Short Week - Long List

After a long weekend, I started my short week of work in Hay Lakes feeling re-energized. This was a good thing, as I sat down to write out my summer work plan for the Village I was  realizing how ambitious this list of mine was beginning to look. Through my Community Service Learning experience at Augustana I have learned an important skill in understanding that every new job, placement or project has its own limitations. Usually these limitations are based on time - we simply never have enough of it, so it is important to set realistic deliverables that truly match the time parameters you are working with. I am trying to keep this in mind as I organize my summer to-do list, and in this moment, not sure what projects I am willing to say no to yet.

This week I worked on beginning to compile a first draft of a level of service document for the Village. This document, when finished will outline all the services the village offers to its residents as well as act as a guide for village employees as to how certain services should be executed, and what is expected from the village employee and the resident in certain situations. Ultimately, this document will be a guide for community members, council, administration and public works employees to reference so everyone is working off the same guiding principles in providing services to the village. I am referencing other service level documents from surrounding communities and talking with village employees in how this can be tailored to be a Hay Lakes specific document.

I also started researching how to conduct a municipal census. Next week I will be hitting the pavement (or gravel) and conducting an 'official' census for the Village. I think it will be really interesting getting to knock on doors and introduce myself, and I am also a littler nervous, as this is brand new to me, and you never know what to expect when knocking on doors. I am putting together a letter of introduction to hand out to community members to bring along with me on my data collection days, as well I may make myself an official, 'village census collector' pin (if interested in having a pin of your own made, please contact my blog site and I can get back to you about the low low cost of tailored made pins)

This week has felt full in the sense that I truly laid out the scope of work I am going to be embarking upon for the summer. I am aware that as I continue to go forward with work this summer, new projects that I had not even accounted for will most likely come forward, and things I believed to 'know for sure' will be revealed in a whole new light. This is most definitely part of the excitement of being a summer intern.