March 29th, 2012

Today was my last day of interning for the Mayor of Durango, Christina Rinderle!  The majority of what I did today was just put some finishing touches on some of the things that I did here, and compile all of the other things that I plan on exhibiting at the exhibition tomorrow.  This I mostly did at the Mayor's office.  In the afternoon, I headed over to Sherri's office to wrap stuff up there.  I also worked on compiling some stuff for the Mayor's Youth Advisory Commission about the Youth Expo that I will need for next year's planning.  Then, later on in the evening, I went to an event with Christina at the Durango Discovery Museum for the La Plata County Economic Development Alliance.  It was a kind of reception for the new logo that they made, that will be a kind of branding for Durango - something that local businesses will put on their products when they export them, so that everyone knows that they are from Durango.  And when they start to see that around the country, and then when they see it in Durango, they will make that connection.  So tomorrow is the exhibition for the internship, which marks the ending of a fantastic three weeks that I wish could continue on.  I will be having a celebratory lunch with Mayor Rinderle after the exhibition tomorrow, which will mark the true close of my internship, but this will be my last post, so this is the intern for the Mayor of Durango, saying goodbye.

March 28th, 2012

Today, I went in to Christina's office and I worked on getting all my stuff together for exhibition.  I made a folder with all of the stuff that I need to print out to exhibit, and I came up with a list of talking points, about what I did, what I learned, and so on.  I hope to continue this guide and to print out the things tomorrow.  Then, I went up to the college for a meeting with Sodexo who will be doing the catering for the Gala, a big event for the Pro Cycling Challenge.  This was kind of a preliminary meeting, to get ideas out, and for the next gala meeting we will have some general prices to look at.  Then, I went down to Three Springs for a Regional Housing Alliance board of directors meeting.  This was a somewhat interesting meeting that covered quite a bit.  One of the topics that took up a lot of time was the proposed transitional housing that the Regional Housing Alliance is working with a lot of other organizations to put in up by Manna Soup Kitchen, Hilltop House, and some other places in the area.  The audiors were also finishing up, so they made a little presentation to the board about what they had been finding and such, and about how the selection of audiors works.  Then that was about it for the day, and tomorrow is my last day of the internship, which makes me really sad.

March 27th, 2012

Today, I picked up Mayor Rinderle, and we drove out to Three Springs, where we had a meeting about 'Fresh Check,' a event that is being planned for college students (but also maybe high school and middle school students) to help prevent suicide.  It is a big problem, and a family that lost a child to this started a foundation to help freshmen in college not commit suicide, and to create a support system for them, and let them know that their community is there for them.  Then, the foundation is putting on a 'Fresh Check' day, which is going to be an event occuring in the fall, where students can come and learn about the rescources available to them.  I am hopin that I will be able to help out in the planning of this event, as I think that it is a good cause, and it seems somewhat similar to the expo, so I may be more helpful.  Then I went to a operations committee meeting, which actually ended up being pretty short, but we got a lot done - the whole thing is getting worked out, and the map is looking pretty solid, although we still need to get permission from a few parking lots.  Then, I went to a Gala committee meeting, where we talked about the possible prices of tickets, the different levels, and the number of people who would be attending.  Later, I will go to the City Council Study Session and the Mayor's Youth Advisory Commission meeting. 

March 26th, 2012

Today, I began at Sherri's office, where I input more dates and times that I had accuired in the meeting with the USPCC.  Then, she gave me even more dates, concerning the poster contest and room reservations that I also input into the deadline calendar.  Then, I went to a meeting with Sherri and Mary Monroe, the head of Trails 2000 and the other co chair for the LOC.  They discussed some other details of the race, what needs to be worked out, what we need to do, etc.  Then I headed back to city hall for the meeting with Christina and Ron LeBlanc, the City Manager, where they caught up on some things and discussed the upcoming week.  Then, Christina and I went to a 'Lunch and Learn' which is with the wells group, but it was still very interesting and informational, and talked about how to maximize your potential and have your best year yet.  Then I went back to the Mayor's office, and met with Jessica Mccallum, our junior humanities teacher, who was checking in on my internship.  Then, we went to a VIP/Hospitality Committee meeting at the race headquarters, where we talked about the opening ceremonies, who would sing the national anthem, etc.

March 23rd, 2012

The first meeting that I had today was the site visit from the US Pro Cycling Challenge people.  They gave a presentation on the status of the race, and how it was all coming along, and then they asked us if we had any questions.  Many of the LOC sub-committee co-chairs did have questions, so by the end of it we were able to get all of them answered.  However, the presentation part of it wasn't supposed to take that long, so the plan was that after we would walk around the sites (downtown and at the college).  But because of all the questions, it did go long, but they decided to to the walk around anyway.  However, Christina and I had another event to get to, and so we had to leave and not to with them to the sites.  The other event was a outstanding women's luncheon, put on by the Women's Rescource Center to commemorate the woman of the year award.  This award was given out to the woman who began the Adult Education Center.  She also did a great number of other things, but this was perhaps her biggest accomplishement.  Once she received the award, she made a very good speech.  Then we had the keynote speaker, who talked about how feminism isn't dead.  It was a really great experience, both for networking and for idea expansion.  I then went back to Sherri's office and worked on my project a little bit more and we prepared for the upcoming Mayor's Youth Advisory Commission meeting.

March 22nd, 2012

Today, Mayor Rinderle and I went to Manna Soup Kitchen to help cook for the lunch service.  I had never been to Manna before, and it was a really great experience.  We filled pies, decorated them with whipped cream, and made mashed potatoes.  Then, during the service, we served all the pies.  There were a lot of people there volunteering in the kitchen, and it was great to help out the community like that, and I hope to do it again sometime in the future - maybe this summer.  After that, Christina needed to go and meet with some clients, so I went back to my parents' store to work some more on other things relating to my internship.  My dad and I also began planning our next trip to tour more colleges.  Currently, I am waiting on some feedback from the LOC co-chairs about my monthly update template in order to complete that part of my project, and I am waiting on more information on dates and deadlines from all of the sub-committees to complete my master calendar for the week of and the deadline calendar.  Tomorrow is the site visit from the race people, which is very important.  I am looking forward to it, and I think that a lot of our questions about many different things will be resolved.  I am hoping that by the end of the week I will be able to have my template completed and sent out to everyone, and the calendar further along than it was before. 

March 21st, 2012

Today, I didn't have any meetings at all!  This meant that I could just work on my project, which was a nice change from the constant meetings all week.  Another thing that I did today was post my mentor interview to my blog.  Interestingly enough, blogger doesn't allow you to upload audio files to your blog.  I looked and looked for ways to do this, but realized that the only way was to make it into a movie file.  So I brought up the default movie maker program that was already installed on my computer, and put my audio file to the lovely City of Durango logo.  And there it was, a movie!  I then had to export it into a file that blogger could upload, and then it worked!  So if you look further down on this page, you can check it out!  I also sent my montly progress report template to Mary Monroe, the other co-chair of the LOC for more feedback.  I then converted my excel spreadsheet of the deadlines of the race into a calendar so it is easier to look at and figure out what is going on.  I also planned a little bit for my upcoming summer internship with the city.