Hot Springs, SD Horizons

Do you want to help make Hot Springs a “destination city” where people come to see our attractions, purchase our services, food and products — but not settle here? Would you like to help plan signage, improve the business district, get involved in a “shop local” campaign, complete the Veterans Memorial, promote the arts community, and grow entrepreneurs?

Come to the Horizons community dinner Feb 21 at the American Legion (6 p.m., lasagne, good food, good people) and sign up for a team, or — if you can’t make it — leave a comment here with your contact information and someone will get in touch with you.
 

Goal 2: Provide opportunity and support for business and economic development and entrepreneurship.

Goal 2 - Objective 1: Promote “destination retail” and attractions. Implementation Step …………………………………………………………. Completion Date

Are you interested in developing a scenic tour route to boost tourism? Would you like to join a “River Committee” to develop a landscape plan for Fall River?

Come to the Horizons community dinner Feb 21 at the American Legion (6 p.m., lasagne, good food, good people) and sign up for a team, or — if you can’t make it — leave a comment here with your contact information and someone will get in touch with you.
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Goal 3 -Protect and grow the value of our natural resources.

Goal 3 - Objective 1: Develop scenic tour route of the area for tourists. Implementation Steps…………………………………………………… Completion Date

Are you interested in joining a team to carry out one or more objectives of the Health Care Goal? Are you interested in realizing the vision of a new hospital? Or creating a series of classes that lead to making Hot Springs the “wellness capital of South Dakota” — a place where strong healthy children and adults are engaged in healthy outdoor activities, dropping weight and building muscle and bone; a destination place for tourists who want to heal body and mind — where fitness centers, spas, massage therapists, craniosacral, reiki and energy healers are fully booked. Where restaurants have specialty menus that feature whole foods, organic foods, vegetarian meals. Or would you be more interested in helping to set up a transportation system to help people get to medical appointments?

Come to the Horizons community dinner Feb 21 at the American Legion (6 p.m., lasagne, good food, good people) and sign up for a team, or — if you can’t make it — leave a comment here with your contact information and someone will get in touch with you.
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Goal 6: Address the issue of quality, affordable healthcare
for the Hot Springs community.

Goal 6 - Objective 1: Offer series of wellness education classes.

Implementation Steps Completion Date

1. Create a list of possible subjects……………………………..…………………… 04/01/08
2. Research and recruit competent instructors……….…………………….…… 06/01/08
3. Finalize list of offerings……………………………………………………….….…… 06/01/08
4. Find a location and schedule the classes………………………………….….…. 09/01/08
5. Advertise the availability of the classes……………………………………….….09/15/08
6. Begin the sessions…………………………………………………………………………10/01/08
7. Explore feasibility of providing wellness packages to tourists….……… 01/31/09

Method of Evaluation……………………………………………………………….Completion Date

Log number of attendees at each session………………………………………………… Each session
Elicit evaluations from attendees. ………………………………………………………..………. 11/31/08
Assess cost/benefits of program……………………………………………………….…..…….. 12/15/08
Decision whether to develop tourist wellness-package………….………………….…….. 02/15/09

Goal 6 - Objective 2: Provide support to construct new hospital.

Implementation Steps………………………………………………………Completion Date

1. Contact city council and county commissioners to solicit their support. 02/15/08

2. Work with Hospital Board to determine if local fund drive is needed…. 02/20/08

3. Provide help with the fund drive (if one is done)……………………………… 02/27/08

4. Help disseminate factual information about benefits of hospital by blogging, writing letters, speaking at civic groups…………………………………….…………….. Ongoing

Method of Evaluation……………………………………………………Completion Date

City and County officials have been contacted………………………………..…… 02/28/08
Fund drive support plan is in place …………..………………………………….…… 03/01/08

Goal 6 - Objective 3: Develop transportation system to help people get to their medical appointments.

Implementation Steps……………………………………………………….Completion Date

1. Inventory transportation that is currently available…………….……… 03/01/08

2. Provide questionnaires at local medical facilities to assess
need for help with transportation. …………………………..……………………04/01/08

3. Identify gaps in transportation coverage…………………..………………….. 05/15/08

4. Solicit responsible volunteers to provide rides .where
regular transport is unavailable or not feasible …………………………… 06/01/08

5. Develop a flyer to distribute community-wide offering the service….06/15/08

Method of Evaluation ……………………………………………………..Completion Date

Gather data from volunteers on frequency of use………………………………….. 09/15/08
Interview people who use the service……………………………………………….…… 09/15/08

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Brett Nachtigall, Star publisher and member of the Children & Youth ATF, blogs answers to two questions:

How has your community changed since joining Horizons?

Prior to Horizons, there were already a lot of people in the community who had a lot of good ideas to improve our community. Horizons however was able to bring those people and their ideas together, under one common goal.
Until Horizons was introduced to us in Hot Springs, the people and their ideas had little direction and it was difficult to draw the lines between everyone’s goals as they oftentimes seemed unrelated.
Now when I tell someone about a project that was generated from a Horizons discussion, people immediately recognize the bigger picture and that the project has the support of a large part of the community.
During the Horizons Study Circles, there was a lot of discussion about our youth and how we could help them. Our Children and Youth Task Force, which was created out of the Study Circles, brought all of the various ideas together. In addition, we also gained further input from the entire community though a survey of both children and their parents. Based on all of the input we accumulated, I’m confident we are heading in the right direction by working towards opening our very own Boys and Girls Club.
Without Horizons providing the catalyst for our efforts, I do not believe we would have been able to get all of the people and their ideas together, under one common goal, to make this happen.

Is your community more hopeful about the future? How do you know?

I do believe the community is more hopeful about the future. I can feel it in myself and can see it on the faces of my fellow Youth and Children Task Force members. With our current plans of opening a Boys and Girls Club in Hot Springs, there is a genuine feeling of excitement about what we are doing. We all have big dreams about what our work will create. But what is most exciting, is that we all believe that the dream will come true because we have the support of Horizons and the guidance of an internationally successful program like the Boys and Girls Club.

I for one appreciate the positive comments appearing on this blogsite. Hot Springs has earned a reputation as a contentious community, but have we not learned how expensive this can be. Positive regard for each other’s contributions is healthier in every way, almost guaranteed to reduce property taxes! Truly we have much to appreciate, we are a unique community — blessed with a talented arts community, a powerful allied-health and complementary-health community, and a lot of smart creative people. We are blessed with location-location, as they say in Chamber circles, great climate, warm springs and a beautiful natural environment. We’re off the beaten track (off the Heartland Hwy, that is), but that is part of our charm. (Our amazing deer population is, for tourists anyway, part of our charm.) Working together we can all do better.

People will have an opportunity soon, to join teams to carry out Horizons strategic plan objectives. The unapproved final draft is elsewhere on this site, posted this date. Take a look to see where you want to plug in to help achieve a short-term or long-term objective. There is something for everyone in this plan.

I think it would be agood idea, with the advent of a new cable system being implemented in town, to provide a public access channel for civic events such as City Council meetings, HSHS sporting events etc.
This would also provide an opportunity for the high school to offer classes or extra curricular activities to students who could produce the shows thus learning the industry. It is my understanding the Custer has already implemented this.

On Dec 3, 07, several citizens petitioned the City Council to do something about our urban deer. What do you think? Vote your opinion. You can vote only once. You can change your vote anytime.

Want to know how many people have voted? Click on “Comment” and you’ll be taken to a webpage that reports the number of votes.

Opinion Polls & Market Research