Community Collaboration: The Mother of all Event-ion
“While appearing like a small town,” explains one Sidney, Montana resident, “it functions as a regional center, meeting the needs of many with a wide range of services and products.” As a major hub for the region, Sidney’s small-town atmosphere, affordable housing, practically non-existent crime, and family-friendly lifestyle are what attracts newcomers and brings back the natives. Now, the town’s 4,774 residents and over 400 businesses are looking to capitalize on its bustling community to support the “Event-ion Center,” a multiuse facility serving town residents, regional communities and possibly organizations and businesses outside the county and state in need of convention center facilities.
The Event-ion Center was jump-started by Horizons, a community leadership development program sponsored by the Northwest Area Foundation. The program included some initial funds to help complete a community-wide needs assessment for the facility. The Center will likely include meeting rooms and a world-class auditorium sized appropriately for the region, and it follows in the footsteps of other developments in the community that position Sidney as a regional center in eastern Montana and western North Dakota. Still, various local uses for the facility are also planned that appeal to all members of the community.
The new Event-ion Center is needed to help diversify economic opportunities within the community. Many realize that following the area’s agriculture and energy-based industries, like oil production, can be unpredictable at best, and at worst, boom-and-bust. That said, sugar beets continue to be the largest product grown and processed in Sidney, and oil fields are, once again, being aggressively — if temporarily — tapped due to recent spikes in energy costs. “We’ve been hit hard and left quickly by the oil boom of the 1970s,” admits one longtime resident. “The Horizons leadership program has opened our eyes to what kind of change is possible and put into place a greater diversity of leaders and go-getters, many whom were never involved before. We can guide this change and make sure things last long after the present oil boom is over.” The key to success is not getting something built, it’s sustaining it over time, serving community members first and foremost.
In one of the community brainstorming sessions, residents from throughout the Sidney area named the lack of an auditorium space as an issue. They agreed to pursue the idea of a convention center, leaving flexibility for it to operate as a multiuse facility. Community members agreed that any center built should be able to be subdivided into smaller rooms for smaller groups. At this pivotal meeting the name Event-ion Center was coined.
Hoping to make the new facility a community endeavor, a diverse group of residents have embarked on a needs assessment for the facility, using a seven-item questionnaire that reaches far into the surrounding towns in the county. Realizing that strength comes in numbers and partnerships, proponents of the Event-ion Center see it as a countywide project, not just a Sidney project. The needs assessment survey identifies those aspects of the facility that are most appealing to community members. Possible features of the center include an auditorium, reception hall, commercial kitchen, computer lab, child-care facility, recreational area or indoor pool.
“It’s going to be more than just a convention center,” says one resident, relatively new to the town. Talk of attracting a new hotel for convention attendees and providing a computer lab — to provide needed resources for the town and an income stream for the facility — offers insights into the progressive approach many have taken to developing the project. To secure a year-round income stream to pay the bills, the plans for the facility include possibly providing space to house the Boys & Girls Club and an expanded library area.
As a part of the marketing assessment, the Event-ion Committee toured similar facilities in Williston, Dickinson, Denmark and Glendive — hoping to find just the right design and functionality for the Event-ion Center. Examination of other facilities offered inspiration and ideas, and provided a better understanding that sometimes such small details like special staircases and molding can contribute to the appearance and, in fact, to the value of the facility. The day long road-trip also became the glue, cementing together many community members working on the project with shared enthusiasm and support for each other’s perspectives.
For out-of-town visitors drawn by the Event-ion Center, the area’s abundant wildlife populations and fishing in the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers could offer plenty of diversionary activities before or after convention meetings. So might the proposed community water park, if constructed. Momentum is building with windfall revenues from the recent upsurge in oil drilling activity having many new leaders thinking about a lasting future that best meets all community members’ needs.
Community meetings have also spurred residents to brainstorm the “100 Things to Do in Sidney for $5 or Less” activity sheet for visitors, reprinted in the MonDak Visitors’ Guide. From highlighting community events like the Sunrise Festival Arts in the Park, to touring the Sidney Sugar Factory, which makes sugar from locally harvested sugar beets, the 100 Things compilation offers insight into the breadth of opportunities in this small town.
Involvement in the leadership training by many residents not normally engaged in development issues has infused community groups and committees with new perspectives. “These emerging new leaders, often from sectors of the community previously overlooked, have gained new standing in the town, boosted and buoyed by their leadership training,” shares one resident. Many of those who participated in the Horizons training have graduated to the Chamber-sponsored leadership development program, stepping up and taking hold of their vision for what Sidney can become. The emerging new leaders are proceeding on firm traction, with a vision that is community driven and community focused.
Finally, to help bring some of the more than 250 groups and organizations together in the community — and perhaps to also make sure everyone’s needs can be met by the investment in the new center — a community task force gathers regularly to foster greater communication among leaders in different groups. In the planning stages is a community calendar, which reflects the incessant buzz of community activities from school sports to festivals.
Mindful that change can be a long and topsy-turvy process in addition to being a lot of hard work, the leadership training has left many community members with the stamina, confidence and perseverance to move forward — one step at a time — on the Event-ion Center, in whatever form it takes. One thing’s for sure, it will be a community event when it opens.