360831.html Be sure to check out some of the links towards the end of this article for additional information.
http://www.ynhhs.org/emergency/pdfs/Flu_References.pdf provides a comprehensive list of Public Information Web Links.
In November, Disaster Recovery Journal offered a link to a Pandemic Flu Response Plan Plan Template: http://www.ebrp.net/# . There are other software links on this page, so be sure to select the green button for the Pandemic Plan Template. This button opens the pdf version of the template, which appears to have many of the key points to be considered in working up a plan for your business/organization.
Obviously getting the H1N1 and/or the Seasonal Flu shot(s) is a personal decision, to be discussed with your family and your physician. But if you (or someone you know) is having trouble wading through the multitude of news reports screaming at us these days, perhaps a visit to http://www.flu.gov/ will help answer a few questions. Lots of good info here and additional links as well. The more information you have on hand, the better questions you can ask your physician...always a good thing! And this site provides information for Individuals and Businesses...so everyone should check it out!
CHILDREN AND DISASTERS - One of my "pet" topics, and one that is getting a bit more attention lately.
From the American Academy of Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org/disasters/index.cfm offers a LOT of good information and additional resources. There's even a link to check out AAP contacts and projects in different states. From the home page at this site, you can access resources and information for Pediatricians, Families, Schools and Daycare sites - so be sure to explore!
And of course you'll want to check out www.savethechildren.org for even more information. Save the Children has been active in protecting children around the world for over 70 years...excellent website, and organization!
HOLIDAY SAFETY - Holiday Season is typically a time of celebration and merriment. To ensure the safety and well-being of your family, friends and loved ones, be sure to follow (AND SHARE) some useful Holiday Safety Tips.
http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/citizens/focus/holiday.shtm is the link to the US Fire Administration's Focus on Fire Safety page. As you scroll down the page, there are links to several parts of their "Fire Report Series" documents. You will also find tips for Holiday Lights, Holiday Decorations and Candle Care. Be sure to check out the links to other safety information pages provided - cooking, electrical and candle fire information are featured.
And speaking of Candle Fire Safety, I was surprised to find that there is a Candle Association...no kidding! And if you follow the link http://www.candles.org/safety.html , you will find not only candle safety tips, but some good information on caring for and properly using candles in your home. Interesting...
Some additional sites providing Holiday Safety Tips:
http://www.firesafety.gov/citizens/firesafety/holiday.shtm
http://www.befiresmart.com/?&src=s=msnk=holiday%20fire%20safetyG=BeFireSmart_Fire_Safety_ExactC=FireSafety_NationalM=Exact
I REALLY like this one - sections for Parents, Children, etc. and is somewhat interactive. Great presentations!
And be sure to check out this important parking lot safety tidbit from our local media folks...Holiday Safety isn't just about fires you know? http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/1109/682330.html
OTHER STUFF:
President Obama has created a Long-Term Disaster Recovery Working Group to strengthen disaster recovery and ensure a more resilient nation. The working group launched its website: www.DisasterRecoveryWorkingGroup.gov. This high-level, strategic initiative will provide operational guidance for recovery organizations as well as make suggestions for future improvement.
Want to learn more about DHS' (Department of Homeland Security) critical infrastructure protection, readiness, and resilience efforts? Check out http://www.dhs.gov/files/programs/critical.shtm . Just released, this latest resource is part of the Department's effort to heighten awareness about the importance of protecting America's vital assets, systems, and networks.
As we all know, current events trigger increased sharing of information relevant to these events. While we certainly don't wish to capitalize on these tragic events, it is important to continue the learning and educational process and take advantage of any information that may help prevent and/or deal with these types of tragedies. From the Firefighters Support Foundation, Inc. http://www.ffsupport.org/training.html - Select "Mental Health Topics for First Responders". This program is a video series on three mental health topics important to first responders. The series may also be helpful to the people closest to first responders. Click on the video title to read a content description and access the download link.
For our Partners in Business, check out http://www.ready.gov/business/ for information on how you can prepare your business place for any kind of interruption. Remember, a disaster for your business may not necessarily be something big and tangible like a hurricane or tornado. It may be as simple as a major flu outbreak (if employees are sick, they can't work!) or power outage from a winter storm. If you have a plan, now's the time to check it and make sure all your lists are updated - and if you don't...well, now's a good time to get cracking on it!
This time of year, our thoughts turn to helping those less fortunate. In times of disaster, that list can grow at a rate that boggles the mind. Here are a couple of websites that can provide some insight to how you can help.
Many non-profits utilize a system called "Aid Matrix", which allows them to post specific needs on a web-based database for people to review. The items listed are supplies needed for on-going disaster relief efforts. The item needed, the non-profit organization needing it, priority level (High, Medium, Low), Respond By Date and Origin of Request (state) are sections listed. If you click on the "Details" link for each item, more detailed information about the item will appear in the lower portion of your screen along with Contact Information for the requesting organization. http://www.aidmatrixnetwork.org/fema/PublicPortal/ListOfNeeds.aspx?PortalID=0 - is the link to the Current Needs page. http://www.aidmatrixnetwork.org/fema/PublicPortal/ListOfNeeds.aspx?PortalID=0 - takes you to the Home Page so you may learn more about how AidMatrix works, and who uses it.
More general information on helping others can be found from our partners at FEMA -http://www.fema.gov/rebuild/recover/howtohelp.shtm . This page gives simple examples of helping through three mechanisms: Donating Cash, Volunteering (with some links to pages to guide you to some worthwhile organizations), and Donating Goods (with the guidance to always be sure you are coordinating your In-Kind Donations through an organization so that your donation matches a specific need).
As we make our way into yet another New Year, we often think of what we've done this year, and what we can do in the coming year. If I may, I would like to toss out a suggestion for those needing Resolution ideas:
Do something for your COMMUNITY - Volunteer
Do something for your NEIGHBOR - Check on someone who doesn't have anyone
Do something for your FAMILY - Tell them you love them
Do something for YOURSELF - If you've done the first three items, this is already done!
Be Aware ~ Be Informed ~ Be Safe
Woody
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Upcoming Events with Tulsa Partners
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January
7th- HP Annex Community Meeting at Philbrook - 6-8pm
14th- H/C DERT Meeting at Philbrook - 1:30pm
22nd- 4th Friday Green Bag Lunch at Kendall-Whittier Library
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Your support is always welcome!
Raise money for Tulsa Partners by searching the internet with GoodSearch.com, or shopping online with GoodShop.com
This
software, which takes just a minute to install, allows you to support
your favorite cause even if you forget to go to our site first! This
is a real game changer in both the ease of using our site and amount of
money your cause can earn.
Here's how it works...
1. Download the toolbar at http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/
2. Search the web directly from the built-in search box. Each
search generates a donation (about a penny per search) for your cause!
3.
Shop online as you normally would at any of our 1,300+ participating
stores including Gap, PetSmart, Dell, and Staples. When you're at the
store's website, our toolbar will automatically light up displaying the percentage donated and any available coupons. With our new toolbar, your purchases will generate donations even if you forget to start your shopping at GoodShop!
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