Team members, who were already acquainted, discussed the way that the workshops had helped them get to know each other better. In particular, they mentioned an activity that one trainer had led in which the team members had to share three things about themselves and found that there were many surprises within the group.

Bovil developed a project that provided a voice mail system for the community. They also spent some of the funds for a new siren and 911 connection for their volunteer fire department. Bovil's voice mail system now offers residents direct access to information from the library, the only church in town, grades 1 through 3 teachers, the Fire Chief and City Hall. The mayor, who was part of the MIRA team, claims that she has seen many, many positive changes in the community as a result of the MIRA effort.

"Not only are people in Bovil talking with one another more than ever, we're really proud that our team came through and secured this technology grant for us. We couldn't get a service provider to do our voice mail system for us so we bought the equipment ourselves. Now, everyone in town has access." Several Bovil team members mentioned that their voice mail system was a modern version of the community bulletin board and that it fits into the lives of residents which have changed ust like technology has changed information networks.

The team formed five subcommittees and recruited other community residents to help implement the project. They set deadlines and had a plan to evaluate their progress that included surveying users to determine their satisfaction.

Part of the Bovil team's project was also to conduct a community-wide celebration of MIRA and the team's success in getting a project grant. Not only did they use the celebration to recognize volunteers, they also used the event to recruit new team members to continue their community improvement efforts.

Perhaps most significantly, Bovil team members repeatedly described the impact of the MIRA team project on the attitude of residents and their renewed pride in their community which they now see as more modern and up-to-date.

The Bovil team also reported that their MIRA experience has sparked several other community activities: the team is starting a small business incubator for youth called BYE (Bovil Youth Enterprises) and is also trying to add a child care center to the services available in town, In both cases, MIRA team members are involved in the projects using skills and connections made through the workshops. In fact, the Bovil team reports a decision that they will stay together for these additional community projects and make efforts to bring new members into the team.

Project Close Up: Council

In many ways, the Council team represents the other end of the continuum from Bovil. A larger population, many more resources and much more internal organization make the Council project another excellent example of the MIRA process at work. The Council project was to create a "forum for the community learning." The team identified a great number of potential audiences such as crafters, youth, hunters, government, ranchers, etc. who would use a technology-based learning center. They saw this project as a response to a rapidly changing local economy (loss of a sawmill) and quickly identified an impressive array of local organizations and state agencies that would contribute time, money and equipment.

In the most recent update, Council reported that the team meets often since the workshops ended and that the first step--offering computer literacy classes at a minimal cost-was well underway. In fact, they've had 75 students already complete the three classes that were offered. The Council Learning Center is now the result of a three-way partnership with the county economic development agency, the USFS and the MIRA team. The regional development agency contributed the space, a Visitor's Center, and the furniture has been donated by USDA agencies.

The Council team deserves credit for thinking through a project that also built in sustainability through revenue from classes. The projection, based on the initial offering of classes and the very good response, is that the Center will be self-supporting next year. By generating enough revenue from modest fees for classes, the Center will be able to hire teachers and continue offering pub lie education,

Plans for the next phase of the project include the expansion of class offerings based on requests from students. As a team member wrote, "We find that responding to the needs expressed by our students lead to more and more ideas." The team has also applied for a USFS grant for expansion.

Project Impacts Throughout the Cluster

Throughout the Cluster, the impact of MIRA can be seen in the closer associations among the teams within communities and the new connections among the teams. Strung out from north to south in a very large state, the Idaho Cluster offers a demonstration that the experience of learning together can forge partnerships among individuals from different towns. Electronic communications allows the teams to continue the connection, seeking advice, sharing good news or offering information on a resource.

All of the teams used their grants to leverage some degree of additional resources. As mentioned previously in this report, both Priest River and Council have found new collaborations with existing agencies or projects that will help them accomplish team project goals. These collaborations and leveraging strategies occurred at many different levels. As one Weippe team member described their work: "The local phone company employees volunteered to run the cable from the library to the youth center. The local power company let us use their poles to hang the cable, too. And the local grocery store let us install a booster box in their back room and will pay for the electricity it takes. Because our MIRA team is made up of people representing almost every volunteer organization in town, we've forged many links with each other."

Several teams have applied for state funding sources with their MIRA project grants as matching funds. Some private foundations have also received proposals to do projects "cluster-wide" and to bring the teams back together again.

The Idaho Cluster of Community Teams exhibited strengths in overcoming extreme isolation caused by distance, weather and history to bring anew sense of shared community to the teams.

While overcoming these obstacles was a strength, a weakness is obvious in the development of innovative projects, The five teams that targeted some type of computer/learning center were addressing legitimate needs and responding with an approach that was sound and tested if not innovative.

The teams each had a fairly high level of visibility within their communities. Some excelled at soliciting press coverage. Weippe, for example, had two team members whose responsibility it was to document and publicizethe MIRA process and the team's activities.

Other teams had regular liaison relationships organized so that members could report back to other community service clubs, youth groups, etc. Since three of the teams included elected officials such as council members, planning commissioners and the mayor, there were instances of informal updates delivered to local government, too.

Increased civic participation did occur but was uneven throughout the Cluster. Priest River, with 37 team members, certainly brought many people into the process that might not have been engaged in any volunteer work at all. Every team expanded membership or involvement when they began work on their projects.

It was at this point that new folks were recruited (often because they had needed skills or were interested in the content of the project and not the workshops). Youth presence was a continuing problem but less so at the project implementation stage since many more young residents were attracted by the technology-based projects and helped with set-up of equipment or classes.

And the division among the three teams from the unsuccessful proposal versus the three from the successful proposal was a small but persistent theme, especially for the Weippe team which seemed to express the feeling of separation more than any of the others. This division might have limited civic participation in some ways.

As mentioned previously, many team members from all the teams offered examples of how they were using new skills or techniques from the workshops in other volunteer work.