We're here tonight for uh a city council workshop to uh discuss the sister city commission.

Uh this was something that was brought up uh at the beginning of the beginning of the last budget season.

Uh we're talking about um appropriating funds for the Sister City Commission.

And it was discussed that we should have a workshop just to kind of go over um the duties of of the Sister City Commission.

Um so first I would like before we get started, uh Brenda, um thank you for doing what you've done for this commission.

I think you've done a phenomenal job as the as a chair.

And uh I know it's it's a lot of work that a lot of people don't understand and probably see.

Uh so uh um I think this is actually a really good opportunity to really uh show what the Sister City Commission does and how important it is for everything that we do.

So before I turn over to you, you want to just introduce uh the people that you have here with you.

I did.

I actually had a little introduction, which just said we're glad to be here.

We feel like it's been a while, and um we're excited uh very much so to share with you uh what I'm calling Sister City 2.0 um because it is a very different approach to um the resources and exciting opportunities that we have through our sister cities than perhaps previously was done.

And I am very excited after a great deal of shuffling of commission members.

Um we uh lost the first five out of the nine um within the first year.

And so since September, we've had a stable group of talented, committed, energetic, wonderful people who I think have put together a very important informational workshop for all of you so that you can see where we're moving into the 26, 27 and future with the Sister City program.

And so I'd like to start.

You all know me, I'm the one who's passionate about it.

I've been around for two decades, enough of that.

Um several of our members could not be here either because of personal or um uh work uh responsibilities, but I am very excited to um acknowledge and and introduce you, as if you don't know Michelle Gallagher, who brings such wonderful um experience to us in terms of public relations and public and program development, and Mary Jameson, our resident artist, um, who is wonderfully um able to guide us as we move into the cultural aspects of this, and we have Joe who brings a skill set that is wide, varied, and exciting to all of us, and Michael uh Mary down at the end who brings to us his law expertise and his long-term participation in the community.

So we have an incredible group of people here, and I think it's important as we move into this.

I want to thank everybody.

Let me, I'm sorry, I didn't acknowledge who is not here, and I think it's important to do that.

Brooke Eaton is with part of our group.

Amy Ironmonger is also part of our group.

Um Aaron Donovan Boyle is part of our group, and now X Wallach is already in conceal.

She beat you guys.

Um so they're all contributed to this presentation.

Um, and we want to thank each of them for what they've done for us.

And so let's let us tell you about the Sister City Commission as it exists now and as we hope it will move into the future.

And then we'd like to share your ideas because we serve at your will.

And we can give you our vision.

Um, we'd like you to tweak that or um refine it in terms so it fits into the vision of the city as well as our vision.

So we're gonna move forward right away.

And in what the first place we're gonna start, obviously, is in our mission statement.

I'm not gonna read the slides to you.

Whoops, I gotta get to them, right?

I'm sorry, I'm not really good at all of this.

Okay, there's our agenda.

You can look at it.

I hate going to PowerPoints and having people read the PowerPoints, so I'm not gonna do that to you.

Um there is our group again.

You have the all of this is in your packet.

And this is our mission statement.

And you can see that we have emphasized the importance of this global cultural exchange for the entire community.

We are not interested in any one segment.

We're interested in the breadth of our residents and our community and bringing what is already an exciting international city into the world.

So we have a tagline bringing the world to Newport and Newport to the world.

We're thinking about bumper stickers.

Um, but that really says a great deal about how we would like um the program to be seen as an enrichment program, as an exploration program, and as an expansion program that will in fact um make Newport an even more desirable community and a more um well-rounded and global participant in the world.

So that's where we're coming from and all of what we have proposed tonight, we do with upfront the themes of transparency, accountability, and inclusivity.

So those go underneath everything that we're about to talk to you about.

So as we look at the how we've envisioned it, we one of the things we wanted to do, as you know, we we spent two years with the help of Lynn and Jean.

Um, I'm sorry, you want to I can't talk and do two things at the one same time.

Um with the help of um Lynn and Jean, we um explored best practices, what what exists around the world?

And part of um our excitement about joining the Sister Cities International Program was that we had the opportunity to do that in a different way.

These are all communities of roughly the same size except Charleston, but we wanted to see what do they do for programming, what do they do for funding?

What do they do to make their communities um a better place to live in a more desirable place for people to visit?

And it's been exciting to utilize.

I'm gonna just put a little footnote there in this programming because I've already sat in on a round table of all the uh cities in the United States who have Italian sister cities and hearing their programming and um a number of other things that we'll bring up along the way.

But I we wanted you to know that that we spent a considerable amount of time with great guidance from your colleagues raising the important questions.