Self Assessment

The Mon Forest Towns Self-Assessment is designed as a discovery process for towns and the organization with two potential outcomes:

• Help you identify where you are in the development of your outdoor recreation economy. It will assist you in identifying assets, gaps, priorities, and next steps.
• Help the MFT organization identify desires, needs, and priorities across Towns and leverage necessary resources to address them.

Each of the Mon Forest Towns is unique and in a different stage of recreation economic development, so each town will score differently in this is a self-assessment. Scoring is most important by section and by each individual line along with the corresponding content that you provide through the qualitative section. This will be a useful tool to assist towns in identifying priorities and next steps.

Sections

• Capacity and Partnerships: The people, time, and resources available for developing your outdoor recreation economy.
• Planning and Strategy: This includes the vision, strategy, or plan to pursue the vision, for the alignment of key stakeholders around the vision, and for deploying the tools and strategies to shape the outdoor recreation economy of your town.
• Hospitality and Services: The amenities, programming, and other initiatives to support an outdoor recreation economy.
• Environment, Sustainability, and Stewardship: the efforts to protect your environmental assets and impacts on residents.
• Infrastructure: The physical infrastructure in your community to support and enhance your outdoor recreation economy. This includes:
  • Community facilities infrastructure such as buildings, water, and sewer, dilapidated or abandoned structures.
  • o Recreation infrastructure can be natural or man-made, i.e. hiking and biking trails, rivers, climbing areas, parks, boat ramps, etc. that will attract recreation enthusiasts and improve quality of life for residents.
• Marketing and Branding: The organized efforts to develop an outdoor recreation product and brand, and then promoting the product and brand to enhance experiences and attract visitors.
• Instructions for completion: For the best results, complete this assessment collaboratively with a diverse group of stakeholders from your town. The more thorough the assessment, the more useful it will be to you and your community in identifying and prioritizing needs.
• Each section includes questions that require written responses and questions with scaled responses. In the 1 – 5 scale, 1 denotes the “least, minimal amount, or weakest” and 5 denotes “most, sufficient amount, or strongest”. Each category of scaled questions begins with: “For advancing your outdoor recreation economy, does your town have:”
• Your written qualitative responses will provide critical details to support and assist you in answering the scaled questions.
• Work through the assessment using paper copies or the Word document, then once complete add the responses for your town to the online form. Please submit only one self-assessment per town.

Key Terminology

Mon Forest Town Representative/Alternate Representative

The MFT Board of Directors includes one representative and one alternate representative from each town. Each City/Town Council or County Commission (for un-incorporated towns) appoints a representative to be a MFT Board member, attend meetings, participate in MFT programming, and to vote in meetings on behalf of the community that they represent. The representative/alternate is expected to report back the work of MFT to the mayor/governing body on a regular basis. See by-laws for additional details.

Mon Forest Town Working Group

A Mon Forest Town Working Group is a group of community outdoor recreation economy stakeholders from varying sectors who meet regularly to collaborate on developing and advancing the outdoor recreation economy and related development needs. This working group is not appointed by the City/Town or Commission but is often comprised of key stakeholders and other community members.

The Working Group can serve to assist the MFT representative/alternative in accurately representing community needs and sentiment, collect a wider range of perspectives, ideas, and solutions, and create a more inclusive vision for outdoor recreation economic development in the community. The working group will spread the effort across the community, distribute information and workload, advocate for outdoor recreation projects, and help keep everyone informed on opportunities, challenges, and next steps.

• Local government representatives
• Local business owners
• Community organization leaders/members
• Local outdoor recreation champions/enthusiasts
• Other community members with insight into the local outdoor economy

Definitions

• Amenities: Essential services and businesses for locals and visitors such as restaurants, coffee shops, breweries, hotels, campgrounds, cabins and other lodging, etc.
• Comprehensive Plan: Comprehensive planning is an ordered process that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The resulting document can express the community’s vision for the future and may be used as a tool to regulate public policies on transportation, utilities, land use, recreation, and housing. Baseline requirements for developing a comprehensive plan:
  • A governing body that supports it.
  • Creation of a planning commission to guide development of the plan.
  • A planning commission that is willing to meet regularly to develop the plan.
• Outdoor Economy: A multi-dimensional sector that includes outdoor recreation specific components along with other critical services and infrastructure that support outdoor recreation components, residents, and workforce. These include:
  • physical infrastructure development
  • economic, industry, business, and entrepreneurial development
  • workforce development and education
  • activation, programming, and events
  • tourism and hospitality
  • branding, storytelling, and media
  • other services that support residents and workforce
• Outdoor Recreation: Any recreational activity undertaken for pleasure that occurs outdoors in a nature-based environment. Specifically, Outdoor Recreation may include the following categories of activities:
  • Camping (RV campsites, tent campsites)
  • Fishing (recreational fly and non-fly fishing)
  • Hunting (shotgun, rifle, bow)
  • Motorcycling (on and off-road)
  • Off-Roading (ATV, ROV/UTV, 4x4, and Jeep)
  • Snow Sports (XC skiing, downhill, snowmobiling)
  • Trail Sports (day hiking, backpacking, rock and ice climbing, running, horseback riding)
  • Water Sports (kayaking, canoeing, stand-up paddling, boating, waterskiing, jet skiing/PWC, tubing)
  • Wheel Sports (bicycling on a paved road, bicycling off-road, skateboarding, etc.)
• Outdoor Recreation Business: A business that specifically targets outdoor recreators and provides products or services related to outdoor recreation activities and the outdoor recreation economy.
• Outdoor Recreation Plan: A town or county’s plan for outdoor recreation development and/or management.
• Priority Projects List: Each Mon Forest Town develops a list of priority projects for their community related to community facilities, infrastructure, housing, recreation, or other community needs.