Winter Break ?

"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."  So said Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby.  As I stare out the window of the Budweiser Champions Club at Modern Woodmen Park, there are roughly 83 geese not waiting for spring to ruin the outfield.  Here’s hoping someone gives team owner Dave Heller a couple border collies for Christmas.

Mayor Gluba, the City Council, department heads and several citizens have assembled to sneak up on 2015 with a strategic planning session.  SAU prof Dan Ebener is facilitating the process, and he has brought along a few students to help.  Dan’s asked me to start with an inspirational story, so I tell the one about one, then two, then five Davenport employees who saved the ballpark from flooding back in 2008, before we had the whiz-bang aluminum panels that stack atop each other.  It was a scary night and, to me, a pivot point in Davenport’s history.

I tell how the story ended with CNN visiting the ballpark the next day, looking for the traditional flood shot.  The CNN advance guy arrived to find a few thousand Quad Citians enjoying a River Bandits game at Modern Woodmen Island.  He told Mayor Gluba and me “we can’t air this”.  I asked if all they aired was bad news, and he shrugged.  I took that as a yes.  They moved on down the road, to chronicle the watery woe in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

I end my Ebener compelled speech by noting the end of the story with the CNN advance guy is not really the end.  There is never really an end to any city’s story.  Communities are on-going.  One group tries its best, then the next group gets a try.  The new group either looks to blame the old group (a sure sign of inadequate leadership) or thanks the old group for doing the best they could, and then rolls up its sleeves to do even more.  That’s how progress works.  The group assembled for the morning has an excellent record of progress, and I just try to remind them that small acts of individual courage and leadership can make big differences.

There’s general affirmation as Dan takes over, leading eight tables of Davenporters through the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats samba.  We end up with nine pages of notes, available here, as the starting point for a 2015 Strategic Plan.   The themes of welcoming investment, supporting talent and enhancing quality of life through innovation and collaboration are derived through consensus discussion.  Greater investment and focus on expanding education opportunities runs as a current through the strategies.  The next step of defining action plans is already underway at the staff level, to be reviewed with the Mayor and Council in January.

Staring out the window and waiting ... is not a strategy.