E-mail to my leadership team this morning:
All,
As Jill pointed out to me this morning, April Fool's Day is my holiday. I decorate the house, send out cards, and have a big family gathering.
With CoVid, I can't do any of that, and likely will just sit at home tonight, enjoying my greatly increased broadband speed and drinking a dos equis.
I do want to reserve the right to revisit the holiday at some time in the future. I'm not going to say when, but you'll know when it happens.
Hope you are all having a lovely holiday.
--Russell
I actually think this is more effective than last year's attempt. Now, they will be on edge for the remainder of the year. You decide. Here is what they got last year. It was my first 4/1 with the team, but the problem was that I started the previous July. Nine months in, and this really fooled no one.
All,
It was so great to have most of us together last week for the board meeting. It got me thinking how amazing it would be if we were all in one place all of the time.
I know that in the past RST has had discussions about where our administrative offices should be. There are pros and cons of Dallas and of Austin. Over the weekend, I did a lot of thinking and a bunch of research. I think I came up with the perfect solution.
We are Refugee Services of Texas, so we need to be able to serve the whole state. I thought to myself, why not move our administrative offices to the geographic center of the state? Some of you heard me joking about moving to Waco. I'm not talking about Waco. I'm talking about Brady, Texas.
Brady is the closest town to the geographic center of Texas (map attached). It's only 227 miles to Dallas (196 to Fort Worth!), 128 to Austin, 287 to Houston, and 380 to Amarillo. All of those are easy drives. And if people did need to fly, the San Angelo regional airport is only 80 miles away.
There is a lot of rentable space in town. I contacted Jolene, the one realtor in Brady, and she told me that the Piggly Wiggly building has been vacant for more than five years, and thinks we can get it way below market rate.
Have I mentioned the annual World Championship Barbeque Goat Cook-Off held every Labor Day weekend? Enough said. And one Yelp reviewer says that you haven't lived until you've had the smothered chicken fried steak at Boondocks, right in the heart of downtown Brady.
For those of you with little ones, Brady has all three levels of school: Brady Elementary, Brady Middle, and Brady High. I remember how difficult it was trying to find the best schools for my kids, so I envy having only one choice. And all three schools have been consistently ranked "Acceptable."
I am not sure if any of the 5,523 people are refugees, but we could look at starting to resettle in the Brady metroplex. Brady housed a German prisoner of war camp in WWII, so they have some history of welcoming displaced individuals.
It's a farming and ranching community. Two of the primary industries is mohair-combing and sand mining. I bet those pay at least minimum wage, should we be able to resettle folks in the community.
Brady has a fascinating history. This is just a little bit from the Wikipedia page (they have a wikipedia page!). I recommend the full article.
"When the area was settled in the 1870s, the community was named Brady City after Brady Creek, which runs through town. The name was shortened to Brady when the town was incorporated in 1906. In 1787–88, Spanish explorer José Mares crossed the creek near the site of present Brady. Henry and Nancy Fulcher, the first settlers on Brady Creek, donated land for the townsite in the mid-1870s. Allison Ogden and his father-in-law, Ben Henton, built a store in 1875. A post office opened in 1876. After residents of McCulloch County chose Brady as county seat on May 15, 1876, the town grew fairly quickly. Brady had about 50 residents in 1877, and a stone courthouse was completed in 1878."
I am thinking that it may take us a bit to move all of our operations to Brady. My initial plan is to try to get us all settled in our new administrative home within one year - by April 1, 2020.
I hope you are as excited as I am!
Happy April.
--Russell
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