By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
Executive Director for Mon Forest Towns Josh Nease addressed the City of Parsons Council to discuss recent developments with the organization and to invite the Council to appoint a representative to attend the organization’s meetings. “Parsons became a Mon Forest Town in 2019,” Nease said. “Since 2019 a lot has happened with Mon Forest Towns.”
According to Nease, in the past few years the organization has received a 501c3 designation. Nease also said he has only recently become Executive Director and has been in the role for 10 months. “It’s a big change for the organization,” Nease said.
Nease outlined some of the accomplishments the organization had achieved in recent years. Included were the organization’s participation in the Downtown Appalachia: Revitalizing Recreation Economies (DARRE) Program, assisting five towns with grant funding for their comprehensive plans and grant writing services that are available in cooperation with Downstream Strategies towards community and city projects. “So those have all be very popular programs and I can’t take the credit for creating any of them because they all happened before I got there,” Nease said.
Nease said he has been meeting with the towns that make up the organization since he became the Executive Director. During his travels, he said he has been meeting with civic representatives and business owners to determine what is needed and what they would like to see happen in the future. “In the last ten months since I started, I have been traveling around our towns and getting to know folks and getting to know their representatives,” Nease said. “I’ve been talking to town government, business owners and learning what Mon Forest Towns has done for them in the past and what they would want to see Mon Forest Towns, the organization, do going forward.”
According to Nease, three needs have emerged from his travels: connectivity, communication and capacity. Nease described connectivity as the towns’ need to be better connected to the National Forest and the each other. Communication was described by Nease as the towns sharing information and resources, as well as advertising and marketing the region. Capacity, according to Nease, was tied to developing recreational opportunities as part of the local economy. “Mon Forests Towns was formed to help towns develop outdoor recreation as part of their economy,” Nease said.
According to Nease, the organization already has a strategic plan to cover the next few years with goals and objectives for the organization. Nease said the organization was preparing a proposal to the Appalachian Regional Commission for a project that would encompass all of the Mon Forest Towns to provide resources and support, as well as improve connectivity between the towns, the forest and the organization. The proposal was also designed to improve marketing and advertising of the towns, provide capacity in regards to grant writing and project management, according to Nease.
City Recorder Tim Auvil asked what Parsons could do and what was needed from the Council. Nease said that in the 10 months he has been with the organization he had not seen a representative from Parsons. According to Nease, each town selects an appointed representative, as well as an alternate for the board. According to Auvil, he had only received one notice last year of a meeting. There was a discussion about the need to update contact information in order to receive notice of upcoming meetings. “We need to update that list for you because we definitely want to participate,” Auvil said. “Anything to bring more attention to what we have to offer to the public.”
It was decided that Auvil and Mayor Kolsun would represent the town at the organization’s meetings. Previously, Parsons’ representatives to the board were Mayor Judy and Auvil.
The Mon Forest Towns are active on social media with a Facebook page, as well as maintaining a web page and publishing a newsletter, according to Nease. The group will be meeting April 24th in Elkins for their next quarterly meeting, according to Nease, with the meeting being open to the public.
