everyone I think most everybody knows me I am Leslie wtz the development manager with Central Minnesota jobs and Training Services um we have been involved with registered apprenticeship through the the power up Grant um through EXL energy
and also we have a leap Grant so it's been very exciting learning more about registered apprenticeship and how it can really work with our board initiatives so then through conversations um at the mob Business Services meeting Marie and I connected
and it's like you know what let's make a community of practice because there are so many things that we don't know but everybody has some knowledge we can do a lot together and share that knowledge so
that's how this uh community of practice came to be and we're very excited to have it grow and have more individuals share all right fantastic thank you lesie and
hello everybody I am Marie Larson and I work for the City of Minneapolis and Community planning and economic development uh and Leslie and I are both very excited and have been planning for a while uh to host this kickoff meeting
and to help to convene meetings going forward of a community of practice that a state wide focusing on registered apprenticeship there are a lot of changes and evolution going on here in the role of Workforce Development boards the role that they play in supporting
and expanding registered apprenticeship throughout the state of Minnesota so we're seeing some of that change we're also seeing uh more employers come to us for resources and with questions about how to get started and registered apprenticeship we at the City of Minneapolis have opened an
apprenticeship Outreach office at one of our career Force location so we are now having the experience of getting started with registered apprenticeship at a location that's technically managed by deed in our area we're our One-Stop operator at our careerforce location so
that has been an interesting Evolution and integration as well so we'll have more to share on all of that and I'm going to go ahead if it's okay with you lesie and just screen share now a PowerPoint that we put together as an overview and then we will go from there
okay so at the top we have got an overview slide lesie uh would you mind going over this first slide sure so really this community of practice is going to help um adopt and
expand registered apprenticeships throughout the state I know that there are several boards that are right now participating in the Department of Labor and industries in-person trainings um we hope to take that
knowledge truly and bring it to this community of practice but because we know not all of the boards are represented at the table there we hope that this becomes more of a Statewide initiative um it truly is designed to be
a resource and peer support because we we've found that individuals know a little bit um probably enough to be dangerous but as a community of practice we're hoping that we can all share and grow our knowledge together and develop
some common tools and resources that we can all access um we hope to serve as an information Hub supporting the local areas to grow their capacity help them identify additional Partnerships developing new resources and ideally
that we would have more additional registered apprenticeship hubs across the state uh you know it's great to have them in the Metro but it'd be nice to have them all over so there's the overview so thank you very much yeah you
bet okay so our next step if our attendees would be willing to do so would be to ask that you introduce yourselves if you can tell us a little bit about your role and your wga or region that you're representing and then if you are looking for anything in
particular out of an apprenticeship community of practice so should we have any volunteers to go for first we could just put people on the spot too Marie I'll go first okay hey good morning Chris Staples I'm with the
NOA County uh I've only been at the NOA County for about two and a half three months prior to that I spent 30 years in the military and recently retired so from that perspective I'm just looking to uh number one uh gain connections of people that have experience in this uh
and then number two just learning um what the uh internships all all entail from a support aspect thank you all right who's up Ashley can I call on you yes absolutely so I'm Ashley Ren I
work for Workforce Development based out of Rochester Minnesota serving regionally so I serve 10 counties um and I am the work-based um learning coordinator and apprenticeship coordinator um I am hoping to
collaborate with other individuals who are doing similar things in my role um just a lot of um challenges that we're seeing I know I've talked with um Marie and um some other individuals and just
kind of get some other support and aspects and just again just kind of get a lot of knowledge some other people that have been doing this thank you thank you all right who's up I can go next I'm Courtney wobby with
Workforce Development as well I work with Ashley and Jenny um I am the dislocated worker and Outreach director um and I'm looking forward to collaborating as well and learning from you all so excited thank you I can go
off okay I wasn't sure who who else was left uh Jenny Ritman I'm the executive director with Workforce Development Inc down in southeast Minnesota on Ashley and Courtney's team um and yeah we're just really excited to see this group come to fruition it was an idea I think
Deb bar Helgen um you know talked about this almost a year ago already so just excited to see this group um starting and uh we are you know supporting businesses uh in the Southeast region we're really excited to finally have created carved out enough funding to
create a position to really help businesses focus on work-based learning opportunities as a whole and apprenticeship being under that umbrella and that's Ashley so we're just really really excited that we can put the time and attention to this and um also excited to learn from all of you around
the state who are who are doing great things uh in this space already excellent so next uh if you can hear me okay I'm Betsy Hill with the city of du um Workforce Development and we are um
my role I guess I work with our career Pathways program they serve as a kind of lead for our adult teams as well and you know we have a couple of employers um in our area in healthcare and Manufacturing that are interested in apprenticeship and we're just really appreciative of the timing of this to walk alongside
them as they're developing apprenticeships and see how we can expand it out in our area I think uh Elena our director is on as well she might be traveling so I'm not sure if she can unmute hi everyone um Alena foch I'm the director of Workforce Development and
I'm working with Betsy to try and expand the number of apprenticeships available and the types of apprenticeships available in our region and then use that as a tool to uh help support recruitment for employers
excellent all right Bob morning everybody Bob lebal I'm with the Minnesota Association Workforce ports glad you could all be here wonderful and Mark Mark Jacobs Workforce Development director in in Dakota and SCA counties
and uh looking forward to to having these smart people who are leading the charge on this provide Clarity uh prorip has been a hot topic for as long as I've been in this work which is a really long time and Minnesota's really never um
succeeded in getting anything off the ground and I should hesitate by saying that but I won't a little bit but Department of Labor Minot Department of Labor and Industry has done some good work but seems so disconnected from what
we do um there might be some ETS of of uh work and so how do we how do we go forward and do something and so Marie and Lesley who know what they're doing leading this um um optimistic and this is important work not only from what we
heard relative to employers but apprenti ships are something this administration at the federal level seems to like and so the timing might be perfect from from that standpoint is is we all figure out our role uh or how the feds will see our
role with the Apparently different lenses that they wear so there you go boom fantastic thank you so much we appreciate your vote of confidence uh Mark and we appreciate everyone uh being here today it's uh it's great to have uh
this uh you know achieve liftoff yes that's right it's been a little while since we started talking about the community practice but we are here today so we're we're getting it started all right so I am I'm going to uh go back to
the screen share and um look again at our PowerPoint presentation is everybody still seeing the PowerPoint yes you are okay yeah so I'm gonna I am gonna just do this I'm actually going to just reboot that because for some reason it
was not on my screen so we're back now okay so here is the next slide and in this slide we're starting to talk about the overall vision statement of purpose and kind of activities that we propose that our
community of practice be involved in and just a little bit of level setting on where this communication came from is it's going to be very s similar to what we had included in our that was shared out State thank you
Bob for helping to share that out but essentially this is sort of like the goal and overall we We Believe at least a starting point of the purpose of our community practice beginning to convene so in here we have some kind of overall themes or activities that we that lesie
and I and really our community of practice as a whole have told our Workforce Development board directors that we will be reporting back to them on at least quarterly uh and these include uh apprenticeship Outreach office what is
the best practice there if other areas are interested in getting started with an apprenticeship Outreach office what does a startup toolkit look like employer engagement we're hearing a lot of folks talk about that today so important what's effective what is
working how are we getting employers engaged and you know over the Finish Line to agreeing to registered apprenticeship it's a lot of work uh and are there other tools or ideas that we have around employer engagement that we can be developing and sharing as a
community practice we have Learning and Development resources in this space we think of things like workshops that might be offered in your local area at your career Force location or other community locations that would make sense for your area uh Pathways to
apprenticeship really important around that idea of supporting career Seekers who are looking to explore and to get started how do we reduce barriers so that individuals can access those apprenticeships um at the point where where they are ready and that may
include for some of us career pathway programs that we already have uh funded and looking at those as starting points to registered apprenticeship we've got tracking apprenticeship availability I know that we have Partners around the state that are doing this and have been doing this well for a while so would
love to learn more about what's kind of taking root in your areas and how you're using those tools I think another one here this is really on that employer side is highlighting where we're growing in registered apprenticeship where are we seeing some traction is it you know is it in the Business
Association side is it a certain Workforce area is doing some convening or using their board and our influence and our convening power in a different way like what's going on should really encourage the the growth and the traction in getting to more registered
apprenticeships uh education for boards this may be something that we're looking for and we're hoping that our community practice will be a space where we can bring forward those requests for more assist and by the way this also includes keeping ourselves updated because there are changes in registered apprenticeship
and we hope to you know get you know ongoing updates from DLI when we're when we're meeting and convening to find out what is happening what do we need to keep our eyes on what's changing uh communication strategies we're going to talk about that in a little bit here uh but just more generally registered
apprentiship strategies and of course funding opportunities so uh Leslie had mentioned at the very beginning the apprenticeship technical assistance cohort is taking place now with some potential funding opportunities for boards coming up in March but there are also you know US Department of Labor
grants that have been out there and some of our partners around the state have been awarded those so we're very interested to finding out in finding out what you've been working on and um yeah and how that uh process has been going for you so I'm going to switch over this
slide no okay lesie do you want to take this one okay absolutely so as I had mentioned previously one of the goals is to really have those um apprenticeship Outreach
offices more across the state so I think once um Marie's area has more tools and resources to share they'll really be able to help all of us who are part of this community of practice take those um
tweak them and Branch out and have those offices everywhere and part of that is the employer engagement how do you get employers to the table to talk to you and be willing to move forward because the paperwork is intensive and what is the best
practice and I have observed some of the DLI um staff when they come out and I don't know that they um have the most positive approach when they approach employers they write
away what are your hurdles why you know they come at it like this rather than here are the benefits of what you can use when you're tapping into registered apprenticeship so really how can we best make that sales pitch to employers to get them to move
forward what are the incentives what who can all be at the table for partners and what assistance do the employers need to really help get their apprenticeship off the ground so part of this community of practice is putting together that
toolkit as Marie mentioned that has all those Learning and Development resources having guide books you know at a glance not so overwhelming but enough to Peak their interest where they want to learn more and then we have staff available from our community of practice that can
help walk them through this and as the last um section really getting um schools involved getting students interested in this as a pathway to their career as
well any questions so far from anybody because we will take questions along the way you don't have to save them to the end all right I guess next slide Marie okay okay so this is just another kind of look at our first thoughts and
getting started what we're I think um as we think about our first maybe say six months worth of meetings uh again looking at where we're at today kind of mapping where we're at taking a look at that and I think um
also really talking to the community in practice of what are we missing here so it's important to note that this is in no way a final list of activi ities that we'll be pursuing there may def you know there may be more and I do want to just
say as well if we are finding some inroads to expanding registered apprenticeship say with an uh in a certain Union or with a business advisory committee or with a Business Association we think it's going to be great to be able to share that at the
community of practice because you may have Affiliates in your own area that could sort of take advantage of the fact that have some Affiliates in their industry in those occupational areas that are building registered apprenticeship and that's just a great
success story uh to be able to share uh Statewide so that you know um if we have say teaching apprenti shps that are growing in Minneapolis public schools we're already seeing that other parts of the state have you know asked us about that you know how did you get that going
are you using other tools and resources at the CD of Minneapolis in your employer toolkit to help to you know incentivized or to help the business get started um where are they getting the training from how are they putting that together which positions are they drawing from either within the public
schools or outside of public schools so that's just one example of how we've been able to share how some of the apprenticeship work we're doing right now has come together and how we're really resourcing and supporting that so yeah does anybody have any thoughts or
feedbacks or or questions so far on that this slide um you lesie uh feel free to review if you want to but it just goes a little bit more into some resources that I think we already have available so yeah everybody's quiet this morning
uh so uh we just wanted to let you know that uh we do have some Communications tools and strategies that we have um put together at the City of Minneapolis as we launched our apprenticeship Outreach office out of career force and that
would be uh you know potentially a conversation to have are we interested in a cohesive brand for registered apprenticeship work at the board level in in our areas across the state uh Outreach to employers where are we are we interested in convening some employer
roundtables that are you know beyond just uh our specific WDAS could there be benefits in Regional or even Statewide uh conversation with employers uh that goes to that kind of research the regional options I know that uh the technical assistance cohort talks about
this a little bit about like a regional strategy and that's really you going to be I think especially for us in the Metro kind of a newer like conversation around is there what would that even look like to have a regional strategy for apprenticeship and then funding opportunities definitely can we support
each other uh keep updated on what what's coming out what's available who might be applying and if there are some Potentials in joint applications or collaboration around funding opportunities so we' got that on the slide as well Mark has a question oh go right
ahead yep hey I uh I apologize if I missed this but is the scope of this going to be only registered apprenti ships I think that is that is the ultimate goal is to have them move into registered
apprenticeships but I think some employers may not be there and they may need to start a little bit slower and how do you help them build capacity so it may not start with registered apprenticeship it may be
getting um you skills training certified so that they could have some students being able to work in their facility to help grow their pipeline so I think there is um a broad option um Elena you have a
question I do so um one of the things I want to understand better is the role of an apprenticeship sponsor and like what is that role what do they do how are they funded and then and do we want to collectively reach out
to say an industry Association about becoming an apprenticeship sponsor and I'm specifically thinking from my perspective about manufacturing you know we we've got some interest among employers who are manufacturers and apprenticeship but a lot of them are
kind of too small to take it on on their own and are asking you know is this a role that the workforce board could play I say no that we don't have the capacity to do that but is that like the the regional manufacturers Association or
even a Statewide manufacturers Association could they take on a role as apprenticeship sponsor and then you know a number of employers who all have kind of occupations in common but who are too small to do it on their own could join
in something like that I I would love to explore that a little bit and kind of decide do we want to collectively reach out to an industry Association or two to start that conversation that is a great question Elena and I know that um they kind of
talked they hit on it at our last in-person training at DLI about sponsorship and I am hoping that they um expand upon that in the upcoming and it's definitely a question we can ask I know they have
um additional resources that we can tap into to get more of that information so I think um just drawing on this last training that we had with DLI Elena and you know for others that were there please feel free to also
contribute here uh to the response but as I recall one of the things that DLI is really kind of putting forward is an option for local boards or maybe even you know as you're pointing out um Elena
the boards configured like together or in you know in collaboration with business associations to look at those different roles that are available we're discovering now that there's a role called an administrator which is something that's actually
different from a sponsor of apprenticeship so we're just starting to learn about like what those different configurations and the role that the boards can play could look like uh I completely believe that it would fantastic for this community of practice
to be first of all a place where we can bring a question like that or a challenge that we're having where we could uh tap into DLI to get some answers if we don't have them right away so for instance exactly what is the definition of a sponsor and how were they paid that's a great question right
we probably want to make sure that we have all of that clear with DLI and then think about yes who do we invite to the table is it possible to to ask a an association that's representing business businesses or that could even represent more businesses to come to the table
with us and explore the option of becoming an apprenticeship sponsor um themselves so those I think that's a great example of being able to convene Statewide because some of those resources may be able to you know to
benefit all of us in different ways as we're getting started manufacturing there's just so much you know out there to be explored still in my opinion like I think we are just kind of are at the tip of the iceberg with that uh but yes uh the collective work makes a lot of
sense and uh you know again kind of bringing together our Partnerships and our thoughts and being able to uh to tap into each other to be able to think more about you know more broadly and then bringing to scale in our local areas what does that look like so I think
that's an excellent question and my answer would be absolutely I think the Community Practice would be here to support that I don't know what everybody else thinks but love to hear what you think as well this uh slide right here goes into a little bit more of that and and we see
kind of in the second box developing an apprenticeship Outreach office strategy you know some of that does you know part of the apprenticeship Outreach office really is going to continually be about employer engagement so I know that we started ours on the side of like how do
we reach career Seekers but realistically we have already have more career Seekers who are looking for opportunities than we have apprenticeships available so this is going to be an ongoing need absolutely um so
anyway I just wanted to share this uh these are some examples of some materials that we've developed at the um min apprenticeship Outreach office on that right hand side you see a logo that we're using now that absolutely could be
easily adopted to any part of the state so we've got the word Minneapolis underneath apprenticeship and um you know your local board or region could certainly you know be plugging into that and then on the left side you'll notice this is our flyer that we developed it
has that logo on that upper leftand corner and one of the techniques that we uh launched right away with our punish about re office was using an inquiry form so that QR code goes right to a form that allows folks to you know say
hey I'm a blank and I'm a business I'm a career counselor I'm a career Seeker this is where I'm at and it gives the their area where they live in the Metro and then um they can put in their email address or other contact information and our Navigator herel Matthew reaches out
to them in the last probably two and a half months he's told me that he's received well over a 100 inquiries uh from us promoting this form and he's actively working with career Seekers who are interested in pursuing
apprenticeship actually in a variety of Industry sectors she's got several looking at Community Health worker a couple of looking at Healthcare in general obviously many in construction but he also has uh individuals who want to work at for Metro Transit and get
into the um the technician role as um mechanics so that's interesting and he's got a couple more too so and that's been an effective Outreach tool and then this is just the final slide of um local representation like
who would be participating from your area how often should we be thinking about meeting um and yeah we also want to know from this group who are we missing at the table right um who should you know we
are hoping to get a representative from DLI to be on our committee to share resources and information um some successful employers I think both Union and non-union because our goal is not to
just promote Union apprenticeships but to promote apprenticeship across the board what are your thoughts about having somebody from deed um because as I understand some of
these programs we look at we need the um if we want a corroll in weo for example uh then they need to be what approved on the etpl list do you have that right and no that doesn't mean
necessarily you want on the committee but I want to put that out there in case I'm guessing you already thought about it but is that a Valu ad it could be I know that um this training this this last training we went to it was very informative and some of
the virtual webinars they did beforehand how you can use um dislocated worker funding to really move forward so OJT also incumbent worker because if
they've been there and they're going to do some continuing education through an apprenticeship they're are ways to tap into those funding or that funding stream so that is one of the trainings and information we can share at this community of practice those strategies
how to make them successful I think the biggest thing is um when Marie and I talk each apprenticeship and in the company it is difficult to navigate and get your questions answered because each one is so different each apprenticeship
program has different format what they need the employers they work with they guard those employers very closely so as a community of practice we're hoping that as a group we can get more inroads with those
employers maybe they come in visit with all of us so that it's a consistent message and they know we're trying to do this across the state so I hope that answered your question
mark kind of all over yeah I I think that it certainly could be when we ver started the very beginning of the apprenticeship Outreach office in Minneapolis we had asked about deed representation and it was Mike Lang at
the beginning who was participating and then he really kind of faded from that a little bit so we could certainly invite him back um it would be great if he would like to attend I've also thought about you know just the employer Navigators in general that that could
also you know um be important as we move forward Elena looks like you have your hand up yeah one of the things so I like your idea of kind of inviting almost like inviting guest presenters to the to
different meetings to talk about buckets of apprenticeship because one of the things that would be helpful for my toolbox is to hear from Employers in like healthc care sort of the non construction trades that have launched apprenticeship and you know
just really kind of dig in on how did they put it together how's it funded how are they recruiting people all that so that I can share that information with Employers in my region and one in particular that I think um it would be great if we could invite is utilities we
met with Department of Labor and Industry yesterday and they pulled data on what registered apprenticeship programs there are in our region and aside from construction which is biggest the the other largest type is in utilities and I feel like that's a type
of apprenticeship we don't talk about much and I've tried to research it for Minnesota Power in our area and I've had a really hard time finding out information and so I'm like if I can't find it a job Seeker certainly can't find it right so I would be really interested to hear from a utility or a
couple of utilities um I think they all have apprenticeship programs or most of them have apprenticeship programs for at least line workers so I think that's a great idea and I think that would be useful for us to to as a way to dig in and understand
registered apprenticeship a little bit better and what we can be telling employers local employers based on what we hear from others experiences yeah you know and sometimes we just you know we come across the information that you know is quite is
quite quite interesting in fact just as a super quick example yesterday we were um in a conversation uh on a with a somebody from our staff at the city and we're going to be reopening a um a venue in Minneapolis that's for professional
dance so it's like a theater and they don't have enough people uh to come in and manage the actual theater or to like doe production of the um of the events that they're going to have there which led us to a conversation of time talking to um the there's actually a union for
stage hands and in that conversation I found out that they um are uh were very close to developing a registered apprenticeship for that occupation right before covid and then obviously those venues all you know were shuttered and not you know not just not open but now
that they're all back you know and thriving again they're just like we've got to we got to locate people to do this work right everything from you know running the stage to the house to you know production and artistic direction to you know light shows and B they call
as they call it rock and roll people to do rock and roll uh big outdoor venue so yeah that's just interesting that um sometimes you know these things come up and and uh you know we surface them just in conversation with organizations such
as unions and you know associations Etc so yeah um I think that another thing that we might just want to mention here is that as we were getting started are you all familiar with sapple Partners they're a
National Organization they've been doing some Consulting around the country um in in a in a variety of areas but they have a woman who was Prior uh you know professional at the Department of Labor is now retired and she's really helping
to lead that uh lead the charge and she's you know really there to assist us if do have any questions and one thing I asked her for was do they have any good examples or maybe just conversations we could have with folks from other parts of the country that have done more to
integrate their business services with registered apprenticeship Outreach to employers and what does that really look like right what changes were made what you know were there you know tools or techniques or even more types of responsibilities that were put in the
hands of Business Services like to learn more or what are they doing that's different from what we have now so I know that's a topic that I'm interested in learning more about yeah so they've presented a number
of times on prip um and I think that that they're the ones that are partnering with for this series that some of us are are a part yes they are yeah um I would say to date I I mean I wasn't at the last meeting so
that's I can't speak to the last meeting but before that a lot of the information to me was somewhat repeat um and I really like I'm a doer right so I'm always like okay so what can we do with this what is the next step and how
can we implement this in Minnesota how can we actually use this information so I'm hoping that we get there with the next two meetings I know um you know the next two are in person also and that's that's my hope at least is that we're going to get there I feel like it's been very high level repeat information for
me and the ones that I've attended from the national perspective have sort of been that way too um which I guess you know isn't a negative thing it's it says that we're doing we're doing what we should be doing already right but I want to just be able to take it to the next level and and really Implement some of
the work in the local areas yes and that is the goal of this community of practice and you know the the focus of getting that startup toolkit together so really starting with um I think we
really hope that everybody buys in and that the City of Minneapolis lets us all use their logo so we can just have a consistent branding and message across the board and share some of the the resources that we all
have right um I think there's a lot of benefit to having the subject matter expertise on registered apprenticeship like in our local areas to be able to respond and bring that out in our business visits to be able to do more to to support DLI and interacting with
employers and to find out like are there pieces that are like if Leslie or leuron goes right to meet with a business and they leave is there more that we can be doing in supporting the business right and making those decisions and taking those steps to get closer to that registered apprenticeship so I just
think yes I completely agree I I also tend to be fairly you know um I guess like kind of practically minded around like what are we actually doing and is this working or what is everybody else up to it's also kind of an interesting point in time because I know those of us that are in this reg registered
preneurship technical assistance cohort several are that I've talked to so far are you know going to be submitting um you know a plan and hope hopefully you know getting some funding to support board work in registered apprentiship which is awesome so if we all did receive a grant it would be interesting
to see like what's going on right as we're getting started with our plan what's our plan about uh what are we working on right how's that all going and I from everybody I've talked to so far I know that everybody wants to do more with expanding apprenticeship
non-traditional and more employer engagement this is pretty Universal yeah for sure I just want to add you know I think it's exciting to think about um the goal being registered apprenticeship but some of those those initial steps or pieces as well I mean talking about youth
skills training even OJT and incumbent worker you know it feels like registered apprenticeship is something that I think employers are much more familiar with and if it feels too lofty a goal like this is a great way for us to just increase um their understanding of our resources to help in those little steps
along the way that they could be taking on their pathway towards it so that's exciting yes I agree Betsy there's so many different um work-based learning opportunities and I think job Seekers are really into the learn and earn model
they want to be able to earn some money while they're learning on the job so how can we support employers and the job Seekers hi Kyle hello Kyle early so I uh pop in
welcome yes thank you am I I apologize if I'm the only wdi person here but to see where I can pitch in do you would we it'd be okay if we shift over to the uh that item to talk
about how often the community of practice meets uh and then also write like who else should or could we include um in the invitation
so so I had a thought that monthly might be too often but quarterly might not be enough so my suggestion to Marie was to meet every other month um but then we also thought if there were some you know
like this toolkit if there was a a committee a subcommittee of the larger group that wanted to to work on specific task oriented things that they would meet more frequently but as the the big Committee of practice my thought was
every other month not sure what anybody else thinks but we would love your your thoughts and opinions and if there's a day or time that works better for most people don't know everybody chime in at once I think the bimonthly meeting
sounds good um I would say you know we can certainly look at it would be nice to kind of connect uh at intervals based on the in-person meetings with the um be follow up um I would prefer not Thursdays
personally I don't know if that's anyone else but everybody likes it uh but I think um you know it does feel helpful and and lesy I appreciated your comment earlier about you know maybe DLI is not selling
the sizzle right of of rais a little bit and it kind of feels good to maybe have this group as a an opportunity to kind of um look at what's being offered and and how we could adapt it to the specific needs our boards and and communities are
needing I know I joined late but already I want to um agree with a couple of the things talked out there I think not selling the sizzle was a perfect way to to put it um I think I know from our our team there's kind of some agreement we
had questions but felt like they were uh moved over really quickly so we were reserving a lot of judgment for the next session uh where they were supposed to dive in specifically into some of the the funding and how that fit with the policies um monthly by monthly we're all
good um Wednesdays are days where we have kind of a a number of different meetings that tend to conflict and I apologize I think that's kind of what uh struck us for today um but Thursdays are also another busy one so I know that
narrows us down to three of the the five but also we're we're glad to to try and make sure we get at least one of our folks out here moving forward okay does this meeting have any alignment at all with Mobs Business
Services committee um we had thought about that but we really thought maybe it was more of a standalone committee especially when we brought it I know um when Deb brought it to some of the other directors um just I think a little bit
of a different Focus yeah and I and I actually agree with that but it appears those me in Bob yeah pop still if those are um those meetings seem to be running shorter I'm wondering if there's a time slot there
that there might be some alignment if they are going to condense if they're not never mind um yeah there's there's oh sorry go ahead liie those are Thursdays again which I know some other people said was a
conflict um yeah and I know Tammy just sent out the survey to get input on on folks with reducing the time or the frequency of the meetings too um excuse me I think what's been working well is both Mar and
Leslie are on those meetings and keeping people foot of what's going on here which I think is a great strategy yeah I would agree I I just think that there are so many other broad topics that come up in that meeting that are you know and a lot of people are
just sharing me a lot of just different information uh in those meetings and and it's all valuable and it's very interesting but um yeah I do think that this is a specialty area um and because I think think that we're also kind of
learning as we go here that we're going to have some really kind of specific questions as you know Elena brought up you know how do we like exactly find out what it means to be an apprenticeship sponsor and how they get paid right like we're going to need more like actual technical assistance answer to questions and then thinking about how to you know
kind of digest that is there anything that the Community Practice wants to do together with challenges there it's just really in more in the weeds you know more I think it's just yeah kind of Beyond but I I personally I know that for me like a Tuesday would likely work
better um or even a Monday than a Wednesday or Thursday so I agree with everybody else i' probably vote for Tuesday um but we could also if we have work to dig into or some specific area so you know if expanding manufacturing
apprenticeships is one of your goals in your area we could have just a committee focus on that in the alternate months when we're not meeting as a whole community of practice and just you know go deeper in into that and find out what's you know what everybody's doing so that's my thought at
least um yeah all right we do have our date set already for the the so our Focus today was more of an overview description of what our community of practice but
really starting to dig into the nitty-gritty is next month already have a date scheduled where we're hoping um I will try to reach out and get a DLI partner I don't know Marie if you want to reach out to Mike and see if he
wanted um but then we'll really kind of start to share what's been put together so far for resources and um tools that we have already and try to find um I think that
was another question maybe we had for you Bob if there was a place um to kind of have an our own page on the website where we could house all of this stuff absolutely yeah we can
build a a tab and and whatever you want on there you can send my away and I'll get it posted awesome wonderful yeah we'll definitely want something like a a resource and toolkit Library basically right and then um and then depending on what we end up doing if we have some you
know Market or other Collective messages that we want to put on there other types of you know um things like maybe reg registered apprenticeship like we're talking about the guide books and stuff like that so yeah for sure it'd be great to be able to have them somewhere where we can all get to them pull them down
put them on our web pages if we want to and even like that marketing and collateral if people are interested in you know building off from what we have now so that'd be great Bob thank you absolutely yeah well I know I feel a lot more confident in already in my work in registered
apprenticeship knowing that I have you all uh to collaborate with and that we will uh we'll be in this together as we're moving forward and you know and learning and making Headway and just um continuing to grow registered apprenticeship options in our in our
areas and in our state I think it's going to be a great collaboration so we appreciate you all coming today uh and spending this hour with us and uh Leslie and I will make sure that well you probably you know does everybody know us do you want us to send
out an email with our full contact information you probably know who we are right who the two of us are I could also put my email in the chat just in case you don't have it but I think we were on the inv I wonder if you want to add a slide with our contact info and then we could just send theint to
yeah they'll do yep and we can occasionally do an in-person meeting and bring some good caramel roles I know I live close to uh Clear Water the travel plaza where they have the donuts that are bigger than
your head um so could bring some of those if people you know maybe not around New Year so people are past their resolution time and ready to indulge and you're all welcome to come up and meet in delose this summer sometime
maybe could grab a spop by the lake fantastic yeah we'd love to yeah I I think this is going to be great and um as just so you know if there so we've already had a couple of like topics and themes and kind of requests for some you
know information come up as you're thinking of those and you leave today or you think of more you're like hey could we get a speaker on this or could we think about that we are open to suggestions right so just keep in mind we'll probably start putting together
you know a bit of a calendar and ideas for you know for future topics and speakers uh but we'll always want to keep some time in our meetings just open for talking about what's going on right what are we seeing do we have problems we want to try to address together are we looking for employer contacts you
know all of that right like the actual work of implementation um for getting stuck right what we'd like more help on all of that so I wonder if a one hour long meeting is Right does that seem right like an
hour 15 what do you all think an hour 90 minutes always seems a little bit too long to me but I that if you don't schedule it and then you go over it can be hard so I don't know I think I prefer scheduling an hour and a half but then if we get done early bonus time back in
your day that's right that's right is saving a little treat for ourselves later on it's great yeah wonderful thank you Marie for putting together the PowerPoint it looks amazing I appreciate your hard work on
that oh of course and thank you everybody for coming I'm gonna press the stop record button now and Bob will be sending this over to you to share out thank you sound great see you