Yakima

Last weekend marked the second straight year we've gone to Yakima, Washington, as part of our annual Community Meetings. Of all our meetings, this one is without a doubt the most remote, the longest drive, and for what it's worth, the most interesting at least in terms of meeting new Tribal members who've set up lives elsewhere, which of course is most of the general membership.

Yakima is fascinating for sure. As you drive from the Columbia Gorge north and enter the Yakima valley, there almost seems to be a climate shift, as everything gets warmer, sunnier, and slightly humid. As a couple of Tribal members explained to me, the area is vegetable heaven, and they know what times of the year to buy which vegetables. Every major temperate-climate vegetable flourishes here, or so it appears.

Grand Ronde and Yakima have a history. This was where many Tribal members drifted to, perhaps for work, perhaps for other reasons. We've roughly 130 members in this area, one of the greatest concentrations outside the state of Oregon. There are several families who could just as easily enroll in Yakima as Grand Ronde. They are also considered a gorge tribe, whereas we would like to be a gorge tribe.

The attendance this year was smaller than last year, but still on par if not better than Eugene and Portland. Some might say we need to do away with this non-local community meetings altogether. I think we simply need to promote them more, by sending flyers and invitations, maybe even giving out more door prizes. You can announce stuff in the "Smoke Signals", but if you're like me it is not hard to lose sight of something amidst the obituaries, birthday announcements, and other advertisements.

While we might have had only 20 different Tribal members show up this year, I conversed with almost all of them on some level, even just superficially. Since I was one of four Council members, divvying our time, especially during the one-hour meet-and-greet prior to lunch, was not difficult. The breakout sessions went reasonably well, and overall those attending were polite, asked good questions, and inthe case of Council, were genuinely interested in talking to us. The only complaint is that Red Lion, as opposed to other businesses, would not let people take the leftovers home, which is different from the other places we've use to host these meetings. Since less the half of the food we ordered for 80 people got eaten, that is a criticism I agree with.

I hope we don't give up on the Community Meetings just yet. Maybe it was because I had as good a time yesterday as I've had at one, sparsely attended though it was. The people who come really enjoy themselves. Plus I was told "See ya next year!". I am still unsure, however, why some still confuse me with Mark Mercier.