Marshall County Crossroads

I attended the Marshall County Crossroads meeting today. Swan Lake Resort hosted the event. It appears the steering committee is making good progress and I commend Ginny Munroe and Kevin Overmyer for taking this on. It is a daunting job. The Stellar Community effort in Culver was difficult on a single community level, so I can see that upping the community count to 6, plus the county, has to increased the difficulty in a geometric progression.

I’m not sure if many of the new ideas generated today will be usable in the application since we’re getting down the the wire, but I am sure some of them can be melded into the existing targeted goals. It was a useful effort. Culling out some of the other, stand alone, good ideas can be added to the overall planning for the future. I would sincerely hope that some of the overarching organizations such as the Marshall County Community Foundation  (MCCF) and the Marshall County Economic Development Corp. (MCEDC) will include them in their planning and that the individual communities and the county will fold them into their individual strategic action plans. Possibly Marshall County Crossroads morphs into its own continuing entity to spearhead these things.

The planning and collaboration process was one of the more important “wins” to come from the Culver Stellar application. Keeping that supportive collaboration going can be like herding cats, but it’s worth the effort. I think Marshall County Crossroads is a good next step in the mutual support that has been fostered by MCEDC’s County Development for the Future program. We’re better when we can work on goals together.