State Service Strategy Task Force Meeting 1/29/2026
12:00pm via Zoom

Attendees:

F Celeste Brahham (FCB), Kelsey Preecs (KP), Janet May (JM), William Guindon Jr (WGjr), Brittany Gleixner-Hayat (BGH)

Staff: Maureen Kendzierski (MK)

Not in attendance: Chelsey Fortin-Trimble, Scott Adams, Pamela Proulx-Curry

Meeting begins with a review of the Methodology & Timeline:
Internal Stocktaking & Engagement Plan Development (Jan & FEB)

  • Lookback completed
  • In Lookup & Look Forward – what can we do in 90 minutes?
    • Deliverables – public announcement piece will get pushed until we have a facilitator
    • BGH will circulate the summary notes from the initial lookback stocktaking

Engagement Plan Development - Stakeholder Mapping

BGH Shares initial document started by BGH and staff – who/what else needs to be here?

Popcorn additions:

  • State Govt:
    • Discussion lifts up DHHS -Office of Family Independence (SNAP), TFAP (works with food banks) program in DACF, Bureau of Parks and Lands, DOE (Britt notes that she is connecting with DOE around supports for High School volunteerism), State Veteran’s Agency, Office of New Mainers
  • Orgs that use volunteers:
    • Added: Meals on Wheels, Scouting in general, Fraternal Orgs (Masons, VFW, Elks, Legions, etc), Shriners, Humane Societies, Veteran’s orgs & agencies, MIRG, Catholic Charities, Jewish League/Jewish Community Services, Individual school districts, Big Brothers/Big Sisters
  • Service Programs
    • Fire Corps (may not be still active)
    • Teach for America?
    • Jesuit volunteers
  • Key constituencies:
    • Immigrants/NewMainers
    • College Students/Recent Grads
  • Added category: Organizations that promote volunteerism/provide volunteers:
    • LLBean
    • Hannaford
    • Target
    • Walmart
    • Khol’s
    • All the banks and credit unions
    • Points of Light
    • Army National Guard
  • Possibly add categories of Faith Based Orgs, Education

 

Britt has sent two docs:

 

Engagement Plan Development – Next Steps

There is a need to move on operational planning for who will be engaged, when and where they will be engaged, and a definition of what we will be asking in those engagements.

  • We need to book space, invite people, invitations need a month’s notice. What is the task force thinking for this plan?
    • WGjr – We need to find a way for commissioners to be engaged – two approaches maybe a survey tool to the larger pool of ~500 stakeholders with smaller groups of stakeholder to be invited to meetings, and this should be later in spring due to weather. The more we can get out into our rural communities we may be more effective
    • FCB – Some Commissioners may have been concerned about leading these focus groups. Initially we thought they would be held with facilitator – we should be pairing those who want to do this with a member of the staff for comfort and support.
    • BGH – We agree that we should ask people to do things in the places where they are with constituencies they are comfortable with.
    • KP – Be clear on the goals of what you want to get our of each of these disparate groups – guidance should be available for Commissioners prior to asking them to engage with their community.
    • FCB: Are these all in-person meetings, or some by zoom? BGH notes that some could be by zoom, but the effectiveness of having Commissioners working in their own areas is the impetus of in-person meetings.
      • For commissioner hosted, place-based in-person we should determine who the most important constituencies are for the meetings.
      • The different constituencies may have different inputs, expectations, info to offer.
    • JM – There are regions of the state where there may not be Commissioners – The County, NPenobscott, Western Maine.
      • BGH – Step one is to figure out where folks are, where we need outside support, and who we can tap to lead those conversations (like Luke Dyer in The County)
  • Will be asking commissioners to begin thinking about scheduling these meetings, the Feb meeting should have this info ready and hopefully the facilitator will be onboard
  • WGjr – Help the commissioners understand what their role is and what their expectation is – until they understand the parameters, staff member role, etc. it may be difficult to get some commissioners who would be amenable to get behind the project. Important to note, some commissioners will not be comfortable with this role and that is OK, not every commissioner must do this.
  • BGH –Looking at this as more of an ambassadorial role – not a technical role, high level, reintroducing the Commission and getting feedback on VM and the volunteer sector overall. This is more of an outreach exercise to get VM and Commission into the public eye
    • This is an opt-in, that is important to highlight. If people are not comfortable or have bandwidth, that is OK
  • BGH Will begin creating the questions,

 

  • Immediate creation items: a survey tool, identifying place-based outreach, focus group or individual key stakeholder conversations – who will lead those will be another question.
    • There is a subset of people that we will engage in the final stages to review the final product before it goes to publication – small conference. (Validation Session)

What will we talk about in Business Meeting –

    • 90 minutes
      • Feedback included the need for small group work or turn and talks instead of only large group conversations
      • FCB – it will be difficult to have people on Zoom, BGH notes that they would be their own discussion group and then share out
    • Assumptions need to laid out prior to any forward looking conversations. What assumptions need to be clarified:
      • Our staffing and funding
      • Programmatic Assumptions – like Maine Service Fellows continuation
      • Anything coming forward or being pushed in the legislature
      • The facts as we have them now –
      • Status of MVF
      • Any MOCA related info that the commission needs
      • We will NOT revisit Values, Mission, etc BGH suggests we streamline the language in our values
    • BGH will do create two slides for Assumptions– Things that are Known – Things that are Dynamic (MOCA might be in flux because of the governor election in 2026)
  • What we are going to talk about:
    • Look Up, Look Forward – the questions from the overall plan may be too many for 90 minutes.  What should we focus on?
      • Challenges for Mainers in our org in coming years?
      • Some of the shortcomings? – maybe not – KP would rather look forward instead of dissecting what caused the challenges/shortcomings and focus on opportunities to focus on
      • FCB – we got some very important info from the Muskie School study, we could use some of that to suggest ways to look forward and address those issues (operational issues)
      • BGH will look for Muskie School study
        • This study was compiled by Brenda Zolitsch

BGH will create a slide to review last meeting

Slide on assumptions

Then start meeting, 15 minutes of intro

2 vectors of conversation –

  • What we can do better operationally (What can we do better/change)
  • What is bluesky - what is going on in Maine, what should our sector focus on thematically

               BGH – do we want to address both questions?

KP & FCB think there may not be time

Determined: We will focus on the second bucket of questions (How can we build on our success, address shortcomings, and prepare to meet the moment? What do we need public input on?) and skip the blueskies/challenges in Maine question

Action Steps

  • BGH will circulate the summary notes from the initial lookback stocktaking from the January Business Meeting
  • BGH will organize the creation of the following items:
    •  a survey tool
    • identifying place-based outreach, focus group or individual key stakeholder conversations – who will lead those will be another question.
  • For February Business Meeting BGH will create
    • Two slides for Assumptions– Things that are Known – Things that are Dynamic
    • BGH will create a slide to review last meeting
    • Design a plan for how to engage Commissioners in discussion of the key questions for the Look Forward
  • BGH will look for Muskie School study referenced by FCB during this meeting to share/reshare with the Commission.