President’s Article: May
Nothing says summer to me like the markets starting up and Garden City Brewfest. It means the air is warming and we see green everywhere instead of grey. Without the long winter Spring and Summer just wouldn’t seem as sweet and precious. People start to flood Downtown on Saturdays to buy up local produce and goods and feed their families with things the sun is fueling. It fuels us as well as we feel the itch for the rivers to drop so we can go play on them. To be able to hit up Garden City Brewfest May 4th in a tee-shirt and drink a host of great beers along the river bank, walk the streets of Downtown on First Friday in the cool evening, and explore the mountains around us and see the symphony of wildflowers color the ground.
We bring this energy into the continued work with the Master Plan. This month we will get to look again at the most updated version of what we hope Downtown Missoula will grow to become. We will work towards a final vision of this already great place. The more people we can involve and the more ideas we can encourage the better fit it will be and a clearer picture we will have. It will be something that helps guide us over the next decade with the decisions we make as individuals and more importantly how we all work together towards a single goal. I have already seen the impact of this as different organizations rally around a final vision and how we get there. How they all work together because they have a common goal. It is a document that is so much more than that, it acts as a tie between parties so things aren’t done individually with good intention but in unison with a shared end result. It helps developers, small business owners, non-profits, government agencies, all work together. They are all doing what is best for them, but because of the Master plan, what is best for them can also align with what is best for everyone.
Winter is a time to hone down on operations and to tighten up the things you do best. This season for me is a time to re-engage your business, your customers, and yourselves. As everything starts to pick up make sure that you are intentional with what you are doing. Take some time to make your space better, you business better, and yourselves better. Enter this season with everything you feel proud of forward facing.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Brene Brown,
“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time.”
I want us all to inspire each other to be brave.
See you Downtown,
Tom