CommUNITY Alliance

STERLING HEIGHTS CommUNITY Alliance Minutes of Wednesday, September 21 , 2022 Meeting Location: City Hall Members Present: Cindy Bjornson, Tatrika Graphenreed, Ricardo Harris, Rich Rubba Members Absent: Stacy Bahri, Tim Doppel, Nakia Powell-Thomas Representing the City: Melanie Davis Meeting called to order at 6 :10 p.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES : Motion to approve the meeting minutes of the August 17, 2022 CommUNITY Alliance made by R. Rubba; Seconded by C. Bjornson and voted all in favor. AGENDA ITEMS: A. Group Bonding Exercise – N. Powell-Thomas forwarded a “My Fullest Name” group bonding exercise in her absence, and the group shared their full name, who gave it to them, the ethnic origin of their name, their nicknames and how they got them and any naming traditions in their families. B. Officer Elections – The only officer position that has served a full term and must be replaced is the office of Secretary. At the August meeting, nominations were made for T. Doppel and C. Bjornson. R. Rubba made a motion to elect T. Doppel as Secretary for the 2022-2023 program year. C. Bjornson seconded the motion, and the motion carried all in favor. C. October 17 Presentation to Council – M. Davis noted that all commissions are requested to present updates on their work with City Council each year, and the CommUNITY Alliance has been scheduled to present on Oct. 17. R. Harris and C. Bjornson agreed to do the presentation. M. Davis will assist in putting together slides they can use for this purpose. D. Recent Activiti es/Feedback - M. Davis shared information with the group regarding the recent Diversity Distinction Awards Dinner this past Sept. 14 and the Breakfast of Nations event this past Sept. 16. Both events went well and were well attended. E. Strategic Plan Updates  a. S. Bahri noted the MISD/MCC are planning a youth workshop this year, and she is working to gather additional information for the October meeting as we may want to try to collaborate with a unity workshop. b. Resolution and Social Media Calendars – T. Doppel has created the resolution calendar, and we have successfully passed 16 resolutions this year to date. T. Doppel has provided bullets for social media posts for same which have been promoted through city social media platforms. We recently also posted the “meet the Alliance members” information on Facebook and Instagram. c. C. Bjornson and M. Davis met with representatives from the Sterling Heights Public Library to discuss the Human Library project. The city attorney has reviewed the contract, and we have applied for and received our license for hosting a program at the Community Center on Thursday, April 13. C. Bjornson noted we are aiming to secure 8- 10 human “books” who represent topics the average person doesn’t normally encounter. These books would do an intro to their “readers” and answer questions for about 30 minutes each session. The main Human Library organization hosts public events on Zoom, and we’ll be attending an upcoming session to learn more about how this works. We will also be getting online training for both the organizers and any “books” we recruit. More to come as we engage with the organization and attend trainings/review materials. d. We have already held four of six “celebrations” from the annual calendar including Pride flag raising, Juneteenth, Black History Month and Pride Month. Others TBD. e. Disability Awareness Workshops - C. Bjornson reported that we have received confirmation for our rental of the disability modules, and she will request that we bump it up by one week so that we can pick them up on Feb. 21 in time to familiarize ourselves with them prior to the Feb. 24 Cultural Exchange and still have them in order to do a standalone event potentially on March 1. We were looking to do something at Sterlingfest as well, but there are no summer rentals for the modules. OLD BUSINESS: There was no old business at this time. NEW BUSINESS : There was no new business at this time. ADJOURNMENT : The meeting was adjourned at 7:36 p.m. on a motion from R. Rubba, seconded by R. Harris and voted all in favor.