Introductions
Summary
- There are 73 posts — by 69 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Steven Clift at 2010 Oct 06 13:14 UTC
Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org
Hi, my name is Shelley Brooks and I am the Program Coordinator for South Berkshire Community Coalition, a program of Community Health Programs here in the beautiful Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. I have been involved in Coalition work for 8 years, we are a DFC grantee working on substance abuse prevention. I am very excited about attending Community Matters conference because it will be great to meet other community members from all over the country to talk about what makes their communities tick, to learn about best practices that others are using to make their towns healthier, safer. Plus, I've never been to Colorado and am VERY excited to see what everyone else has always told me about - Colorado is supposed to be THE place to visit/live - I want to see for myself! If anyone would like to check us out, our website is: http://www.southberkshirecommunitycoalition.org or http://www.communityhealthprograms.org See everyone in October! Shelley Brooks Program Coordinator CHP - South Berkshire Community Coalition 343 Main Street P.O. Box 30 Great Barrington, MA 01230 413-528-1919 x14
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 3:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
On Sep 21, 2010, at 1:09 PM, Steven Clift wrote: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > I am a former environmental educator, park ranger, nature center director, science director, and Biosphere Reserve manager with 41 years experience in the heritage interpretation profession. I've been the Executive Director of National Association for Interpretation (NAI - http://www.interpnet.com) for 15 years. NAI has 4,600 members in 30 countries. National Park Service folks in the U.S. are about 20% of our members but naturalists, interpreters, guides, recreation planners, historians and many other kinds of professionals participate in our network. My wife, Lisa Brochu, and I train all over the world in this field and have four books in print and a new one on the way - Put the Heart Back In Your Community. On a daily basis I'm a jogger, gardener, photographer and bluegrass mandolin player, always looking for a chance to pick and grin with like-minded folks. > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? Most of our work in heritage interpretation has involved helping people at parks, zoos, aquariums, museums, nature centers and historic sites learn how to help others connect with the authentic stories in nature and history. In more recent years we have done more interpretive planning and training work with communities and corridors such as scenic byways. They also want to help people understand their unique natural and cultural history but it's more complicated when multiple sites and organizations are involved. I will be presenting in a storytelling panel and I'm interested in learning how "story" is interpreted among those interested in communities. We interpret themes and story elements as almost everything - spoken stories and oral history, cultural music, dance, photos, food culture, videos, visual art, and even the landscapes we protect. I'm attending CommunityMatters to meet others interested in reawakening our desires to better understand and be a steward of healthy communities. James Howard Kuntsler's "Geography of Nowhere" expressed some of my concerns about the "generification" of landscapes and communities. We value the rich natural and cultural heritage and traditions of the planet and want to share and learn with others about how we give folks incentive to protect and promote places, health, people and ideas of value to communities. Civic engagement, sharing stories, triple-bottom-line economics and sustainable practices are all areas of interest and I'm hoping CommunityMatters will be a great place to learn and meet others with similar interests. Our international office for NAI is in Fort Collins, CO, so this meeting is a short distance from home. I write a weekly blog on heritage interpretation at http://www.interpnet.com/blog. I'm looking forward to the conversations at CommunityMatters10. > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Tim Merriman, Ph.D. CIT CIP Executive Director National Association for Interpretation P.O. Box 2246 Fort Collins, CO 80522 970-231-0537 (cell) 888-900-8283 (toll-free) http://www.interpnet.com NAI National Workshop - Nov. 16-20, 2010, Las Vegas, NV NAI International Conference - May 4-7, 2011, Gamboa Rainforest Resort, Panama
Hello! My name is Amelia Costanzo and I'm an associate planner at the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) in Columbus, Ohio. I've been here for three years and what a busy three years they have been. I am a "general" planner, meaning that I get to put my hands into a lot of planning cookie jars in the 12-county central Ohio region. I do everything from sitting on working groups for local planning efforts to give a regional perspective to working on Environmental Justice reports for transportation projects, and to being a staff representative on our agency's employee "fun" group. A large role I play at MORPC is to conduct working groups and to communicate with communities in central Ohio for involvement in MORPC's planning efforts. I'm going to CommunityMatters to sharpen my public involvement and information-sharing skills. I also have a craving for the hot sauce at Lucille's, a delicious creole restaurant in Denver. www.morpc.org
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 3:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hello, 1. My name is Scott Shine and I'm excited to be able to be a part of CommunityMatters this year. I live in beautiful Montrose, Colorado and enjoy working for the city in the Community Development Department as a City Planner. My wife and I moved to Montrose three years ago. Since then, we bought our first home in the historic downtown area and gave birth to our first child in that house. My daughter, Lily, is now 18 months old. She has inspired and challenged me in ways I never thought possible. My undergrad degree is from Utah State University in Environmental Studies and Sustainable Development. I then moved to Oregon for a year-long AmeriCorps assignment. After that, I was hired on with the Lane Council of Governments and worked there while getting a Master's in Community and Regional Planning from the University of Oregon. When I finished school, my wife and I bought a tandem touring bicycle and rode 5,000 miles from Oregon to Michigan to Missouri and back through Colorado and Utah. We raised money for Thirst Relief International to dig wells and provide water filters in eastern Africa. We called the trip '5,000 for Thirst'. Aside from working for the city, I am a member of the local library district's board of trustees and I organize events for the local running club. I finished my first 50-mile trail running race this spring and hope to do more in the future. 2. I have been intrigued by the Orton Family Foundation since I first heard about them in grad school. I've used CommunityViz a little and frequently read articles and get resources from the Orton website. So that's how I learned about CommunityMatters and when I saw that it would be in Denver this year, I had to make it happen. It seems like Orton Family Foundation has provided planners and communities with high quality tools to envision the future without being political. I really enjoy the emphasis on story telling and community dialogue and want to find ways to implement some of these methods in our community. I would also like to learn more about CommunityViz and it's abilities. Finally, I look forward to hearing stories from others about successful strategies and engagement tools. 3. http://www.cityofmontrose.org/ http://www.visitmontrose.com/ http://pppm.uoregon.edu/ http://www.cnr.usu.edu/ http://sketchup.google.com/product/newin8.html
-- Scott Shine, AICP City of Montrose Community Development Department 107 S. Cascade Ave, P.O. Box 790 Montrose, Colorado 81402-0790 Phone: (970) 240-1427 E-fax: (970) 252-4727 <email obscured>
Good morning! My name is Patricia Sears and I serve as the Executive Director of Newport City Renaissance Corporation (NCRC), a nongovernmental nonprofit organization. The NCRC's exists to advance & enhance Newport's community and economic environment, design a welcoming downtown and promote Newport as a destination. The NCRC is based on the National Main Street model and has one staff person, a volunteer board of five members and four committees (Design, Economic Restructuring, Organization and Promotion) that are comprised completely of volunteers. While @NewportVT was the last in the state to receive VT Downtown designation, since then we have not been afraid to be first. In 2009, Newport was the first community in VT to receive a grant from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) for a regional/Urban Design Assistance Team (R/UDAT). The team AIA put together consisted of interdisciplinary experts in waterfront design, landscape design, architecture, housing, economic development, hospitality & tourism. With the team, NCRC conducted two focus groups and three community fora that enjoyed participation of over 200 people. Their resulting report of recommendations has provided a road map for NCRC's workplans. One of the recommendations of the R/UDAT report was to transition current zoning by-laws to include form-based code. Since January 2010 a cross-section of business and community members met every Friday at 8a for an hour to develop form-based code for Newport. In July, NCRC presented it to the Newport Planning Commission who have been reviewing it and incorporating it into the current zoning by-laws. We expect the planning commission to recommend it to Newport City Council by November and the City Council to approve it by January 2011. In addressing Newport's Main Street downtown district's design, community & economic development, a new commission of volunteers has started work on a 'Complete Street' project. This will explore ideas to bring more robust vitality to Main Street. A result will be a plan that will be presented to the City's Planning Commission to be incorporated in the City Plan. There are a number of other projects in the works including but not limited to marketing Newport, Vermont for business investment in downtown, applying for foreign trade zone status, bringing ubiquitous high-speed broadband service to downtown Newport, working with developers on a waterfront resort & conference center and biotech facility and developing sustainable resource development for the organization to continue its work for an invigorated downtown Newport City. I am very much looking forward to the CommunityMatters2010 conference to learn, develop relationships that can turn into partnerships and share our experiences. See you in Denver! cheers | Patricia
_______________________________ Newport City Renaissance Corporation | Patricia M Sears, Executive Director 194 Main Street Suite 208 | Newport VT 05855 | +1 802 323.1056 <email obscured> *___________________________________________________________ | Newport, Vermont ~ International Gateway to VT's Northeast Kingdom | * Click for news & events calendar --> <http://www.facebook.com/Newport.Vermont> Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/Newport.Vermont> <http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/kingdomcommons.com/embed?src=kingdomcommons.com_9sifcbke42uopampoadec0ilag%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York%20%20> Google Calendar<http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/kingdomcommons.com/embed?src=kingdomcommons.com_9sifcbke42uopampoadec0ilag%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America/New_York%20%20> [image: Twitter] <http://twitter.com/NewportVT> Latest tweet: Thinking about transportation. More dock space at The Gateway... Rte 105 thoroughfare through downtown @NewportVT... http://fb.me/AAL6QY5p Follow @NewportVT <http://twitter.com/NewportVT> <http://twitter.com/?status=@NewportVT%20&in_reply_to_status_id=25016112241&in_reply_to=NewportVT> Reply<http://twitter.com/?status=@NewportVT%20&in_reply_to_status_id=25016112241&in_reply_to=NewportVT> <http://twitter.com/?status=RT%20%40NewportVT%3A%20Thinking%20about%20transportation.%20More%20dock%20space%20at%20The%20Gateway...%20Rte%20105%20thoroughfare%20through%20downtown%20%40NewportVT...%20http%3A%2F%2Ffb.me%2FAAL6QY5p> Retweet<http://twitter.com/?status=RT%20%40NewportVT%3A%20Thinking%20about%20transportation.%20More%20dock%20space%20at%20The%20Gateway...%20Rte%20105%20thoroughfare%20through%20downtown%20%40NewportVT...%20http%3A%2F%2Ffb.me%2FAAL6QY5p> 07:14 Sep-20 <http://twitter.com/NewportVT/statuses/25016112241>
Hi everyone, I'm Arthur Coddington, Senior Program Manager at Craigslist Foundation. Like Shelley Brooks, I'm looking forward to visiting Colorado. Most of my other visits to Colorado have been to Fort Collins to compete in Frisbee competitions. I'm one of the top competitors in a sport called Freestyle Flying Disc. I'm looking forward to CommunityMatters because it's not only directly related to Craigslist Foundation's mission of being a catalyst for stronger, healthier communities but also because of the people who will be attending. This summer, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation included us in their Technology for Engagement initiative (http://technologyforengagement.org). We'll be building a knowledge sharing service that's all about you, about the people in the trenches doing the hard work. We hope to offer ways to learn from one another and inspire even more people to be actively engaged in their own neighborhoods. We've chronicled the research leading up to this project on our Lab blog ( http://craigslistfoundation.wordpress.com/), and we're currently in the lab with a user experience (UX) prodigy named Jordan Kanarek refining the project. We'll be working with developers the rest of the year to build the first version of this service. Looking forward to meeting and learning from you. Arthur * arthur coddington * | sr. program manager | craigslist foundation | 415-278-0404 | craigslistfoundation.org<http://www.craigslistfoundation.org>
Greetings, Steven and 'Community Matters' Friends, I can't tell you how much I anticipate meeting you all at the conference in Denver. I'm accompanying my wife, Linda C. Smith, Artistic/Executive Director of Repertory Dance Theatre in Salt Lake City; she's presenting on Thursday in the arts/community track, introducing RDT's arts-community fusion 'Green Map' project. I have my own compelling interests that excite me about the conference. I'd like to think that I am a community-centered environmental professional, activist and sustainability consultant. Since 'sustainability' isn't a big seller in the conservative Utah marketplace, I perform 'LEED' green building planning and certification services part-time through EDA Architects, day to day. My heart, however, is in the regenerative economic/environmental development consulting work that comes along intermittently, often along with renewable energy feasibility studies. The approach I practice is to apply a community-focused, regionally-conscious industrial ecology analysis to damaged lands and their cities, towns and villages. I've not only worked for decades in architectural and construction management for sustainability, but also on environmental planning for mining-generated contamination remediation. As a child in Superfund Site #1 (Tar Creek and Cherokee County, NE Oklahoma/SE Kansas), I got to know intimately what a mess humans can make. This homeland is still essentially trashed, after 150 years of mining history. While at Kennecott Utah Copper's giant Bingham Canyon Mine complex, on the team planning and administering the several hundred million $ surface cleanup projects, I developed a robust concept of how mining companies can initiate sustainable post-mining economic development for clean jobs and environmental stewardship, to be executed to restore ecosystems, habitats and wildlife, as well as human values for the landscape. My purpose and role at the conference is two-fold: 1) To support Linda's RDT 'Green Map' event, as the primary sponsor and advocate (so far) of this remarkable project devoted to building community awareness and artistic expression of 'place' in public schools and community groups; and 2) to further develop concepts of 'Green Map' enrichment through integration of formalized sustainability disciplines, such as LEED. 'LEED for Neighborhood Development' (LEED-ND) is of particular interest, demonstrating how the Green Map project can reveal, reinforce and celebrate the spatial and connectivity detail of certifiably-sustainable neighborhoods. LEED-ND was collaboratively created by Congress for New Urbanism, Natural Resources Defense Council's smart growth programs, and US Green Building Council. Many of the principles that are emphasized favorably by movements for New Urbanism, Smart Growth, Sustainable Sites, Green Infrastructure, and others --- localism, healthful living, connectivity, diversity, green business, socially responsible businesses and institutions, protection of natural areas and wildlife habitat and open lands, for example --- are the core subjects of the typical Green Map community inventory. The crucial contribution of RDT's arts integration project is to strengthen the learnings of the Green Map experience, thereby bringing systems like LEED-ND to life, creating enduring realizations in the minds of student-participants who begin their journeys into critical environmental and community thinking. The last 25 years of my growth toward maturity has brought me the rich experiences of community, non-profit organizational boards and volunteer roles. For what it's worth, I've attached a current CV, rather than belaboring past roles with many environmental, arts, affordable housing, Olympics and many governmental task forces and special commissions and committees. I was honored to receive the first Forster Lifetime Achievement Award in Sustainability at last April's 'Salt Lake Sustainable Building' conference. Now, the challenge is to live up to that honor. My favorite times have been in assisting 'environmental sacrifice zones' around Anaconda MT, my home area in the Kansas-Oklahoma mining district, over-timbered counties in West Virgina and Wisconsin, and development-threatened areas of China (Dalian) and Siberia (around Lake Baikal and in the sublime Altai Federation) to envision how they can develop "sustain-ABILITY': the capacity to sustain their own places. Most recently, I've been advising community groups around a proposed monster mine in the pristine forest land above Bristol Bay, Alaska, where indigenous peoples are terrified at the prospect of loss of one of the world's great sockeye salmon fisheries, not to mention their ancient native cultures. My website is so deficient that I'll not provide a link to it yet; it's perennially under construction (by this Luddite) to produce a current reflection of my capacities, work and intentions. Papers on sustainable post-mining development and on healing communities devastated by irresponsible, abandoned mining are available, if anyone is interested. Much of my work was done jointly with Ernie Lowe of Indigo Development, a pioneer of industrial ecology, so the joint work is posted on his rich website, www.indigodev.com. Again, I look forward to hearing of others who will be in attendance, especially to hearing your stories! Gratefully yours, Ivan Ivan Weber, LEED-AP Principal/Owner Weber Sustainability Consulting 953 1st Avenue Salt Lake City, Utah 84103 801-651-8841 cellular <email obscured> Regenerative economic development through industrial ecology Green Strategies/LEED Certification EDA Architects, Inc. 9 Exchange Place / Boston Building Ste. 1100 Salt Lake City, UT 84111 www.edaarch.com <email obscured> 801-531-7600
Hello everyone, I live in Camden, Maine and work in and with many communities and community members of Midcoast Maine, from Brunswick to Bucksport, along a 100 mile corridor of US Route 1. I am the Executive Director of Friends of Midcoast Maine, a regional smart growth organization and we are project partners with the Orton Family Foundation and the Town of Damariscotta in the Heart and Soul Planning Project. This has been an exciting two year process where we have engaged hundreds of people in discussing their town's future, in using stories to identify town values and in implementing land use changes with code changes and other local projects to uphold those values. I will be serving on a panel for the session "Values to Action" during the CM 2010 conference. I look forward to hearing from all of you about your communities and your efforts to build community. I am particularly interested in learning new methods to engage people, and keeping the public interested in land use issues when the content isn't controversial.... I have never been to Denver and can't wait to learn more about this amazing place. Looking forward to meeting lots of new friends too! Jane Lafleur, Executive Director Friends of Midcoast Maine 5 Free Street Camden, Maine 04843 (207) 236-1077 www.friendsmidcoast.org Join FMM and Make a Difference!
----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Clift" <email obscured>> To: <email obscured>> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 3:09 PM Subject: [CM] Introductions > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 > conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of > introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can > generate at the conference. > > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please > allow some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in > subject instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net
I'm Tom Daniels, a member of the Orton Family Foundation Board of Trustees. I am a Professor of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where I teach land use planning, environmental planning, and growth management. At CM10, I will be presenting with Ed McMahon (also on the Orton Family Foundation Board) on small town design.
What an incredible group of people is coming together. I am very excited to be a part of it. Having attended CM in Burlington (08?), I can attest to the potential for some wonderful things to happen. I am a proud signer of the original "manifesto" to heart and soul planning created in that conference. I am Phil Stafford, Ph.D., Director of the Center on Aging and Community at Indiana University in Bloomington (beautiful southern Indiana). I will be presenting on the "elephant" panel, mostly discussing our attempts to conduct cross-sector, holistic planning in Hoosier cities and towns under the rubric "communities for a lifetime." My entire career in the field of aging has been premised on the notion that aging is not about time and the body, but about place and relationships. This is often the focus of musings on my blog (Phil's Adventures in Elderburbia, found at www.agingindiana.org) and the theme of my recent book Elderburbia: Aging with a Sense of Place in America (Praeger, 2009). I've come to know Coloradans in Boulder, Fort Collins, and the Steamboat Springs area and am eager to return to the beautiful place.
Best, Phil -----Original Message----- From: John Barstow <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 12:07 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Welclome to the CommunityMatters'10 e-democracy forum! Dear CM'10 Attendees! Welcome to our new online forum, a place to meet each other BEFORE we arrive in Denver in 2 weeks. I am the Orton Family Foundation's director of communications and key staff member helping to produce CommunityMatters'10. I look forward to meeting many of your here, online, in the coming days and then getting to meet in person in Denver. This is a chance to find folks with the same interests or issues as you or your community to make sure you can continue the dialogue in Denver. Take advantage of it, start connecting, and start—today—steering the change in your town. The entire Orton Family Foundation staff WELCOMES you to CommunityMatters'10! Best wishes and safe travels, John Barstow Director of Communcations Orton Family Foundation John Barstow South Street, Middlebury About John Barstow: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/7jD1bUbsxcxu02oZMxDzrY View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/1sbqUTqiB3uMFXcWWl15el - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Good morning! I am Boa Lee, a community outreach and information leader for E-democracy.org. My colleague, Julia, and I will be at the CM conference to share more about our issues forum as part of the conference's Community Sandbox piece. We are hoping you will all stop by to say hello. I currently do outreach/communications consulting and I come from a journalism and community organizing background. This will be my first CM conference. I've perused the website enough to know this is going to be a great group of people to talk and listen to and I'm grateful for the opportunity to also add more ideas used by other organizations to my outreach toolbox. I help our volunteer forum manager with the Greater Frogtown (central St. Paul, Minnesota) Neighbors Forum. If you get a chance to go to our website before the conference, I think you'll have a better idea of how the issues forums work on a hyper-local level: http://e-democracy.org/frogtown. -Boa Lee
Hi! My name is Elissa Thomann Mitchell and I will be attending the conference as a representative of Generations of Hope Development Corporation (GHDC), a finalist in the Strong Communities Competition (entry, The Transformative Power of Intergenerational Community Living)! We are thrilled to be recognized in this way and I am very much looking forward to the conference. I am the Director of Network and Outreach at GHDC and also a Ph.D. student in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Generations of Hope Development Corporation is a non-profit organization that promotes and conducts research on the Generations of Hope Community (GHC) model. We are also encouraging and facilitating the development of new intentional intergenerational communities nationwide based on the intergenerational community of Hope Meadows in Rantoul, Illinois that has been operating for over 15 years. Check out our website <http://www.generationsofhope.org/> www.generationsofhope.org for more information, and of course, we would love your vote in the Strong Communities Competition! I look forward to attending the conference and meeting everyone. Elissa Thomann Mitchell, MS, MSW Director of Network and Outreach Generations of Hope Development Corporation 609 West University Avenue Champaign, IL 61820 (217) 363-3080
I am Ethan Kent. I work at Project for Public Spaces as a Vice President. Through technical assistance, research and advocacy we support community-based placemkaing projets. We have worked in over 2500 communities in all 50 states, over the past 35 years. A long time fan of the Orton Family Foundation, I enjoyed participating in a previous PlaceMatters conference in Denver. I learn from communities all over the world, traveling to about 10 countries and 50 cities every year. I am a lifelong New Yorker, living in Brooklyn, but rural New England & the Rockies are the parts of the world I feel most connected to and inspired by. I am currently focused on our efforts to get our placemaking process and tools to support communities beyond the ones we can reach directly. Several of our participation and evaluation tools are being adapted to digital online platforms that we hope to expand on and make available to all. Looking forward to being around the great people that Orton attracts from these great regions of the world! I will moderating a panel on Design for Change on the last day of the conference. http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/ethankent
-- Ethan Kent Vice President Project for Public Spaces 700 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 www.pps.org 212 620-5660 x318 www.twitter.com/ebkent <email obscured>
Good morning everyone. I am Chris Overdorf, a partner at Jones & Jones Architects + Landscape Architects + Planners in Seattle. My firm has focused our integrated practice for the last 40 years on how nature and culture shapes our communities. We are devoted to place, community identity and creating healthy relationships between land and people. My background is in computer science, remote sensing and landscape architecture, and for the past 10 years I've been working with communities to map & visualize the personal connections people have with their landscapes. I'll be participating on the "Values to Action" panel. I'll be highlighting a project in the Bitter Root Valley in Montana where we exposed unforeseen shared community values and began to repair years of ill-will between neighbors over land use protection. I'm interested in talking to you more about how personal values shape our communities and build transformative connections that truly create healthy places. All my best, Christopher L. Overdorf, ASLA Principal jones & jones architects · landscape architects · planners 105 south main street suite 300 seattle wa 98104 p 206 624 5702 f 206 624 5923 <email obscured> http://www.jonesandjones.com Please consider the environment before printing Confidentiality Statement
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 12:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hi Everyone I'm Ted Grossardt, Research Program Manager at the U of Kentucky Transportation Research Center. My colleagues Dr. Keiron Bailey and Mr. John Ripy and I will be back to do a return engagement of a workshop on Structured Public Involvement, and I'm also discussant/session chair/rapporteur (new word I learned!!!) for one of the sessions. We've worked in the area of public goods allocation and decision making for about 10 years, combining different kinds of technologies: ARS (keypad systems), representation (GIS, simulation, VR, you name it), with decision support modeling (analytic hierarchy, fuzzy set modeling) of public preference data. We've worked on public input into the aesthetic design of large bridges, landscape design, adaptive re-use of historic resources, rural roadway design for self-regulating speed, TOD design, highway and power transmission line routing, and, of course, we've used CommunityViz as the representation tool for processes that measure community preferences for different combinations of town development patterns. At the moment we're engaged in the future visioning process for a community facing the decommissioning and cleanup of a uranium enrichment plant. We're published in a variety of journals including the Transportation Research Record, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Socio-Economic Planning sciences, various publications of the IEEE, and so forth. We've delivered workshops on our methods to state DOT's around the country and some countries in Europe. All of this is because, in my first life, I was a third generation wheat farmer on the plains of Kansas, and served as Chairman of the Board for the local farmers' cooperative, where everything was decided collaborative by farmers with high school educations. So it wasn't until I went to the university that I was taught by the economists that people weren't "supposed" to be able to carry out collaborative decision-making. Undoing all that faulty intelligence will probably take the rest of my life. :-) Beyond the technical aspects of figuring out how to get lots of people involved usefully in really complex problems, we're also interested in ways to institutionalize better public involvement processes. We think a good start would be to allow the victims of our plans and designs to evaluate the quality of the processes they were subject to. We find that this is seldom done, and could be a productive first step in ratcheting up the importance of good public involvement processes in the eyes of those who spend our tax dollars. If this CM is anything like the one in Burlington, it will rock!
Ted On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 > conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of > introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can > generate at the conference. > > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please > allow some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net > -- Dr. Ted Grossardt, Research Program Manager U.K. Transportation Research Center 176 Oliver Raymond Building University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506 859-257-7522 <email obscured> spi.uky.edu How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Greetings from Iowa State University Extension in Ames, Iowa. My name is Christopher J. Seeger (Chris) and I am an Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and an Extension Specialist in Communities and Economic Development. I am a licensed landscape architect and GISP. For the last 15 years I have been evaluating, developing and implementing tools that allow the public to visualize or get involved with the design and planning processes or utilize PPGIS in non-design projects. Prior to Web 2.0 the release of the various mapping APIs, this involved creating several applications (Chip games, viewshed and asset mapping) using Flash and LAMP technologies. I have been involved in several projects and now utilize tools such as ArcGIS Server API's, Google Maps and smart phones in various facilitated-Volunteered Geographic Information (f-VGI) projects. This is a bit of a challenge in some of the more rural communities in Iowa where Internet and cell connections are marginal. The majority of my projects are centered around transportation and health. This includes Safe Routes to Schools, mapping of user-generated recreational routes as well as research investigating the relationship between the built environment and physical activity/food resources. I will be presenting as part of the "Visualizing Better Futures" session that will take place on Thursday morning. I look forward to meeting everyone and finding out how you use technology to enhance citizen engagement and decision making.
Chris ______________________________________________________________ Christopher J. Seeger, ASLA, GISP Associate Professor and Extension Specialist in Landscape Architecture Extension Communities and Economic Development (CED) Department of Landscape Architecture; Iowa State University 146 College of Design Ames, IA 50011-3094 Office: 515-294-3648 Fax: 515-294-2348 ______________________________________________________________
Hello, I'm Tony Santelli, President of the Niwot Business Association and owner of the Niwot Tavern. Niwot is a quaint historic town, nestled between Boulder and Longmont. Like all small towns our business vitality is challenged with vacant retail space and the difficulty attracting small businesses. I am going to CM to better understand what others are doing to address this and look forward to meeting folks who may be able to share best practices or introduce me to contacts that might be able to help. See you all then. tony
----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Clift" <email obscured>> To: <email obscured> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 1:09:04 PM Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hello from Bethlehem, New Hampshire! I'm Marilinne Cooper and I'm the Executive Director of WREN (Women's Rural Entrepreneurial Network), a membership-driven organization with over 1100 members, women and men, half of whom own their own businesses. WREN's work has included revitalizing Main Street, assisting emerging businesses, providing a venue for artists and office space for entrepreneurs, as well as connecting members and non-members with local resources and opportunities. In addition to offering entrepreneurial training and technical assistance, WREN operates the Local Works Marketplace (a retail store serving 200 vendors), a gallery, and Farmers Market (held twice weekly in season). To date, WRENs markets have generated over $1,000,000 in sales, with 60% going to members. We also host a public access Technology Center and 10 member businesses operating out of incubator office spaces. We have recently expanded our operations to include a satellite office and very successful farmers market in Berlin, NH. This former mill town has a very different cultural background than Bethlehem (once a thriving summer tourist destination), and comes with its own set of unique challenges for community organizing. I attended the Community Matters '07 conference in Burlington and learned much from the inspiring presentations and creative workshop tools and expert facilitation that occurred there. I am particularly interested in new models for community economic development, "buy local" and "local first" programs, and the challenges associated with community cultural history/heritage. www.wrencommunity.org
I'm Katy Korkos, the member services coordinator for the Los Alamos, New Mexico Chamber of Commerce. We have a program called "CommUnity Matters" which includes a bi-monthly publication, a regional search engine, a reusable bag program and many other initiatives. I love to be involved in community building and in telling those stories about my community that strengthen the connections between people. I owned and operated a restaurant here for 23 years- the most rewarding part of that was also getting to know people, learning their stories and being able to create a little community in the restaurant- with wine tasting dinners, art receptions, book groups and even a weekly salon. I'm also a writer and artist. I worked for a year as a reporter, and I continue to do some freelance writing. I believe in the power of words- my personal mission is to help create a set of beliefs that can facilitate change.
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 1:15 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hello all, I'm Jim May, Planning Director the Centre Regional Planning Agency in Centre County, PA. We are located in Happy Valley, aka the home of Penn State University. We are currently preparing a regional comprehensive plan update that will contain a sustainability element and a university/community relations element - both elements are new in the region. About have the population of the region is students at Penn State. I've been here since June of 2009. Prior to that I worked for the City of Glendale, AZ and Phoenix, AZ. Our region is comprised of six small, but very different municipalities. I'll be looking for some tools to help connect with residents as we go forward with our process.
Hello Conference Attendees, I'm Tonya Atkins and I reside in Winston-Salem, NC. My passion is the community so I'm very interested in learning all about how Community Matters works. In my current position, I am employed as the Operations Director for Forsyth Futures. My organization serves as the impact project for our local community. We are interested in learning about the different ways that we can get the community engaged around our Results Areas (education, health, safety, economics, and physical/mental health). I have been working in the nonprofit area for over 20 years and I always get excited with the possibility of stretching beyond our walls to involve others in our very important work. I'm looking forward to my visit to Denver. See you all soon. Tonya M. Atkins Operations Director Forsyth Futures 601 N. Cherry St., Ste 250 Winston-Salem, NC 27101 336.724.2831 <email obscured>
Greetings! I'm Steve Mullen, President of Foresee Consulting, Inc. Our office is in Lyons, Colorado and specializes in Community Planning and Landscape Architecture. (www.foreseeconsulting.biz) With an undergraduate degree in natural sciences, I was drawn to Landscape Architecture as a means of making meaningful contributions to our world. I still believe that Landscape Architects are uniquely qualified to integrate built form into our natural world and the Community Realm is the ideal scale to make these contributions apparent. Planning at this scale has always been an very complex and technical process and plans have been dominated by expert values rather than community values. The fair and equitable disposition of this Community Realm remains a critical frontier to be advanced. The new reality for Community Planning is not yet resolved, but clearly citizens need to take the lead if the expectation to have a plan that truly reflects their hopes and desires. That Expert Process is very fiscally efficient, when compared to the process required to facilitate solutions from the bottom-up, and this suggests a potential 'backslide' if we don't step up and lead. "I was born under a sagebrush near Enid, Montana", is what my dad used to say, while I was born very close to there - in a hospital in Sidney, Montana. I paid my way to college playing football in Bozeman, MT (Go Cats!) and graduated an expert in plant and soil science. I worked in International Agriculture in Saudi Arabia, then a stint with the NRCS (then SCS), before starting a Landscape Construction, Greenhouse and Garden Center in Eastern Montana. I gained an appreciation for design of the land. I returned to graduate school and in a1988 I received a bachelors and masters degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon. I found gainful employment with Design Workshop, Inc. for thirteen years in their Arizona and Denver Offices, and did every type of planning and design project. I hooked up with the Orton Family foundation during the development of CommunityViz and demonstrated proficiency for using tools to amplify the voice of citizens on the decision-making process. I was the initial consultant hired by the Orton Family when they opened their CommunityViz office in Boulder in 2002 and found their values synonymous with mine. I started Foresee Consulting in 2004 and continue to pursue my vision for empowering citizens to make the best choices possible. I emphasize physical planning (A map for the future), because policy planning alone seems to further entrench the status quo and undermine real change. We have devised some nationally recognized engagement methodology that succeeds by continually demonstrate to participants that 'they' are directing the planning effort and it reflects their desires. This approach ultimately leads to huge ownership and support of their community plans. With tools such as keypad polling, CommunityViz impact analysis and visualization and Chip Game charrettes, we typically get 95% plus support for those future land use plans, this leverages elected officials into making difficult decision. Plans with broad citizen support demonstrate that they achieve community desires, get adopted. Support for implementing these adopted plans translates into actions capable of affecting real change and making our neighborhoods and towns a much better place. Community Visualization: The Key to Democratic Urban Planning http://www.geoplace.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=Pub lishingTitles&mid=13B2F0D0AFA04476A2ACC02ED28A405F&tier=4&id=7EB783E1901442B 99902543227A31746 Casper Comprehensive Plan - Chip Game Summarization Slide show: http://www.2020visionseeyourfuture.com/documents/meeting-presentation_100322 .pdf Grand Junction / Grand Valley Comprehensive Plan - Process Summary (including chip game results) http://www.gjcity.org/citydeptwebpages/communitydevelopment/DevelopmentServi ces/ComPlan/CompPlan.htm My practice has always sought to provided support and services to citizens and communities seeking that equitable disposition of their neighborhoods and towns. I have been frustrated by the notion that some 95% of the American Landscape is being managed by rural jurisdictions that doesn't have the resources (people/dollars/leadership) to meet these obligations. The new reality for community planning may force some desirable change in that regard, as it is these places that provide our national opportunity for sustainable models of renewable resources, jobs generation and economic growth. Having attended all the 'Tools/CommunityMatters' conferences - I know I share many of the same values that drive other attendees and look forward to three exiting days of growth!
Steve -----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 1:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Jim and all - bet PA is MUCH cooler than here in Arizona! I relocated from Vermont (and prior to that, Florida) to Phoenix a few years ago and still working on the "it's a dry heat" thing. Anyway, I can hardly wait to get to Denver for Community Matters - I need the recharge. It's invigorating just to read the intros thus far, so can only imagine how valuable the actual conference will be for us. I'm knee-deep in a few projects here that hold much promise for making a difference, and eager to learn ideas - and gain inspiration - from all of you. Here's a question - has anyone read John McKnight and Peter Block's book, The Abundant Community? If so, please post your thoughts on it... Mile-high City, here we come! Rhonda Phillips Professor, School of Community Resources & Development Arizona State University https://webapp4.asu.edu/directory/person/1094035
-----Original Message----- From: Jim May <email obscured>] Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2010 2:07 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: Re: [CM] Introductions Hello all, I'm Jim May, Planning Director the Centre Regional Planning Agency in Centre County, PA. We are located in Happy Valley, aka the home of Penn State University. We are currently preparing a regional comprehensive plan update that will contain a sustainability element and a university/community relations element - both elements are new in the region. About have the population of the region is students at Penn State. I've been here since June of 2009. Prior to that I worked for the City of Glendale, AZ and Phoenix, AZ. Our region is comprised of six small, but very different municipalities. I'll be looking for some tools to help connect with residents as we go forward with our process. James May State College About James May: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/5FcXAL3wcD6hZJL0xfQ57S View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/2uYix8wkaG21be1qFLbPgM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg
My name is Cari Golden. I am a wife, mom of four and I love the community in which I live. This is my first time at the Community Matters conference and I am excited to learn. I grew up in Teton Valley Idaho during a time that it was non existant to the rest of the world. There are three ways out of the valley and two of them are mountain passes, and the other winds through faming fields that get a fair amout of wind. In the winter, you can get a good storm that can keep delivery trucks out. Thats when the three communities grow closest. I am not formaly educated in planning, but I served on our towns Planning and Zoning board for 5 years before I was hired by the city to become their billing clerk and eventially into the planning office where I served as the Planning and Zoning Administrator for 5 years. I was asked by the Mayor represent the city at the Envision Victor Meetings where I have at many times felt somewhat lost in the process, but my hopes grew for a more cooperative effort between the older and newer communities to come together and plan for the future.
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 1:09 PM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 > conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of > introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can > generate at the conference. > > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please > allow some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net <http://onlinegroups.net/> >
Hello CM2010ers My name is Steven Ames and Im a consulting long-range planner based in Oregon who works with local communities to help them envision and plan for the future. Ive advised all sizes and shapes of cities both here in the U.S. and abroad from booming metropolitan areas to blink-and-youll-miss-em towns. Some of these places have been responding to rapid growth and development; others would be happy to have such problems. Some, like Corpus Christi, Texas (www.boldfuturecoastalbend.org) are creating new civic cultures based on dialogue and collaboration; others, like Blue Mountains, Australia (www.sustainablebluemountains.net.au) are building more sustainable lifestyles linked to their natural capital. What all these places have in common is an overwhelming urge to take greater control of their destiny, preserve their core values in the face of change, articulate their aspirations for the future, and ensure that their efforts achieve real results that make a difference for their communities. My role is to further such goals through anticipatory planning and deliberative dialogue. My reward is seeing a community begin to discover its civic voice. This will be my second Community Matters conference and Im pleased to be associated with the good work of the Orton Family Foundation. I have participated on the Foundations Heart and Soul advisory committee and been involved in other Foundation initiatives. At Community Matters 2007 I presented a case study in community visioning highlighting one of my most inspiring collaborations with the city of Hillsboro, Oregon (www.hillsboro2020.org). Check out their new 10th anniversary vision video and youll see why I say that. At the 2010 gathering I will be moderating two panels: Values to Actions with case studies about translating civic values into change on the ground, and From Crisis to Opportunity which will delve into the New Normal economy and how it is changing our communities. I hope you will join us at one or both. My contact information is below. (My website is under re-construction but you can read about my related work in higher education at www.nxtconsulting.com.) Steven Ames Steven Ames Planning | NXT Consulting Group LLC Portland | Bend, Oregon 541-389-3050 | 503-235-3000 www.stevenamesplanning.com www.nxtconsulting.come-mail: <email obscured>, <email obscured> On Sep 21, 2010, at 12:09:04 PM, "Steven Clift" <email obscured>> wrote: From: "Steven Clift" <email obscured>> Subject: [CM] Introductions Date: September 21, 2010 12:09:04 PM PDT To: <email obscured>" <email obscured>> Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net Ames_Introduction_CM2010.doc
Hello all. My name is Paul Dreher. I am an architect/planner and currently the department head of Planning and Zoning Dept. in Newport VT. I grew up in Newport and am now back after spending many years away in Cambridge, MA and NYC. My entire career, academic, professional and personal has been (is) concerned with the built environment, placemaking and community development. Approximately two years ago I moved back to Newport and took on the role as head of Planning and Zoning. I also volunteer with Newport's Main Street program,Newport City Renaissance Corp (NCRC.). In both capacities I have advocated for community based growth. With the support of the Municipality and NCRC I spear headed an initiative to introduce Form Based Code to Newport. We, through consensus building, stakeholder meetings, and community building efforts wrote a Form Based Code in approximately 9 months--which is a huge accomplishment and a true testament to, not only the strength of our community, but also the notion of "community" in general. When people of all different ages, educational & economic backgrounds meet and talk great things happen. It is actually hard to describe myself because, in many ways, I am one part of at city, region, way of life that does powerful things as a whole. I am very excited about the conference. I learned about Orton Family Foundation as a (happy) spectator in Damariscotta and Biddeford ME. Put simply I love what I saw and continually follow with avid interest. Another reason that I am eager to attend is that Projects for Public Spaces will be represented at the conference. I have aspired to PPS's levels of engagement in placemaking for as long as I can remember--my parents introduced me to thinking/writings of Jane Jacobs, William H. Whyte when I was about six. I can honestly say that PPS has compelled inspired me throughout my career. For me (us) what we do is all about the process--how we, as a community, see our selves, what we are and what we want to be, and it strikes me that that is at the core of what Orton advocates. Looking forward to meeting all. Paul Dreher dreherdesigngroup 802.355.7415 <email obscured> This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in error) please notify the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the material in this e-mail is strictly forbidden. On 21 September 2010 15:09, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference.
> > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net >
Good morning to all-- I'm Robin Mayer, Chair of the Damariscotta (ME) Planning Advisory Committee, or DPAC. We are a committee appointed by the Town's Selectboard to lead a community driven visioning process to make the region a better place to live, work, and maintain a business. DPAC was fortunate to have been selected as one of the Orton Family Foundation's Heart and Soul Planning Projects several years ago, and have had a great project manager through the Friends of Midcoast Maine. We are now at a critical juncture in our planning process--translating the Town's values and vision into zoning amendments. Unlike many of the CommunityMatters attendees whose introductions I have read, I have no experience in planning or zoning issues. I'm a fairly new (3+ years) Damariscotta resident interested in helping to chart the course of our future growth and development. I moved to Town--and live "downtown"--from the Washington, DC, suburbs where I witnessed the result of poor planning and the resulting sprawl to once beautiful countryside that I grew up in. I don't want to see that happen here. This will be my first CommunityMatters conference and I'm really looking forward to it. Because planning and zoning is all new to me, I'll be a sponge at the conference, learning everything I can to help me and DPAC become more effective in fostering proper growth for our Town. To find out about DPAC and it's many activities--from neighbor to neighbor interviews to a 4-day charrette--log onto www.damariscottame.com. On Sep 21, 2010, at 3:09 PM, Steven Clift wrote: > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference.
> > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hi all, I'm Chris Haller, founder of Urban Interactive Studio. Over the past couple of years I've been working as an Online Engagement Manager and Web developer for Urban and Regional planning projects. I like to look at myself as an information and interaction architect for public involvement processes. A main interest of mine is to improve civic engagement and decision-making processes by exploring new ways to combine traditional and electronic ways of communication. I first attended this conference after moving over from Germany in 2004, when it was still called PlaceMatters conference and have been to every conference since. This year I'm very excited to help the Orton Family Foundation organize the Community Sandbox exhibition where we will feature 14 great tools for community planning. Tools range from low-tech to high-tech and we have case studies prepared to highlight the benefits of using the tools in your community. Since it's a "sandbox", you can play with and explore each tool, with exhibitors and volunteers ready to assist you. Learn more at http://bit.ly/communitysandbox. I'm looking forward to meeting all of you, make sure to swing by the Community Sandbox and say Hi, I'm the tall guy with the German accent...
Chris On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 8:06 AM, Paul Dreher <email obscured>> wrote: > Hello all. > > My name is Paul Dreher. I am an architect/planner and currently the > department head of Planning and Zoning Dept. in Newport VT. I grew up > in Newport and am now back after spending many years away in > Cambridge, MA and NYC. My entire career, academic, professional and > personal has been (is) concerned with the built environment, > placemaking and community development. > > Approximately two years ago I moved back to Newport and took on the > role as head of Planning and Zoning. I also volunteer with Newport's > Main Street program,Newport City Renaissance Corp (NCRC.). In both > capacities I have advocated for community based growth. With the > support of the Municipality and NCRC I spear headed an initiative to > introduce Form Based Code to Newport. We, through consensus building, > stakeholder meetings, and community building efforts wrote a Form > Based Code in approximately 9 months--which is a huge accomplishment > and a true testament to, not only the strength of our community, but > also the notion of "community" in general. When people of all > different ages, educational & economic backgrounds meet and talk great > things happen. > > It is actually hard to describe myself because, in many ways, I am one > part of at city, region, way of life that does powerful things as a > whole. > > I am very excited about the conference. I learned about Orton Family > Foundation as a (happy) spectator in Damariscotta and Biddeford ME. > Put simply I love what I saw and continually follow with avid > interest. > > Another reason that I am eager to attend is that Projects for Public > Spaces will be represented at the conference. I have aspired to PPS's > levels of engagement in placemaking for as long as I can remember--my > parents introduced me to thinking/writings of Jane Jacobs, William H. > Whyte when I was about six. I can honestly say that PPS has compelled > inspired me throughout my career. > > For me (us) what we do is all about the process--how we, as a > community, see our selves, what we are and what we want to be, and it > strikes me that that is at the core of what Orton advocates. > > Looking forward to meeting all. > > Paul Dreher > dreherdesigngroup > 802.355.7415 > <email obscured> > > This e-mail may contain confidential and/or privileged information. If > you are not the intended recipient (or have received this e-mail in > error) please notify the sender immediately and destroy this e-mail. > Any unauthorized copying, disclosure or distribution of the material > in this e-mail is strictly forbidden. > > > > On 21 September 2010 15:09, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: >> Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. >> >> Please reply to this message, answering: >> >> 1. Who are you? Be conversational. >> >> 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? >> >> 3. Share any links or contact information you like. >> >> Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. >> >> We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to >> appear on the email list/web site. >> >> Thanks, >> Steven Clift >> CommunityMatters Online Group Host >> E-Democracy.org >> >> Steven Clift >> Ericsson, Minneapolis >> About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift >> >> View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI >> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >> To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. >> To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. >> >> Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community >> Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg >> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >> Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net >> > > Paul Dreher > Newport > About Paul Dreher: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/6cmPf6rzJ0IY2B6ZWcIaI6 > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5hVGAIDQRNZ7zGTXf4Y3Rv > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > -- __________________________________________________________ Chris Haller - Urban Interactive Studio LLC 3018 S. Grant Street | Englewood, CO 80113 | USA phone: +1-303-720-6424 | skype: hallerchris <email obscured> | http://UrbanInteractiveStudio.com Check out our blog at http://EngagingCities.com! __________________________________________________________
Hi there, I'm Bonnie Shaw! <http://www.geogreeting.com/view.html?yrsUDroBoaUscwUlyxxsoUCrkG> I make meaningful connections between people, places and technology. With degrees in Landscape Architecture, Planning and Design, and a Masters in Urban Design, I started my career designing cities and building civic engagement in disadvantaged communities in Australia and around the UK. In 2006 I founded the global photographic treasure hunt and community engagement game: Snap-Shot-City.com <http://snap-shot-city.com/> a ground breaking integrated technology event played simultaneously around the world by 1000's of people, in 100's of cities, as one giant party<! The huge success's of this event convinced me of the power of the web to better engage people with their communities and cities. So over the last 5 years I have integrated my experience in traditional community building with online engagement, and now work to enhance community engagement through technology. It's been a busy year for me so far! I was married<http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=13920560&l=8cbc9def03&id=875445536>2 months and 5 days ago back in Australia, had a spectacular honeymoon<http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=14211980&l=18051e3b67&id=875445536>in Kakadu National Park<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Kakadu+National+Park,+Northern+Territory,+Australia&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.28862,63.544922&ie=UTF8&cd=1&geocode=Ffk5OP8dbSvkBw&split=0&hq=&hnear=Kakadu+National+Park,+Northern+Territory,+Australia&z=8>, my husband graduated from a Masters in Public Policy, we moved from Boston to Washington DC, and I have recently started my company *BYO consulting<http://BYOconsulting.com> *. At BYO we offer tailored services to enhance community engagement through technology. We specialize in: - *Organizational Development -* assessment and planning and training to help your organization collaborate, work more efficiently and take advantage of new technologies - *Community Engagement Campaigns - *using social and collaborative technologies to engage your community in decision making, developing feedback loops, and providing meaningful ways for increased participation and engagement - *Technology Driven Events - *creating and implementing delightful and exciting opportunities for online and offline participation events, training workshops to teach you how run a technology integrated event I'm currently in the process of setting up the the Washington chapter of The Awesome Foundation <http://awesomefoundation.org/> - a micro-philanthropy group that aims to further awesomeness in the universe, and I'm working on a new civic engagement game called Give it Away Now<http://twitter.com/giveitgame>which aims to teach people about the collective power of small acts of creative philanthropy. I regularly blog at the intersection of people, place and technology at BonnieInbetween.com <http://bonnieinbetween.com/>, I was a guest researcher at MITs Senseable Cities Lab <http://senseable.mit.edu/> in 2008, and regularly present on technology and online/offline community engagement, serious gaming, and digital storytelling at conferences around the world. I'm involved in a bunch of things at this years conference<http://www.communitymatters.org/bonnie-shaw>. You'll find me sitting on the Gov 2.0 panel <http://www.communitymatters.org/gov-20>on Thursday morning , I was a judge for the Ashoka Changemakers Stronger Communities Challenge<http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/strongcommunities>, and I'll be facilitating the the finalists plenary panel<http://www.communitymatters.org/strong-communities>on Friday morning. I'm helping to coordinate the Dinner with the Doctor <http://www.communitymatters.org/dinner-doctor>, and you'll also be able to find me and my partner Yasmin Fodil<http://byoconsulting.com/yasmin-fodil/>at our BYO booth in the Community Sandbox <http://www.communitymatters.org/community-sandbox> where you can experiment with some of our tools and talk to us about how you can use new technologies to engage with your community. Please feel free to reach out and say hi <email obscured>> before Denver, and I'm really looking forward to meeting you all in person! I can't wait for the exciting ideas, though provoking conversations, and new friends that I know will come out of this years conference. See you in a few weeks! Bonnie
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Bonnie Shaw *www.BYOconsulting.com <http://www.byoconsulting.com/> *enhancing community engagement through technology* <email obscured> / (+1) 857.389.1152 / @bon_zai<http://twitter.com/bon_zai> On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 > conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of > introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can > generate at the conference. > > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please > allow some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net >
Hello to my fellow participants. I'm Keiron Bailey of the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. I'm excited to share the event with so many people who have such a breadth of experience of participatory processes. I have worked for over a decade with colleagues Dr. Ted Grossardt and John Ripy of the University of Kentucky. We are interested in designing, developing and applying high performance participatory processes for public goods management, broadly writ. This could mean city planning, site visioning, transit development to routing of highways and power transmission lines. We use geospatial and geovisual systems, electronic polling, multicriteria decision methods, web survey platforms, and other technologies as part of Structured Public Involvement protocols. This isn't deliberative democracy like AmericaSpeaks, nor is it traditional public involvement. You can Google <http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=608&q=structured+ public+involvement&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=Co0pOotqbTL3BMpuaoASt5az4CgAAA KoEBU_QxeJE> SPI for more examples. Here are a few thoughts about participatory processes. 1. The Arnstein Gap. Agencies and contractors often make assumptions about the level of public involvement that is desired. We have spent years measuring this, at actual public meetings dealing with planning and infrastructure design questions. We want to investigate this with the group using electronic polling. We will show the largest Arnstein Ladder data set worldwide; let's see how the group data matches! We've done this internationally too, and we'll show you some of that data. 2. Scalability of participatory processes. Problems thought to be inherent in scaling processes i.e. more people = more shouting/conflict/poor use of time and less useful information for the project sponsor. We think these are methodological problems and can be overcome. 3. Resistance to gaming. No participation process will encourage participation by any actors if it is perceived to be influenced unduly by gaming - either internal gaming, by project managers with attachments to specific solutions in spite of community feelings, or external gaming, for example by small but well-resourced, well-trained groups that exert disproportionate influence on outcomes. Again, methodology can address this problem. 4. Public process quality metrics. It seems strange that formal measurements such as Q (Quality), I (Inclusion), C (Clarity) and E (Efficiency) are not being used to evaluate all public processes. After all, Federal entities such as the GAO and State entities such as the Offices of State Comptrollers conduct audits of direct agency and contractor expenditure. They should; it's public money being spent. Public involvement isn't an extra because most projects under discussion invoke NEPA and require public involvement. And so, why not evaluate public processes that decide on infrastructure spend using these principles? We would like to discuss process quality metrics at the meeting. We use visualization and scenario modeling tools as components of integrated decision support. More technology does not more equal democracy - but it can be useful as components of an integrated decision support system. One of our current projects is directing public involvement in the visioning process for the Paducah <http://www.paducahvision.com/welcome?p_p_id=56_INSTANCE_iA2j&p_p_lifecycle= 0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_mode=view&p_p_col_id=column-2&p_p_col_count=1&page=3> Gaseous Diffusion nuclear enrichment plant. As Ted says, bringing a modicum of accountability to these processes, and developing and encouraging the adoption of performance measures, are central to our research. In view of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on public goods every year, by governments and their contractors, and the poor performance that is documented in these areas from the public viewpoint, it's time to pay more attention to process design and delivery. We're hoping to learn from other participants about their challenges and approaches, and to share some of the methods we have developed and applied to a wide range of planning, design, engineering and resource management problems. And good things seem to happen for us when we present at CommunityMatters! In 2007 we delivered a short workshop on SPI for integrated transportation land use planning. This project was subsequently awarded the TRB <http://www.trbvis.org/MAIN/2008_AWARD.html> 's Herrington Award for Excellence in Visualization, and the full paper has - finally - just been accepted for publication in Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design. We hope that our attendance at this year's CM conference will be as fruitiful and we look forward to meeting all of you there. Keiron Bailey PhD Associate Professor School of Geography and Development University of Arizona 1103 East 2nd Street Tucson AZ 85721 Tel: 520 626 4096 Fax: 520 621 2889
1. Who are you? Be conversational. Hello. My name is Dale Miller. I live in the town of Blandford, Massachusetts, with my husband, Charlie. Prior to Blandford, we lived in Agawam, Massachusetts. While our children were in school, I helped create the Phelps School PTO which is still going strong. My family lived in Germany for three years while my husband worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. Our children went to the German schools. I learned a great deal during this time, both about us as a family and about us as Americans in the world at large. Several years after returning to the United States, I arranged for a German-American exchange group consisting of 48 participants ( 24 from Germany to America; 24 from America to Germany) for the Springfield Turnverein in Agawam. This program was very successful and well received. My professional career was spent largely in nursing ( as a registered nurse) and in education. I worked for Family Planning for 12 years and was supervisor for 7 of those years. I supervised and help create the Medical Assistant Program and its curriculum at the Porter and Chester Institute facility in Chicopee, Mass. It was very important to be flexible and think outside the box with this program, because we needed to incorporate an influx of new students four times a year. I also was employed by Shepard Hill ( a facility for troubled girls) in Blandford for several years and wrote the curriculum for the home-schooled girls. I was the liaison between Shepard Hill and the Gateway School System. In my retirement I am spending my time as day-care gram for my two wonderful granddaughters. I'm teaching them how to sew, how to appreciate and grow flowers and vegetables, how to paint with acrylics and oil paints, and how to appreciate the outdoors. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? Blandford is a small, rural community in Southwestern Massachusetts in the foot hills of the Berkshires; population 1,287 on a good day. Our community is changing-we are an aging population. We have lost our elementary school and with it our sense of community which has caused a major disconnect. We are not a business community. There is a local mom-and-pop country store struggling to survive and a not-for-profit golf and ski club. I have volunteered in the tax collector's office for the past two years helping to recover over $400,000 in back taxes as a direct result of having organized the Blandford Brainstorming Group ( consisting of 10 very hardworking volunteers) who have been trying to find new sources of revenue for Blandford. The town has become fractioned and fractured as we struggle to meet the most basic needs of our citizenry. We need to come together again as an entire community in order to resolve our financial ills. I am very excited to learn what other small towns have done to rebuild a sense of community, what they have accomplished, how they have accomplished this, and the sustainability of their results. We do have an idea in mind -to restore and expand the usability of our town park. This we believe will bring people together for a common cause which will re-affirm our relationships with each other and what we expect will be all inclusive across all facets of our citizenry, from cradle to grave. A survey done by the Brainstorming Group indicated that residents still value our small town atmosphere which we need to maintain while still moving forward with new ideas to restore our sense of community pride. I come to the conference as an open book ready to learn and ready to share. 3. Share any links or contact information you like. restore and refurbish Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI
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Hi everyone. I'm Dahvi Wilson, Project Coordinator of Envision Victor, one of the Orton Foundation's first generation "Heart and Soul of Community Planning" projects. As you may have read in Cari Golden's introduction, Victor is a small town on the Eastern border of Idaho, at the base of the Tetons. For nearly two years, Envision Victor has been working on a project to demonstrate and test a new way of doing planning in our town. The goals are to get more people involved in planning our community and to make sure that our planning decisions preserve the qualities we love most in our community. Through story sharing, polls, contests, and other community activities, we have identified the following five core values as key to our town's character: small town feel, family friendliness, connection to nature, sustainability, and cultural history. Now in the last phase of the project, we are working on using various visualization tools associated with Community Viz to apply these five values to our town's Main Street design and our Capital Improvements Plan (CIP). We have worked with 3D visualization tools for our Main Street Plan, and we will be experimenting with a values-impact analysis tool to consider our large scale development patterns for capital improvements planning. I will be serving on the Visualizing Better Futures panel, and I am looking forward to CM, because I am excited to swap lessons learned with other thinkers and practitioners from around the country.
Hi Everyone My name is Kathy Sferra and I live in the small town of Stow in central Massachusetts (not to be confused with that Vermont community with lots of skiing). It is apple harvesting time here right now which is a major part of our community's economy and as much as it is hard to leave those cider donuts, I will be traveling to Denver for this year's CM conference. Professionally, I direct Mass Audubon's nature center and sanctuary operations in Southeastern Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. I've worked in the environmental and land use planning field for more years than I want to tally, including ten years working as a land use and natural resources planner at the Cape Cod Commission in its "start up" years. I am also a local official here in Stow, where it seems like land use issues are the #1 challenge and the subject of a lot of debate (and some rancor). Our local boards and committees do a lot of basic public meetings involving presentations followed by "tell us what you think" and I am interested in learning some new and better ways to involve people in collaborating together to reach consensus in a way that both solves problems and builds relationships. This fall, I am taking a sabbatical from my job and will be spending six weeks focusing on expanding my own community engagement and facilitation skills beginning with this conference. I am hoping that the conference is an opportunity for learning creative new tools for building community consensus, re-engaging with my planning background, and meeting interesting people. I have been intrigued with Orton's "heart and soul" work and its applicability to my own community as well as the small towns where my staff are engaged in community building around our environmental education centers. I am also training for my first marathon this fall and will welcome tips on places to run in Denver! -Kathy Kathy Sferra Southeast, Cape and Islands Regional Director Mass Audubon 208 South Great Road Lincoln, MA 01773 781-259-2157 (phone)/781-259-2357 (fax) Protecting the Nature of Massachusetts
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 3:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net Shelley Brooks Great Barrington About Shelley Brooks: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/7qelyuF9LFVIJmrSSYG5M7 View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/1hFDtahcLIugEk1h2Lv7ch - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hello, I am Milan Wall, founder and co-director of the Heartland Center for Leadership Development in Lincoln, Nebraska. We are a small non-profit that has been doing community visioning and strategic planning for nearly 25 years, working mainly with rural community leaders and community development practitioners in the U.S. and Canada. Our work follow three basic tracks: training, facilitation and research/evaluation. Our research has focused on what's behind rural community successes, and our findings are described in our book, "20 Clues to Rural Community," in its third printing since 1987. I have followed the great work of the Orton Family Foundation for many years, but this is my first opportunity to attend the conference, so I am looking forward to connecting with so many of you who are doing interesting work around the country. My colleague Kurt Mantonya will be representing the Heartland Center in the session "Elephant in the Community" on Friday morning, when I will be back in Nebraska facilitating a tribal consultation for USDA. Kurt will be presenting an innovative approach to rural community assessment, strategic visioning and action planning known as "HomeTown Competitiveness" or HTC, an asset-based framework that focuses on four inter-related strategies: Building Local Leadership, Expanding Community Philanthropy, Energizing Entrepreneurship and Engaging Youth and Young People. Looking forward to meeting you soon. Milan http://heartlandcenter.info/ http://heartlandcenter.info/publications.htm http://heartlandcenter.info/clues.htm http://www.htccommunity.org/files/HTC-FInalLo%20Rez.pdf
Milan Wall Co-Director Heartland Center for Leadership Development 650 J Street, Suite 305C Lincoln, Nebraska 68508 Ph 402-474-7667 Fx 402-474-7672 www.heartlandcenter.info
Wow, we've crossed well over the 30 introductions mark. If you want to catch up in one handy place, see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M Let's keep the introduction coming ... Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public.
Thanks, Steve
Hi I am President of the Board of the Jay Heritage Center (JHC) in Rye, NY. My non-profit's mission is to restore and preserve the boyhood home of Founding Father and first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Jay (1745-1829). Today, Jay’s estate in Rye is a National Historic Landmark (NHL) and a premier educational center that hosts public programs for school children and adults in American History, Social Justice, Architecture, Landscape Conservation, Archaeology and Environmental Stewardship, all topics that matter inside and outside our community. I am proud to say we are making historic preservation green and at 172 years old, the Jay House on our property is the oldest NHL structure in New York State to be using an energy efficient geothermal system. In fact, just last year, the Jay site was unanimously awarded a prestigious place on the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area list because of its sustainable practices which we are documenting for educational purposes and to inspire other historic places. The Jay estate is also one of only 13 sites on Westchester County’s African American Heritage Trail because of its cultural importance as a place where slaves worked and were emancipated; and because John Jay and son, Peter Jay held leadership roles in the abolition of slavery and voting suffrage for freed blacks. So exploring issues of social justice is extremely important to us and is a resonant and relevant component of our outreach. We were 2nd Place winners of the Heart & Soul Matters photo contest which is where I first learned about the Orton Foundation and noticed we share many common goals. I am attending the Community Matters Conference: 1) to learn more about small town preservation challenges similar to our own and hear about different solutions- Jay's home has been recently threatened by neglect and environmental pollution (Read more at:) _http://tclf.org/landslides/the-jay-property-threatened-by-erasure_ (http://tclf.org/landslides/the-jay-property-threatened-by-erasure) ) 2) to learn more about ways to communicate our positive goals for restoration of this site as a public park and gathering place for the Rye, Westchester and greater NY community (we've started using Twitter, Youtube and Flickr with great success) 3) to learn best practices for working cooperatively with local, state and federal government officials towards protective planning and transportation to improve public access and affordable green transportation. As an educational center, we have been drawing greater numbers of visitors and school groups with our unique programs and themes and I am particularly intrigued by the importance of storytelling to a town's identity - I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly! Our local Rye City Council has been unanimously supportive for which we have been grateful. It will be especially thrilling to hear and see Alex MacLean who actually photographed our town and the site this past May to help us document the challenges that neglect is posing to native flora and fauna and also to Long Island Sound. It will be my first time in Denver and I am very excited to see historic downtown. Hope to tweet from the conference and capture great Twit Pics of other historic sites! The Jay Heritage Center 210 Boston Post Road, Rye, New York 10580 Email: <email obscured>_ <email obscured>) Phone: (914) 698-9275 Fax: (914) 835-8547 Website: _http://www.jaycenter.org_ (http://www.jaycenter.org) Photos: _http://www.flickr.com/people/jayheritagecenter/_ (http://www.flickr.com/people/jayheritagecenter/) Videos: _ ( Follow us on Twitter: _http://twitter.com/jayheritage_ (http://twitter.com/jayheritage) Suzanne Clary Jay Heritage Center, President 210 Boston Post Road Rye, NY 10580 (914) 698-9275 _www.jaycenter.org_ (http://www.jaycenter.org/)
Hi everyone, It's really exciting to read introductions from such a great mix of new and familiar names! My name is Rebecca Sanborn Stone and I'm a Senior Associate for Communications at the Orton Family Foundation. I live in Randolph, Vermont, with my husband, three-month-old daughter, Anna, two dogs, a cat and eight chickens. I've been with the Foundation since 2006 and this is the third conference I've helped to organize, and I can honestly say that CM'10 will be by far the most dynamic and exciting event we've done. I'm not a planner - I have a master's degree in environmental science and have been a freelance writer, outdoor instructor, researcher, and have taught biology and English at the high school and college levels. At the Foundation, a lot of my work involves developing CommunityMatters (both the conference and plans for continuing the discussion afterwards and growing a network of people working to build strong communities), and researching new and related initiatives. Given my interdisciplinary (scattered?) background, I'm especially interested in pulling in people, ideas, tools, and solutions not typically involved in community building and planning. I'd love to hear from people - either over email or in person at CM'10 about: - what kinds of help and connections you could really use in your work - how CM can help you carry on conversations and turn ideas into action after we all leave Denver - who else (people, communities, organizations, projects) should be part of this network and conversation Feel free to email me directly if you have thoughts about this or catch me at the conference - I'll be the one with the baby in tow:) After months of planning, we're all so excited to kick off CM'10 in just over a week! Safe travels and see you soon...
Best, Rebecca
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I'm sitting in a rocking chair in my friends' living room in sunny, beautiful Grass Valley CA where I'm visiting/working from Seattle. I am reading all these introductions and thinking WOW, I have to learn more about this person's work. What amazing people. How can I be so lucky to be among you in a couple of weeks! I imagined us together, in my minds eye, in workshops, at meals and in informal conversations. That gave me the thread to pick up in my introduction. 1. Who are you? Be conversational. I am a passionate learner. I want to learn from all of you. I am passionate about understanding how we best live into our possibilities working as individuals, in small groups (twosies, threesies), in bounded groups, in geographic and non geographic communities and in wider, unbounded networks of loose connections. I am exploring the role of visuals and visualizations in my work. I am a proto geek, bridging tech and process and people I am a process geek. I am a gramma and chocoholic and often a bundle of contradictions. ;-) 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? If I wasn't already part of the team doing workshops, graphic recording and tech flash mobs, I'd sign up after reading all of your intros! Mamma mia! You can find me in the online community workshop, drawing on walls, playing with tech and network weaving. 3. Share any links or contact information you like. I used to blog a lot at http://www.fullcirc.com but then I became a grandmother so the last six months life's point of attention has, ahem, shifted! Same with Twitter http://www.twitter.com/NancyWhite I co wrote a book with Etienne Wenger and John Smith - a 5 year labor of love and learning - that finally came out last year, "Digital Habitats: Stewarding technology for communities." Or we could simply talk about chocolate.
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Greetings All from the Green Mountains of Vermont, I am Jan McCleery, one of four individuals who will be representing the Starksboro Art and Soul civic engagement project. The title that suits me best is community volunteer. I am retired, having previously spent four decades as a university professor in exercise science and pedagogy. I look forward to getting into the CM10 Sandbox and also expanding my facilitation skills. I am highly interested in walkability, livability and complete streets for all users. The community that matters most to me, is Starksboro, VT. My adopted hometown is small (pop. just under 2,000) and rural. Throughout town, beautiful views of the ridge line of the Green Mountains and active valley agriculture lands abound. The past two years the Town of Starksboro has worked in partnership with the Orton Family Foundation, Vermont Land Trust and the Vermont Council on the Arts. You can view how we have used story gathering, neighborhood conversations and art in our project at http://www.home.starksboroartnsoul.org/ and also at http://www.orton.org/projects/current
Jim Holway .... I live in Phoenix and this will be my first Community Matters Conference. I direct the Western Lands and Communities Program, a joint venture of the Sonoran Institute and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. We are sponsoring the Wednesday panel on Reshaping Development Patterns. This multi-year research effort and demonstration project is examining the large number of development entitlements created during the real estate boom and what communities throughout the west (and elsewhere as well) can do to address the myriad challenges presented by these premature or zombie subdivisions.... including fiscal impacts, blight, poor growth patterns, and tying up resources. The Orton Family Foundation has also helped to support this effort.... and I am looking forward to presenting this project and having a good discussion with all of you about the challenges and opportunities you face in your own communities. Western Lands and Communities focuses on shaping growth, sustaining cities, protecting resources, and empowering communities in the Intermountain West. It addresses these challenges through research, tool development, demonstration projects, engagement of policy makers, and education programs. The geographic scope of the joint venture is the Intermountain region, from the Sun Corridor megaregion in Arizona to Colorado's Western Slope to Montana’s Crown of the Continent. Partners since 2003, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute established the joint venture to further their complimentary and overlapping missions to shape the future of the Intermountain West by informing land use and related natural resources policy. I've been in Arizona for 19 years. Prior to that I grew up in Baltimore and went to college in upstate New York and North Carolina then returned to Baltimore to work for the Regional Council of Governments. My wife, Rita Jo Anthony, runs a small native seed company - Wild Seed. My son is a high school senior and just took the red eye back east last night for an official college soccer visit. I served as the Assistant Director of the AZ Department of Water Resources for about 10 years, then as a Professor of Practice in the School of Sustainability and in Environmental Engineering at ASU before moving to the Sonoran Institute about a year and a half ago. Currently I'm running for public office ... our regional water district (web link below) A few links: Sonoran Institute: www.sonoraninstitute.org .... we will have our webpage for the reshaping development patterns project up by the week of the conference. ..... You can check our August Western Dispatch for more on this program. http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs022/1101919146165/archive/1103633256472.html Lincoln Institute of Land Policy: www.lincolninst.edu Valley Advocates for Responsible Development - our Teton County, ID partner on this effort: http://www.tetonvalleyadvocates.org/projects_current_detail.php?pkCurrentProjects=23 My own website for my current campaign for public office: www.jimholway.com Jim Holway Director, Western Lands and Communities A Lincoln Institute of Land Policy - Sonoran Institute Joint Venture 602.393.4310 ext 313 <email obscured>
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 6:42 AM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Wow, we've crossed well over the 30 introductions mark. If you want to catch up in one handy place, see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M Let's keep the introduction coming ... Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. Thanks, Steve Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5G26Yg5AMt0hQXA2CO35BX - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg
Greetings to all - I'm Tammie Bowes Delaney, a native to Steamboat Springs and 16 year resident of Hayden in the Yampa Valley of Northwest Colorado. My husband, Patrick, children Liam and Millie and I (along with horses, steers, lambs, chickens, dogs, cats, peacocks and even a yak) live in an historic ranch just north of town. We deemed ourselves partly crazy with restoring a 1919 ranch, and now have a truly 'divine madness' which began in January of 2009 when we purchased the 1917 grain elevator in Hayden. As a leap of heart over mind, the granary combines our passion for agriculture, heritage and community - honoring the past, living the present and envisioning the future. My previous endeavors as a project coordinator/community catalyst on comprehensive plans and visioning efforts along with facilitation & strategic planning for non-profits have been set aside to accommodate the new combination of heavy equipment operator, grain bag mover, plant waterer and saddle stacker. The good news is my obsession with horse tack now has a purpose! One of my favorite things in life is heading out with the family bareback on our horses to play in the Yampa River in the summer heat and a good skate ski in the morning through the neighbor's fields when the snow's shimmering under the bright Colorado winter sunshine. I serve on the executive committees for Vision 2030; Community Agriculture Alliance; CSU Routt County Extension Advisory Board; Hayden Economic Development Commission and Yampa Valley Pony Club as well as an appointment to the Colorado State University Extension Services Advisory Board. Additional efforts include Northwest Colorado Cultural Heritage Tourism; Northwest Colorado Products and working with a regional group to bring the Sirolli Institute's Enterprise Facilitation concepts to our valley. CommunityMatters is an extraordinary gathering of wisdom, ideas and energy around how to foster community, both local, regional and global. I've been blessed with attending both the Denver and Burlington gatherings through my association with the Orton Family Foundation & CommunityViz with whom I've worked both as staff and later consultant. From Community Websites and Videos, to CommunityViz to Keypad Polling to Community Heart and Soul planning, the Orton Family Foundation has done amazing work in our region over the past 10 years! My intent is to continue to gather approaches and ideas to apply to my own town of Hayden and the Northwest Colorado region. Our granary serves as a gathering place for our community, from sharing stories about the founding of the quarter horse breed over a cup of coffee, to monthly barn dances and potluck suppers to even hosting the High School Homecoming Dance. Hayden is at a crossroads for 'anytown USA' with a proposal for a Kum & Go mega-mart gas station (along with its fast food venues) on its Historic Walnut Street while many residents instead hope to have people 'Come and Stay' for the unique authenticity of our town and an emphasis on local food, local business and a local vibrancy. More info about all the above: - Yampa Valley Feeds www.yampavalleyfeeds.com. - Routt County Vision 2030 effort: www.routtcountyvision2030.org - The Town of Hayden website: www.townofhayden.org - Yampa Valley non-profit and community connection site: www.yampavalley.info. & some recent articles around what we're up to with the granary... - Art and our heritage/landscape: http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2010/sep/24/artposita-features-art-inspired-yampa-valley-lands/ - Celebrating ag heritage on our warehouse: http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2010/sep/05/artist-paints-mural-commemorate-haydens-agricultur/ - About the barn dances: http://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/2010/jun/25/hayden-potluck-saturday/ Here's to meeting new friends in Denver and connecting with those I haven't seen for a while. Best regards, Tammie
-- Tammie Delaney, Owner Yampa Valley Feeds 198 East Lincoln, PO Box 1025, Hayden, CO 81639 tel: 970-276-4250 web: www.yampavalleyfeeds.com email: <email obscured> "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." - Antoine de St. Exupery
Link: File-List Link: File-List Greetings! I am Sara McClellan and I’m currently participating in the Golden, Colorado Heart & Soul planning process as a graduate student researcher and interested partner. I grew up in Jackson—a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California, and I am passionate about helping small communities do more to engage residents in planning for the future. I’m currently a fourth year Communication Ph.D. student and instructor in the Communication Department at the University of Colorado at Boulder. I’m also working as the Assistant Director for our department’s new Civic And Social Engagement (CASE) for Sustainability program that is dedicated to bringing students, scholars, and practitioners together to understand and implement communication strategies for a more sustainable future. Before I began my doctoral program, I worked as a local government administrator, serving as the Deputy County Administrative Officer for Amador County, California. Prior to this I worked in and with several nonprofits and public authorities to coordinate community programs, conduct regional assessments, and develop long-term plans related to public health, child care, in-home supportive services, air quality control, and public transportation. I very much enjoy facilitating challenging policy discussions with diverse groups of participants. I feel so lucky to be participating in the Heart & Soul process and in the CommunityMatters Conference! My research focuses on organizational communication, and I’m particularly interested in exploring how alternative citizen engagement processes—e.g., storytelling, dialogue, and art—can best be integrated with our existing representative systems. I think Orton’s storytelling initiative offers us all an exciting chance to study the opportunities and challenges associated with bringing new forms of collaboration and reasoning into our public decision making processes. I am fascinated by the different strategies that Orton Heart & Soul communities have been using to move from stories to community values and priorities, and I look forward to learning more about this at the conference. I’m also noticing how challenging it is to honor and work with the complexity, passions, and tensions present in many community stories, and I welcome a chance to discuss this with conference participants. If any fellow attendees are interested in University-Community partnerships and sustainability initiatives, please visit our new CU Boulder CASE for Sustainability website: http://comm.colorado.edu/case/ I look forward to meeting with many of you in October! - Sara Sara McClellan Doctoral Student/Instructor Assistant Director, CU CASE for Sustainability University of Colorado at Boulder <email obscured>
209-610-0668 ---- Original message ---- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2010 14:09:04 -0500 From: Steven Clift <email obscured>> Subject: [CM] Introductions To: <email obscured>" <email obscured>> >Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. > >Please reply to this message, answering: > >1. Who are you? Be conversational. > >2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > >3. Share any links or contact information you like. > >Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > >We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to >appear on the email list/web site. > >Thanks, >Steven Clift >CommunityMatters Online Group Host >E-Democracy.org > >Steven Clift >Ericsson, Minneapolis >About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > >View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg >- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Thanks to everyone for their introductions. What an amazing group! Can't wait to meet everyone next week. I am the co-director of Energize Clinton County (ECC) based in my hometown of Wilmington, OH. I founded ECC two years ago with my childhood friend, Taylor Stuckert. ECC is a community economic development organization driven by the mantra "Design, Build, Transform." I'll be speaking on the Friday "From Crisis to Opportunity" panel. We actually got into this business circumstantially. After graduating from Haverford College and living in Philadelphia, I enrolled in the Peace Corps to explore a career in economic development. Before leaving, I decided to return to Wilmington to visit my family, and arrived amidst the beginnings of a severe economic crisis following the announcement that DHL Express had plans to close its US hub in Wilmington and lay off more than 8.500 workers--a process that was completed in July of 2009. Soon after I had returned, Taylor was unexpected evacuated from Bolivia where he was serving in the Peace Corps, and we unexpectedly found ourself together in Wilmington after having spent six years away. We soon decided to put off the Peace Corps, and decided to commit ourselves to working in Wilmington on helping the community transform itself. Our work has included working with our city government to develop and pass innovative policy to promote green investment--Wilmington Green Enterprise Zone--partnering with a professor from the University of Dayton to provide free energy audits to all interested business in our community, and building a Buy Local First campaign to target resources to local businesses by connecting nearly 200 local businesses with more than 2,000 local consumers through Web 2.0 communication. As an organization that is new to this work, we are always looking for new ideas or insights that can gained from the past experiences of others. I'm really looking forward to gaining from the incredible wealth of knowledge and experience that will be represented at the conference. You can find more info about Energize Clinton County at our website, http://energizecc.com or connect with us on Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/pages/ENERGIZE-Clinton-County/45027458292?ref=mf>and Twitter @energizecc. Mark Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public.
On Fri, Sep 24, 2010 at 9:42 AM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > > Wow, we've crossed well over the 30 introductions mark. > > If you want to catch up in one handy place, see: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M > > Let's keep the introduction coming ... > > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > Thanks, > Steve > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5G26Yg5AMt0hQXA2CO35BX > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > -- Mark Rembert Co-Director ENERGIZE Clinton County 120 W. Main St. Wilmington, OH 45177 937.728.0048 www.energizecc.com
My name is Rachel Winer and I am the director of Idaho Smart Growth. Our mission is to bring Idahoans together to keep our communities vibrant and lands healthy. Currently, we are finishing up a statewide land use analysis, which including holding 16 focus groups around the state, which will help prioritize our work. Specific projects include working on funding for public transportation (we are one of 3 states without a dedicated source of funding), creating safe routes to schools, implementing complete streets policies, protecting working farms and ranches, and providing resources on best practices. We also have an annual awards event recognizing leading smart growth projects around the state, which is a great way for folks to see what smart growth looks like and feels like. This year, we are combining this event with our 10th anniversary on November 6. We partner with many organizations in Idaho, including the Idaho District Council of the Urban Land Institute, the Idaho chapter of the American Planning Association, environmental organizations, the disability community, AARP, and others. As a small organization ( 2 full time, 2 part time) in an extremely conservative state in challenging economic times, we try and learn as much we can from other communities and organizations. I am so excited to be a part of the Community Matters conference this year so that I can learn as much as I can about what works and what doesn't work in creating vibrant communities so that I can bring that back to Idaho. I am especially interested in low-cost public participation/public involvement and planning tools, as this is something many communities in Idaho struggle with. One of our ongoing challenges that I hope to pick up some tips about at the conference is messaging and communications. Smart growth and planning terminology is generally not very warm and fuzzy. I like messages that connect to values, and solutions, and I find this work amongst the most challenging work to communicate to the public. To learn more about us, visit our website at www.idahosmartgrowth.org, our blog at www.treasurevalleyinmotion.org, or our Facebook pages, "Idaho Smart Growth" and "Biking, Walking, and Riding in the Treasure Valley." Looking forward to meeting many of you next week!
Rachel __________________________________________ Rachel Winer, Executive Director Idaho Smart Growth 910 Main Street, Suite 314 Boise, ID 83702 <email obscured> 208-333-8066 Save the date: Idaho Smart Growth's 10th Anniversary Gala is Saturday, November 6 Thanks to our amazing event sponsors: ACHD-Commuteride, Alliance Title, CCDC, COMPASS, Forsgren Associates, Givens Pursley, HDR, Idaho Power, Idaho Statesman, Bittercreek/Redfeather, Tates Rents, and EPA. -----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 1:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hi from Eastern MT. I'm surprised how many have MT connections. There's Forsyth MT folks coming as well as Forsyth, NC. I'm a serial community volunteer, passionate about promoting Glendive and Eastern MT. The population in some eastern MT counties is declining so now the population is the same as 1915 when the Homestead Act provided people with 320 acres to prove up. We have great hunting, fishing, badlands and dinosaur bones- and all those decaying dinosaur bones and lush vegetation millions of years ago are providing oil today in the Bakken. County Extension Agent Bruce Smith (he will be on a food sustainability panel) and I are immersed in the Farm to Table project. Farm to Table, a local sustainable food movement, emerged as part of Glendive's community visioning in 2005 through the Horizons program sponsored by the Northwest Area Foundation to help rural communities prosper. F2T is growing faster than zucchini so check out www.farmtotablecoop.com I was also pleased to see Milan Wall from Nebraska is attending. It was because of the Heartland Center for Community Leadership that Glendive realized the need for a community foundation and this summer we met our financial goal to be an affiliate of the MT Community Foundation. I'm also interested in expanding walking paths from the Yellowstone River to Makoshika State Park and find how others have made that happen. See you in the mile high city. Peggy Iba
On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Tonya Atkins <email obscured>>wrote: > Hello Conference Attendees, > > > > I'm Tonya Atkins and I reside in Winston-Salem, NC. My passion is the > community so I'm very interested in learning all about how Community > Matters > works. In my current position, I am employed as the Operations Director for > Forsyth Futures. My organization serves as the impact project for our local > community. We are interested in learning about the different ways that we > can get the community engaged around our Results Areas (education, health, > safety, economics, and physical/mental health). I have been working in the > nonprofit area for over 20 years and I always get excited with the > possibility of stretching beyond our walls to involve others in our very > important work. I'm looking forward to my visit to Denver. See you all > soon. > > > > > Tonya M. Atkins > > Operations Director > > Forsyth Futures > > 601 N. Cherry St., Ste 250 > > Winston-Salem, NC 27101 > > 336.724.2831 > > <email obscured> > > > > > Tonya Atkins > Winston-Salem > About Tonya Atkins: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/1W1YfYmja13XV47GylTksG > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3z4bu3bkHg30bUNVfWF62G > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > -- Peggy Iba <email obscured> 406-377-4284 939-7422 313 W. Valentine, Glendive, MT 59330 www.westerntrailsfood.com www.farmtotablecoop.com
Greetings all, This is truly a great way to approach conference introductions. This forum has exponentially piqued my interest in Community Matters (not that my interest needed piquing). My name is Jake Day. I'm a community design practitioner, urban designer and believer in small towns, open processes, urbanist principles and the marriage of the three. I work as the Town Planning Manager for the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy - a land use planning and conservation organization operating on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. I was born and raised here on the Delmarva Peninsula (Salisbury, MD to be specific) and I feel lucky to have found my way back after a few years in College Park MD, Washington DC, Pittsburgh PA and Oxford UK. Our emerging work at ESLC includes a region-wide planning education platform, a community design program called 'place work[s]hop' - for which we were a semi-finalist in the Strong Communities competition (good luck to the incredibly awesome finalists!), and a community projects program that spans from quarterbacking greenbelt protection to shepherding model infill. Incidentally, I am an Officer Candidate with the U.S. Army and was, in a past life, President of the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS), a member of the AIA national Board of Directors and a supporter in various capacities of other architecture orgs including ACSA, NAAB, NCARB and Urban Dialogues, Inc. I was very interested in CommunityMatters in 2007 - then through my interest in PlaceMatters. Since that time I rediscovered both and have become more familiar with the great work of PlaceMatters, the Orton Family Foundation and Ashoka. I'm floored by the work of all three and want to observe and learn from them. That said, I've been equally and doubly awestruck by the interesting and interdisciplinary work of the people who have posted here, and the conference's amazing speakers. I am looking for inspiration, partnership, common and diverging thought. Our work is soon taking the form of a new and quasi-independent Center and with those legs comes new wobbliness as well as opportunities for exploration. I hope do so some of that exploring in Denver. My interest areas include distributive community research methods, community design practices, small town urbanism and broadly - sustainable communities. My apologies for the tome. Looking forward to meeting you all. A little info on place work[s]hop: http://www.changemakers.com/node/85532 A little info on Eastern Shore Land Conservancy: http://www.eslc.org/ Our last planning conference (feature PlaceMatters' Ken Snyder): http://www.eslc.org/pages/apc.php A little info on me: http://jacobday.com/?page_id=2
Happy Autumn! I know that fall has just begun in many of the places you hang your hats, but the aspen leaves at 9500 feet are blowin' in the YES!!! WARM breeze that we are enjoying in Cripple Creek, Colorado. My name is Lisa Noble and my weekend job (I call it my unfunded career) is varied-I am a self described naturalist that also enjoys travel (especially discovering hot springs), photography, family, hiking, red-neck golf, mountain croquet and reading. I facilitate a strategic planning process for Southern Teller County, Colorado (Cripple Creek, Victor, and unincorporated Southern Teller County-approximately 4500 residents in all). We are funded through DFC, Behavioral Health, and local funding sources, our focus decreasing substance abuse, delinquency, teen pregnancy, school dropout, and violence. I work for an amazing board that is made up of key leaders in the community. Together they have implemented so many amazing strategies to further our mission of "Building A Healthy Community". Our partners have created a community resource center that houses over 20 community organizations-a one-stop-shop for social service-type organizations including a community cupboard, senior meals program, domestic violence services, substance abuse and mental health counseling, CASA, social services, public health, etc., as well as a transportation planning group, Early childhood education and care, a housing planning group, recreation planning (center-based and outdoors), social skills development programs, 21st Century Learning Centers, Parent education programs, and many others too numerous to mention. I am constantly in awe of the people in our community and am so fortunate to work alongside these individuals that take a solution and run with it. (You will meet Victorites Mary Bielz--look for red tennis shoes and smile-and Veldean Petri whose inner light shines so brightly!) Our economic drivers in the community are gold mining (over 23 million troy ounces of gold have been mined since 1890), and Cripple Creek is one of three towns in Colorado that are allowed to have limited stakes gambling. 20 years ago we were a pretty settled community, long time residents who were in the ranching, mining, and historic tourism industries. We knew when our neighbors were in need and help was readily available and given freely. Then we grew fast and furiously and we had to figure out how to recreate community amidst a very transient workforce. We're closing gaps, but of course we want me to work myself out of a job! I am really looking forward to learning more about how other communities are working to create health and well-being in their communities, and gathering more tools to assist me in my life's work. I have been a fan of the Orton Family Foundation for a few years now and truly believe that community does matter. Here are some local links: http://www.co.teller.co.us/ http://www.co.teller.co.us/BuildAGeneration/ http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/index.html http://www.victorcolorado.com/ http://ccvgoldmining.com/ Lisa L. Noble, Director Gold Belt Communities Build A Generation Project Director, Teller County DFCSP Teller County Prevention Project P.O. Box 959 Cripple Creek, CO 80813 (719) 686-7912 <email obscured>
-----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2010 1:09 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [BULK] [CM] Introductions Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate at the conference. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow some time for yours to appear on the email list/web site. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Online Group Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View all topic messages: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net
Hi everyone- My name is Anna Trentadue, and I am the program director/staff attorney for a small land use advocacy group in Teton Valley Idaho called "Valley Advocates for Responsible Development" also known as VARD. (I didnt pick the name, we already had it when I began working there.) I must add that as a Colorado College alum, I am excited for the opportunity to be back on the front range! At this conference, I will be presenting on our Reshaping Development Patterns project in partnership with Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Sonoran Institute. The goal of our project is to identify tools and best practices for reshaping and redirecting expensive and unsustainable growth patterns throughout the West. My community, Teton Valley, was identified as a pilot project for this effort. We are actively engaged in our first pilot project, replatting a zombie subdivision called Targhee Hill Estates. If you want to check out our website and learn more about our project, its www.tetonvalleyadvocates.org I am really, really excited to use this conference as an opportunity to gain some out of valley experience in regards to community involvement in land use planning. I look forward to seeing how other communities approach developing their long-term vision for growth and development. Our county has just launched its Comprehensive Plan process, and boy do we need it! So I think Community Matters will provide some very timely insight and ideas that may translate to our valley. Anna Trentadue On 9/21/10 1:09 PM, "Steven Clift" <email obscured>> wrote: > Welcome. While we will soon meet in-person at the CommunityMatters '10 > conference in Denver, let's get the ball rolling with a round of > introductions. The more community we build now, the more value we can generate
> at the conference. > > Please reply to this message, answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > We will be moderating the introductions to pace their release, so please allow > some time for yours to > appear on the email list/web site. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Online Group Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View all topic messages: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3vmbj6Ha7cGF0lEBjsXMFI > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post > publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" or "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > Follow E-Democracy.org on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net
Greetings everyone! It’s a rainy fall day in Vermont, so it seemed like the perfect time to sit at the computer and write an introduction. The trees have started to change color, but the rain is knocking many of them to the ground. I have to admit, color on the hillside is beautiful, but there’s something fun about driving through leaves on the road and watching them scatter behind you! If it were a little colder, I think I’d be tempted to have the first fire of the year in my woodstove… I am Christa Clifford, one of three people coming from Starksboro, VT. I have two young boys (3rd and 1st grade) and two young cats (one of whom keeps walking over the keyboard of my laptop, so please forgive any typos). As a family, we spend a lot of time outside – boating, hiking, skiing, etc. – and Starksboro is our idea of the perfect place to live (hiking trails out our door and equidistant from the lake and the ski mountains). For those of you not familiar with our town (so, everyone not from Vermont), it’s a small, rural community. Starksboro is a beautiful town with wonderful people (I admit that I am biased), but as a town we face many challenges. Because of generous support from the Orton Foundation, Starksboro was able to launch the Art and Soul Project to try to help us figure some of those things out. Reading the introductions, it seems like most people are coming to CommunityMatters for work purposes, but it’s a little different in my case. In my work, I handle the finances and operations of the Mahaney Center for the Arts at Middlebury College. But my interest in the CommunityMatters conference comes from being a volunteer in my small town. In addition to being on the Advisory Committee for Art and Soul, I’m treasurer of Friends of Robinson (our version of a PTO), and involved in the fundraising for the Starksboro Sports Program. At CommunityMatters, I hope to get new ideas for how to sustain the current volunteer momentum in town, and how to bring more people into the action. With a small community, you tend to see the same volunteers over and over again, and while it’s great to get to know those people, diversity would also be nice. Below are some websites that may be of interest. See you soon! http://www.home.starksboroartnsoul.org/ http://www.orton.org/projects/starksboro http://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-Robinson/380614348328?v=info
We've just been joined by the next batch of conference registrants. One more batch to go. To catch up on all the introductions thus far, see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M Let's keep the introductions coming ... imagine your are in a circle and we are working our way around the room. Oh, everyone is looking at you. :-) Please reply to this message, simply answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. While introductions are completely optional, let's really push to get at least half of you to say hello. That means 50 more introductions to come. Can we do it? Let's find out. Also, for students and others new to the field, don't be intimidated by the cool folks with titles and years of accomplishments ... tell us what you hope to do, what inspires you and perhaps what you want to learn more about! We are all in this together. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Exchange Host E-Democracy.org
Hello all. I am Bill Roper, President and CEO of the Orton Family Foundation, working out of our Middlebury, Vermont office. I've been with the Foundation for 12 years, first as its Director of Programs and then for the last 4 years as its President. Before that I worked in Ireland for a year on landscape conservation, primarily in the West, and before that I was a land use attorney for 14 years (I only divulge that to my friends). Reading all of your posts makes me even more excited about the upcoming conference. What an inspiring group you all are and I love how motivated you are to learn and share. It should be a very rich few days with you all stirring the pot! I know the tendency is to think about leaving early, but let me encourage you to stay to the very end. Between a last batch of kick ass panels (if you don't mind my saying so), a performance by Sojourn Theater based on what they saw and heard at CommunityMatters, and a closing keynote by the one and only Frances Moore Lappe, the creativity, learning and sharing will be strong right through to the end. See you in Denver next week.
Bill -----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2010 2:12 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions We've just been joined by the next batch of conference registrants. One more batch to go. To catch up on all the introductions thus far, see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M Let's keep the introductions coming ... imagine your are in a circle and we are working our way around the room. Oh, everyone is looking at you. :-) Please reply to this message, simply answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. While introductions are completely optional, let's really push to get at least half of you to say hello. That means 50 more introductions to come. Can we do it? Let's find out. Also, for students and others new to the field, don't be intimidated by the cool folks with titles and years of accomplishments ... tell us what you hope to do, what inspires you and perhaps what you want to learn more about! We are all in this together. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Exchange Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/1PZ744WW97nLpjpktWyKnk - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg
My name is Annie Thompson and I'm currently living in Ames, IA attending Iowa State University for Master's programs in Sustainable Agriculture and Community & Regional Planning. I was born in Bozeman, MT and spent a lot of time in Driggs, Idaho as a kid, but I grew up moving around a lot so the changes that occurred in those communities were all the more obvious on my returns. I completed my undergrad in Environmental Policy & Planning at Western Washington University in Bellingham but have conducted the majority of my work in the Intermountain West, including working for county government in Kalispell, MT (notable for the death threats issued to planners during the development of a county master plan in the 1990s), working in the non-profit sector in Fremont County, Idaho (Island Park/Henry's Lake area, working for a very small planning advocacy group [IPARD] based off the Valley Advocates for Responsible Development model from Teton County), and working in the public sector in Wallowa County, OR, working for an economic development district to develop a local community endowment based off the Nebraska Community Foundation model through the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments program (is that the Americorps program you worked for, Scott?). Bringing this varied employment together has been a focus on rural sustainability and finding ways to increase the capacity of small towns. I am thrilled to be attending (and volunteering for) the CommunityMatters Conference. I have always been impressed by the Orton Family Foundation's focus on communication and facilitation in their work in diverse rural communities and am excited to meet the kinds of people that focus will bring together! I know from the previous introductions that many of us share an interest in helping small communities and rural places find ways to maintain their sense of place and heritage while planning for growth and I am looking forward to hearing more from all of you about the work that you have done to further those goals. Although I am a brand new graduate student and my research goals aren't fully formulated, my intended focus is on community conflict and dispute resolution. Growing up and working in Montana (as I'm sure ALL of us have experienced in our own communities), conflict can sometimes seem to be an intractable roadblock, with many potential solutions being overturned simply because of their potential to induce disputes. As we all know though, it is a rare decision in rural areas that everyone can agree on and so finding ways to facilitate processes and resolve disputes is a critical part of the community and economic development processes. I am especially interested in programming that brings together diverse groups within a community to offer training on leadership, facilitation, and conflict resolution, such as the Ford Family Foundation's leadership trainings across Oregon, and the ways in which that programming impacts future conflicts in the community. Also, I'm doing some additional research on food systems planning in the Intermountain West and the community and organizational characteristics that provide the best platforms for success. If you have any knowledge of, or interest in these topics, please let me know as I'm just beginning my process and am thirsting for on-the-ground knowledge. I look forward to talking more and learning more with all of you! See you in Denver!
Hello! My name is Ben Warner, and I'll be speaking at the CommunityMatters conference with Rhonda Phillips and Shanna Ratner on the topic of Measuring Success. My background is in community indicators (meaning quality-of-life indicators of geographically-defined communities, not the measures of constructing communities online and elsewhere -- for that, Nancy White is the one I turn to for information.) I've been involved with community change activities since college, where I began focusing on the needs of abused & neglected children and working with the family systems to strengthen them both internally (through counseling, skills development, respite care) and externally (addressing food, shelter, job training and placement, and other needs.) I'm a social worker by training and experience than began working with the Jacksonville Community Council (JCCI) 12 years ago as it became clear to me that immediate family needs had to be addressed both on an interpersonal level and at the policy level -- and that I could be of more use at the policy side of the table due to my experiences on the front line of social change. All of that is a roundabout way of saying that even though I'll be speaking largely about using data to increase efficiency and effectiveness in community work, what I'm really saying is that we need seismic changes in the communities we work with and that both head and heart have to be involved in making sustainable change happen. At JCCI, we've seen transformative efforts happen by using a model for community change that integrates data into both identifying the problems to be addressed and holding ourselves accountable for creating and sustaining lasting improvements. I'm excited to talk with all of you about working in and with communities. More about who I am, what I do, and where I'm coming from can be found at www.jcci.org and http://www.communityworks.us.com/
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Hello! My name is Victoria Berkley and I'm very excited about attending the CommunityMatters conference next week. I've worked in rural community economic development for most of my career, which started when I joined VISTA after completing my undergraduate degree. I worked with small farm enterprises and explored ways to improve local food distribution. That was in 1981. Now, nearly 30 years later, I'm drawn again to the issues related to regional food systems, healthy foods and promoting local food specialties. When working with rural communities and regions, I have focused on an asset-based approach that preserves what is special and unique about the region. In Missouri, where I spent sixteen years working, I helped form the Missouri River Wine Country - which promotes an area along the Missouri River that has a hiking and biking trail, shops, B&Bs and small wineries. I also co-founded the Missouri River Communities Network, a non-profit that promotes the sound stewardship of the Missouri River. Among their projects are rain gardens, water quality testing, oral history projects and river floats. Five years ago, I moved to Denver, Colorado and have worked with several non-profits focused on sustainable practices. I'm currently looking for partners interested in regional food systems, school gardens, and other "ecoliteracy" projects that engage young people in projects that promote sound stewardship of our home. I love the fact that there is storytelling and art woven into the fabric of this conference. I lived in Ireland for nearly two years and the thing that really struck me was how much the arts were a part of daily life. Even the buses exposed riders to poems posted above the bus windows as part of a project called "Poetry In Motion". We desperately need poetry, storytelling, singing, theatre and other visual arts in our daily lives. It is in sharing what it is to be human that makes us more human. I look forward to meeting you all!!
Hi All- I greatly look forward to meeting you all. In my previous "life" I worked in ecosystem management and studied ring-tailed lemurs, endangered butterflies, freshwater turtles, migrating hawks, harvesting ants.....After that I got my master's at the Yale School of Forestry & Env. Studies, where I made a jump to social ecology and photography. For the past 12 years, I have facilitated community-based photography and media projects throughout the US, Africa and India. I am based in the deserts of Tucson, AZ, so much of my work is focused in the border region. I have a passion for collaborating with youth and helping them develop the visual tools and language to more deeply explore themselves and their community. More recently, I have been examining how to connect youth voices and perspectives to policy change on the local and national levels. As an example, the refugee and immigrant youth I work with in Tucson exhibited their photos and writing in the U.S. Senate and presented their stories and immigration/ refugee policy reform recommendations at a Congressional briefing. I can't say we reformed immigration policy but the students' heartfelt stories and lived experiences helped make immigration and refugee issues real for many policymakers. Currently, I am exploring models, such as youth commissions, for connecting youth voices directly to city and county planning and policy-making processes. I also work as a documentary photographer. Right now I am examining the connection between beef production and climate change through photography. I am photographing a rancher who is trying to raise grass- fed and finished beef right along the US/Mexico border. I am also working on photographs for a children's book exploring the Sonoran Desert and personal identity. My true calling is searching for the perfect slice of pie. I have traveled the corners of the earth from Pie Town to Cape Town, but alas, I am still looking. Any suggestions are hugely appreciated. It is a bit of a strange pursuit I realize, but for me, sharing pie and pie stories is a metaphor and pathway for creating and honoring community. Speaking of community, I am super excited to learn from all of you at Community Matters. I am truly inspired by your varied experiences and passions. I am coming to learn from you all and to help connect some dots across my varied interests. I will be presenting on the "Power of Stories" panel, so if you want to swing by and share some stories (and pie ideas) please come on by. You can view my work at www.joshphotos.com and www.findingvoiceproject.org . Cheers, Josh Schachter Josh Schachter Photography 120 E. 16th St. Apt. B Tucson, AZ 85701 520-622-8194 (h) 650-678-4891 (c) <email obscured> www.joshphotos.com www.findingvoiceproject.org The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. - Marcel Proust
OK, we are on the home stretch with introductions. Let's get as many shared before the conference as possible. Here is mine! Also, If you want to sort out who is coming from different states and cities (does not include attendees who opted out), see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community/memberdirectory 1. Who are you? Be conversational. I am Steven Clift. I live with my wife and two small children in the Ericsson neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I'm looking out over my small urban garden oasis wondering if the kids blow-up pool we tried to use one last time is killing my grass yet. Just over lilacs I can see my neighbor Dale's house. He and about 15% of neighborhood households or 600 people are members of a neighbors "Issues Forum" hosted by E-Democracy.org with the same technology we are using here: http://e-democracy.org/se I love connecting neighbors online because it IS part of the real world. E-Democracy.org created the world's first election information website back in the Internet stone age of 1994. The element that stuck was being a neutral host of online dialogue among people with differing views. Real names, location, ... similar to how Facebook started but we are a non-profit not worth billions and we are far more interested in building new bridges among diverse people than just reflecting existing friendships online. Today we host 30+ volunteer-run Issues Forums - http://e-democracy.org - across 15 communities in three countries. For the healthy number of delegates from Vermont, our neighborhood level forums - http://e-democracy.org/nf - are similar to Front Porch Forum but our model is public and discussions feed up into city-wide public issues like our 1000+ member Minneapolis Issues Forum reaching most political leaders and influencing the public agenda. We currently have a starter Ford Foundation grant to support "inclusion" efforts for neighbors forums in low income, high-immigrant neighborhoods: http://e-democracy.org/inclusion - People love online neighbors forums, but most communities and in particularly rural, lower income, recent immigrant communities are not being served. See the link to the Pew Internet and American Life Neighbors Online survey on our Inclusion page. We also have some local rural Minnesota forums supported by a past Blandin Foundation grant which included opening a forum in a majority Native American Cass Lake Leech Lake area. For ten plus years, after leaving state government where I coordinated our state's first web efforts, I supported my non-profit work with speaking and consulting across close to 30 countries. I had to speak aboard, because no one in the U.S. would pay a dime to learn about how governments could use the Internet to engage the public or how citizens could use online tools to build local communities. At least now people are interested in the topic! (Prior to 2007, the U.S. was only focused on raising money (online election campaigning) and making noise (online advocacy) and not open government, open data, online engagement, etc.) A few year back I became an Ashoka Fellow - http://ashoka.org - which allowed E-Democracy.org to grow up and start to bring in the resources to grow and push the field. We use tools that work rather than jump blinding into inferior technology that looks new but doesn't reach people where they are. We even use paper sign-up sheets on clip boards. Speaking of pushing the field, our next big effort is to establish a social enterprise in partnership with local communities (media, government, service clubs, etc.) that supports electronic block clubs with aggressive inclusion built-in. Check out the one-pager: http://e-democracy.org/neighborly 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? Julia Opoti and Boa Lee will be there for E-Democracy.org. They lead our current inclusion field work with the East African, primarily Somali) and SE Asian (primarily Hmong) communities in our target neighborhoods. Check out their recent blog posts with lessons from: http://e-democracy.org/inclusion I am heading to Kenya for the State Department to speak (I've never been able to say "for the State Department before ;-)) and need to maximize my family time before leaving next weekend. So the more introductions I can read here the better! 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com - Articles, presentations, contact info, and more On Twitter: http://twitter.com/democracy Blog: http://blog.e-democracy.org Newswire: http://dowire.org (w/ 2500 people interested in e-democracy world-wide) Video Interview: Steven Clift - http://stevenclift.com Executive Director - http://E-Democracy.Org Follow me - http://twitter.com/democracy New Tel: +1.612.234.7072
Greetings! I'm very excited to welcome you all to Denver and participate in next week's conference. I am co-founder and Executive Director of the Mile High Business Alliance, a Denver-based organization committed to building a resilient, connected and healthy economy. We believe that locally owned businesses are the foundation upon which we can build such an economy. We work with hundreds of local businesses to raise awareness of their role, provide resources to strengthen local companies and entrepreneurs, and nurture relationships between local businesses and the community. I found my way into this work because I'm passionate about understanding and influencing the ways in which we work together, utilize our collective resources, and build a healthier future. I'm also a doula (supporting women birthing their babies), beekeeper, gardener and entrepreneur. I'm fascinated by the creative force of life and find myself surrendering to almost any opportunity to participate in nurturing that in healthy ways. I love my city, and believe we have a vital opportunity to stop doing things that we know are harming life or killing our creative/innovative potential. And instead, to invest our time, creativity, resources and passion to building better functioning systems of production, governance, resource use, problem-solving, and all the other systems that influence how we live and work together (like education, health care, land use, etc) This takes wisdom, dialogue, and above all else, courage. I have three primary intentions regarding the conference: - Helping all of you* enjoy Denver to the fullest by connecting you with the unique local businesses* & experiences within our city. My challenge to you: make the effort to find and patronize businesses you won't find in your own city. Don't just go to the standard, cookie-cutter brand-name shops, cafes and restaurants you always do. While you're here, help support the local business owners, knowing your dollars are investing in a more interesting and healthy city. We publish neighborhood guides to help find these businesses; you can find them all here: http://www.coloradolocalfirst.com/ I've attached the guide for the Uptown Neighborhood, which is the closest to the conference location. - To become more familiar with the work of your organizations, and *learn from your experiences in your own community*. Primarily, I'm interested in how to effectively work with municipalities to shift the focus from traditional "economic development" practices and share emerging models and new practices in the domains of business rules, land-use planning, and community visioning. (MHBA is a potential leader in facilitating and nurturing those conversations here in Denver) - To *connect with potential partners in Denver (and beyond) who are interested in our primary mission or specific programs*. We have a lot of ideas about how to nurture a healthier local economy, and I'd love partnership, feedback, and brainstorming about how to better connect our work with like-minded projects and organizations elsewhere. (specific things we're working on: building a co-working space and center for local entrepreneurship, launching a food business incubator and community-supported grocery, starting a recirculating gift certificate for local businesses) Again, I am so excited to meet you all next week. Feel free to email me at <email obscured> if you'd like to be sure to connect while we're at the conference. Here are some other resources that I hope will be helpful in getting to know me, MHBA, or simply get the most out of your visit to Denver: www.milehighbiz.org - my organization's web site www.coloradolocalfirst.org - our directory of Colorado-based companies - a collection of videos about various neighborhoods in Denver http://www.milehighbiz.org/eatlocalfirst - our guide to independent restaurants who source their food from local farmers Thanks again and I look forward to meeting you next week!
-- Mickki Langston Executive Director Mile High Business Alliance (303) 872-5646 x 401 <email obscured> "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." ~ Margaret Mead
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Hello All & Greetings from Austin Texas! My name is Margaret Valenti and I work for the City of Austin. My official title is Senior Planner but when I tell people what I do for a living I say that I organize neighborhood citizen groups for the purpose of working closely with the city to improve their neighborhoods. It's fun! While this is one of the hardest and most challenging jobs I have ever had (and i used to work with Sexual Assault survivors and Domestic Violence victims) I LOVE my job. I thoroughly enjoy being a public servant and I truly believe in the need to make government work at the neighborhood level. I am interested in attending Community Matters again (I attended in 2007 in Vermont) because I want to learn as much as I possibly can about engaging community. There is a great need in government to find successful and effective ways to engage the public and that is what I am looking for to share with my colleagues. The City of Austin is currently doing a comprehensive plan for the City called Imagine Austin and I will be sharing one of our low-tech engagement strategies (Meeting in a box) at the Community Sandbox feature of the conference. I am looking forward to sharing what I have learned. You can learn more about our meeting-in-a-box efforts and our comprehensive planing process; Imagine Austin at: http://imagineaustin.net/ I hope you stop by the Community Sandbox and introduce yourself I'm looking forward to meeting all of you!
Thanks! Margaret -----Original Message----- From: Steven Clift <email obscured>] Sent: Thu 9/30/2010 1:11 PM To: <email obscured> Subject: [CM] Introductions We've just been joined by the next batch of conference registrants. One more batch to go. To catch up on all the introductions thus far, see: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M Let's keep the introductions coming ... imagine your are in a circle and we are working our way around the room. Oh, everyone is looking at you. :-) Please reply to this message, simply answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. While introductions are completely optional, let's really push to get at least half of you to say hello. That means 50 more introductions to come. Can we do it? Let's find out. Also, for students and others new to the field, don't be intimidated by the cool folks with titles and years of accomplishments ... tell us what you hope to do, what inspires you and perhaps what you want to learn more about! We are all in this together. Thanks, Steven Clift CommunityMatters Exchange Host E-Democracy.org Steven Clift Ericsson, Minneapolis About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/1PZ744WW97nLpjpktWyKnk - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to post publicly. To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject instead. Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: http://OnlineGroups.Net Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg
Greetings from the "best kept secret" in the "Last Best Place"--Southeastern Montana. My name is Marvin Quinlan, Jr., and I am 1 of 3 folks coming to the conference from Forsyth, Montana through the generosity of the Montana Community Foundation and MSU Extension. Like many of you in small, rural communities, I wear many hats. I am a recovering attorney at law, former prosecutor and civil trial lawyer, now rancher, who also invests time as a community activist/organizer, grant writer, facilitator, mediator and leadership trainer through my private consulting work. With the recent death of my father, I am also managing the family's all-natural black angus cow-calf operation located on the high plains of SE MT just north of the beautiful Yellowstone River. I am currently consulting with Montana's Attorney General on agricultural antitrust and multi-national corporate consolidation of the ag industry, and with Montana's Commissioner of Insurance & Securities to insure rural concerns are addressed in implementing the new healthcare reform law. Last summer, I co-chaired the platform committee on ag and rural development issues for the Montana Democrats. A progressive Democrat, I have actively engaged our local central committee in the "politics of service" concept. I am representing the F.A.I.R. Community Foundation, which serves northern Rosebud County and the small, rural (frontier) communities of Forsyth, Angela, Ingomar & Rosebud, at this conference. FAIR CF is a young, but rapidly growing, membership driven local community foundation, aggressively building our permanent endowment, managing two "good granting" programs, and providing a leadership role for other nonprofits in the area. We recently completed a successful Census 2010 leadership project, and were awarded an LCF leadership planning grant, utilizing our VISTA volunteer, to go into our 4 communities and conduct "community conversations" about making those communities more sustainable, and thrive, not just survive. FAIR CF has offered estate planning, leadership and community development webinars, and is developing an active planned giving legacy society in an attempt to keep a portion of the current intergenerational wealth transfer from being drained from our communities, like our "best and brightest" youth. Land use planning is of great importance to us, as Rosebud County, Montana is the "Saudi Arabia" of Montana coal. We, only now, are developing a county growth plan. Rosebud County, the 4th largest in the state (bigger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined), currently contains 5 coal-fired power plants, 3 surface coal mines, and the Northern Cheyenne Indian reservation, and all those resulting challenges. The power plant/coal mine/railroad infrastructure boom occurred in the 1970's. Now, we must deal with the Otter Creek coal tracts, which, for the most part lie outside the county, but will greatly impact the county and our communities. Arch Coal recently paid $85 million for the right to mine thousands of acres of state-owned coal, and the mining could generate $7 billion for the state over the next 30 years, while we must deal with the resulting infrastructure, environmental, socio-economic, and cultural impacts of another "boom". Lack of a growth plan has hampered the efforts of another group I chair, United Citizens,Inc., which serves as the county housing task force. Our current priority project, in addition to affordable workforce housing, is the conversion and re-purposeing of a former 1970's "coal boom" era school building into a multi-unit quality, affordable assisted living cottage, utilizing the proven, cutting-edge Eden Alternative and Green House model concepts. As designed, the recycled building will be a LEED Platinum certified environmentally friendly, energy effcient demonstration model, with half of the units dedicated to low and moderate income elderly and disabled, and that, hopefully, can be replicated elsewhere in rural America, where the population is both rapidly aging and decreasing as the "rural brain drain" takes many of our youth. I also serve on the Steering Committee of the Northwest Area Foundation sponsored Horizon poverty reduction Project in Forsyth, and as a study circles faciliator and LeadershipPlenty trainer. We struggle to convert that project into a sustainable, long-term community development effort. As such, I am eager to attend my first Community Matters, learn proven practices I can take home, add to my "tool box" and meet the wonderful array of folks attending this conference Ihave already gotten to know through this e-democracy site. Marvin Quinlan, Jr. 99 Cartersville Road P.O. Box 578 Forsyth, MT 59327 1-406-356-2481 <email obscured>
Greetings! Continuing around the circle, I must say that I am both eager and humbled to soon be among all of you. What fun we are going to have this week! My name is Lynn Malley. I feel like I have been through many lifetimes and all of them influence the current moment. On the continuum of conflict resolution approaches, across my career, I have moved from prosecution to system design, from resolution to engagement, practicing lawyer to dialogue facilitator, from the domestic to the the global, the midwest to the Balkans, to the domestic informed by the global. I am coming to Community Matters 10 because I want to share my passion for grabbing the current pregnant moment to engage our 'new' military and our civilian communities in conversation. I believe this is a pregnant moment because never before have half of our military operational forces been made up of Citizen Soldiers living among us. Rarely has there been such a need for support from the civilian community, not just the medical and therapeutic community. And perhaps never before has there been such a tremendous opportunity for true dialogue that could lead to lasting change about how we approach differences. There are many groups trying to do this, but they are constrained by needing to reach the largest numbers. Unfortunately, there are many service members and their families needing support who are among the 'geographically dispersed.' Perhaps the online variety of dialogue can be useful. I am coming to Community Matters 10 to share and to learn from each of you how to best take advantage of this moment. On to the third question... I have never given my website the attention it deserves, but I did create one a while ago at www.mediate.com/malley. And last week I participated in an event at the US Institute of Peace. They are creating an open source program for simulations. Perhaps this would be of use to some of your groups which may be interested in using simulations but unable to afford the software. www.usip.org Looking forward to the week. I will be one of your volunteers. Please say hello, especially if you share any of the above interests or questions! Lynn Malley
-- *~ We are all connected. ~* ** *Lynn M Malley* JD, MA, LLM *Creative Conflict Engagement Services* On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> wrote: > We've just been joined by the next batch of conference registrants. > One more batch to go. > > To catch up on all the introductions thus far, see: > > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M > > Let's keep the introductions coming ... imagine your are in a circle > and we are working our way around the room. Oh, everyone is looking at > you. :-) > > Please reply to this message, simply answering: > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > While introductions are completely optional, let's really push to get > at least half of you to say hello. That means 50 more introductions to > come. Can we do it? Let's find out. > > Also, for students and others new to the field, don't be intimidated > by the cool folks with titles and years of accomplishments ... tell us > what you hope to do, what inspires you and perhaps what you want to > learn more about! We are all in this together. > > Thanks, > Steven Clift > CommunityMatters Exchange Host > E-Democracy.org > > Steven Clift > Ericsson, Minneapolis > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/1PZ744WW97nLpjpktWyKnk > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net <http://onlinegroups.net/> > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg >
Subject: Introductions Hello to all Traveling past two weeks with no time to introduce myself til now - on the way to the plane from DC. Who I am and why I'm coming: (Also posted as part of the "Questions I'd like answered" email chain!) I'm Bliss Bruen; I live and work in Durango, CO, a far SW corner of the state and spend significant time in the East - in a Victorian suburb of DC called Takoma Park (Utne Reader put it on a short list of most progressive "burbs" a few years back) . I love both communities and keep busy between the two. My background includes video and film production; education policy advocacy plus hands on educational change as a media specialist for middle school kids and two charter school start-ups <http://animashighschool.org/>, historic preservation, meddling with the public sphere in mediating conversations on hot topics in land use planning - using study circles and grassroots visioning. I find myself now in the middle of a community-wide process to link public media outlets like the Public Access TV Channel (Durango Community Access TV) <http://dcat.tv/dcat/index.cfm> the public liberal arts college (Fort Lewis College <http://explore.fortlewis.edu/>) with its Communications faculty and student media organizations (radio, tribal news, college newspaper and arts magazine) and Colorado's own PBS network<http://www.rmpbs.org/> - These organizations will share resources in 2011 in a physical move to the Fort Lewis Campus - we all want to get off to a great start! See you tomorrow! Bliss Bruen 970-426-1228 Cell
On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 11:23 AM, Lynn Malley <email obscured>> wrote: > Greetings! > > Continuing around the circle, I must say that I am both eager and humbled > to > soon be among all of you. What fun we are going to have this week! > > My name is Lynn Malley. I feel like I have been through many lifetimes and > all of them influence the current moment. On the continuum of conflict > resolution approaches, across my career, I have moved from prosecution to > system design, from resolution to engagement, practicing lawyer to dialogue > facilitator, from the domestic to the the global, the midwest to the > Balkans, to the domestic informed by the global. > I am coming to Community Matters 10 because I want to share my passion for > grabbing the current pregnant moment to engage our 'new' military and our > civilian communities in conversation. I believe this is a pregnant moment > because never before have half of our military operational forces been made > up of Citizen Soldiers living among us. Rarely has there been such a need > for support from the civilian community, not just the medical and > therapeutic community. And perhaps never before has there been such a > tremendous opportunity for true dialogue that could lead to lasting change > about how we approach differences. There are many groups trying to do > this, > but they are constrained by needing to reach the largest numbers. > Unfortunately, there are many service members and their families needing > support who are among the 'geographically dispersed.' Perhaps the online > variety of dialogue can be useful. > > I am coming to Community Matters 10 to share and to learn from each of you > how to best take advantage of this moment. > > On to the third question... > I have never given my website the attention it deserves, but I did create > one a while ago at www.mediate.com/malley. > And last week I participated in an event at the US Institute of Peace. > They > are creating an open source program for simulations. Perhaps this would be > of use to some of your groups which may be interested in using simulations > but unable to afford the software. www.usip.org > Looking forward to the week. I will be one of your volunteers. Please say > hello, especially if you share any of the above interests or questions! > > Lynn Malley > -- > *~ We are all connected. ~* > ** > *Lynn M Malley* JD, MA, LLM > *Creative Conflict Engagement Services* > > > On Thu, Sep 30, 2010 at 1:11 PM, Steven Clift <email obscured>> > wrote: > > > We've just been joined by the next batch of conference registrants. > > One more batch to go. > > > > To catch up on all the introductions thus far, see: > > > > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5k79A7KS2y6xYapmoiJm2M > > > > Let's keep the introductions coming ... imagine your are in a circle > > and we are working our way around the room. Oh, everyone is looking at > > you. :-) > > > > Please reply to this message, simply answering: > > > > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > > > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? > > > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > > > Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. > > > > While introductions are completely optional, let's really push to get > > at least half of you to say hello. That means 50 more introductions to > > come. Can we do it? Let's find out. > > > > Also, for students and others new to the field, don't be intimidated > > by the cool folks with titles and years of accomplishments ... tell us > > what you hope to do, what inspires you and perhaps what you want to > > learn more about! We are all in this together. > > > > Thanks, > > Steven Clift > > CommunityMatters Exchange Host > > E-Democracy.org > > > > Steven Clift > > Ericsson, Minneapolis > > About Steven Clift: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift > > > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/1PZ744WW97nLpjpktWyKnk > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > > post publicly. > > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in > subject > > instead. > > > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > > http://OnlineGroups.Net <http://onlinegroups.net/> > > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > > > > Lynn Malley > Stillwater > About Lynn Malley: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/2SFBjWlowHohlyCYdYSdfs > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/4GDl3sCltYK2TK6AQdnoFy > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg >
Hello All, I can't believe the conference is just a day away! I had intended to do this sooner, I guess I am just running out of time. My name is Jennifer Hubbard Anderson. I'm very excited to be attending the Community Matters conference. I truly believe community does matter and the one that matters the most to me is Forsyth, and Rosebud County, Montana. I am the fourth generation of my family to call this place home. I received my undergraduate degree from Montana State (Go Cats!) and feel very blessed to have had the opportunity to return to my home to work as the MSU County Extension Agent for Rosebud and Treasure Counties. So, for the past thirteen years I've been serving the people, communities and counties, working to improve our quality of life. It's very satisfying to know my husband and I are raising our sons, Cooper (6) and Tucker (18 mos) in my rural hometown. I am currently in my second year of graduate school through Iowa State where I'm studying community development. In our spare time we own & operate two small businesses, a car wash and laundry mat. As the MSU Extension Agent I have served as the coordinator of the Horizons Project, a community development effort aimed at reducing poverty, and funded through the Northwest Area Foundation. Our community is being represented by three folks here at the conference--myself, our local community foundation rep and our county commissioner. Thanks to MSU and the Montana Community Foundation for providing us with the opportunity to attend this conference. I am excited by everything this conference has to offer, but my specific interest is in the sustainability of rural communities. See you all in Denver!
Cheryl Scofield is the Northeast Area Director of USDA, Rural Development. She and her staff of 9 cover 17 counties of Rural Areas in Northeast Colorado helping to increase economic opportunity and improve the quality of life. Rural Development is a Federal Agency and they have 50 plus programs to meet the needs of communities. This past year her office put 64 million dollars in Northeast Colorado. Cheryl has 27 years experience with USDA, Rural Development and 4 years of experience with DHUD in Community Planning and Development. She is a graduate of Barnes Business School and attended University of Colorado Graduate School of Public Administration. She also attended Jones Real Estate College and holds an inactive Independent Brokers License. In the Community Matters Conference I look forward to networking with individuals who are also interested in providing Community Development to their communities and sharing insights and experiences as to what has been success stories for you.
Good evening, It will be wonderful to have visitors to Colorado this week. It should be wonderful fall weather for Community Matters. I am Susan Kirkpatrick, a member of the Orton Family Foundation Board of Trustees and the Executive Director of the Department of Local Affairs for the State of Colorado. I have served in this cabinet role for Governor Bill Ritter since he took office in January 2007. My department's mission is to strengthen Colorado communities using a variety of financial and technical assistance programs in the areas of housing, emergency management, and community development. We launched an exciting Sustainable Main Streets Initiative in early 2010 with four pilot communities in Colorado joining state agencies to achieve specific outcomes intended to make the four communities more livable for the long term. One of our pilot communities is the Five Points business district in Denver, located about four blocks from the Grand Hyatt. My home is in Fort Collins, Colorado where I served as Mayor in the early 1990's. (Most people have forgotten why they were mad at me). I will not be able to attend many of the Community Matter sessions because I am scheduled to speak at an APA conference in Steamboat Springs on Oct 6 but I will be around on Oct 7 and I look forward to welcoming you to Denver. Susan Kirkpatrick 210 W. Magnolia #430 Fort Collins, Co 80521 <email obscured>
I'm Ben Gagnon -- I just passed the five-year-mark as Special Projects Planner for the City of Aspen Community Development Department. We're just now finishing the 10-Year Aspen Area Community Plan (2+ years of work). My first career was a journalist on Cape Cod, Northern NH and here in Colorado. I'm primarily interested in methods for improving and broadening participation in civic affairs -- I believe this is my 3rd Community Matters conference. I keep coming back because I've actually implemented "take-aways." As a former journalist, I'm particularly interested in story telling -- and am also focused on how to identify more nuanced meanings behind the phrases we all hear, such as "community character," and "quality of life." What do these really mean in one community versus another? How can we identify them closely enough to translate them into useful changes in land use codes? I look forward to the conference. Our community plan website is www.aspencommunityvision.com
Hi Everyone -- I am Courtney Amerine, a Field Organizer for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation. After growing up in Pinedale, Wyoming I left the state to pursue a degree in Environmental Economics from Western Washington University. In December I moved to Laramie, Wyoming in order to take my current position with Wyoming Wildlife Federation. I am excited to be back in Wyoming working with communities on natural resource issues. This work includes working with locals examining different threats to natural resources and brainstorming ways to protect those resources. With Wyoming being an energy state much of our focus is on working with communities to minimize the impacts that energy development has on the wildife and land in the area as well as the social impacts that the energy industry has on our communities. I look forward to meeting all of you. Courtney Amerine - www.wyomingwildlife.org
I'm Allen Best, and organizers invited me to attend the CommunityMatters conference with the possibility that things that I hear may lead to stories for the various publications for which I write. After spending 20 years with newspapers in mountain towns of Colorado, I have been in metropolitan Denver since 1998. I write for a variety of magazines, including Planning. I cover primarily natural resource and transportation issues, but after spending that many years in small mountain towns, I am inevitably quite interested in community dynamics. Also, I publish a monthly newsletter distributed to people with a keen interest in resort-based mountain towns of the North American West. You can see a few old copies of the newsletter, as well as other pieces, at www.allenbest.net. I suspect that I will be enlivened by this conference. Having been to the Grand Hyatt several times for functions, I can assure you that the view is exemplary.
Allen
Hi there! Its been so lovely reading through all the intros, and i am looking forward to meeting all of you very soon! A few keywords to describe my background/expertise: gov20, community organizing, arts education, education policy, nyc, research, data, web design, and consulting. Now in more detail: i spent several years working on a business plan to improve arts education nyc that included multiple city agencies and non profit organizations across the city. I recently received a masters in public policy from the harvard kennedy school of government where created the first gov20 professional interest council to help govts think about how to use technology to be more participatory, collaborative, and transparent. I did my master's thesis on how govt can use social media to enhance civic participation, so feel free to talk to me about that if you are interested in the research side of gov20 and civic engagement. Im originally from Los Angeles, and have lived in NYC, Ithaca, and Boston. I recently moved into a big old house in the lovely neighborhood of takoma park maryland where I have taken up a number of DIY art projects including using homemade stencils + magenta spraypaint to make my drab white vinyl blinds beautiful and inspiring, making wood block art using photographs and high gloss paint and starting on an usually shaped vision board using old slats of wood, heavy fabric and chalkboard paint. I've just co-created a new company - BYO consulting - and we focus on online and offline community building. Im exited to attend community matters to share and learn best practices from all of you! I'm going to host a "dinner with the doctor" where we'll discuss gov20, and i would love for anyone who's interested to join. Ill also be at the BYO booth at the community sandbox where we'll be sharing our Digital Engagement Readiness guide - a tool that will help you craft an online community engagement plan. Thanks and look forward to meeting you all soon!! Yasmin http://byoconsulting.com **P.S. BYO will be running a mini-experiment during community matters about unlocking conversation. Make sure to ask us about it and get involved if you want to experiment w/breaking down barriers to conversation!!
On 10/3/10, Susan KIRKPATRICK <email obscured>> wrote: > > Good evening, > It will be wonderful to have visitors to Colorado this week. It should be > wonderful fall weather for Community Matters. > > I am Susan Kirkpatrick, a member of the Orton Family Foundation Board of > Trustees and the Executive Director of the Department of Local Affairs for > the State of Colorado. I have served in this cabinet role for Governor Bill > Ritter since he took office in January 2007. > > My department's mission is to strengthen Colorado communities using a > variety of financial and technical assistance programs in the areas of > housing, emergency management, and community development. We launched an > exciting Sustainable Main Streets Initiative in early 2010 with four pilot > communities in Colorado joining state agencies to achieve specific outcomes > intended to make the four communities more livable for the long term. One > of our pilot communities is the Five Points business district in Denver, > located about four blocks from the Grand Hyatt. > > My home is in Fort Collins, Colorado where I served as Mayor in the early > 1990's. (Most people have forgotten why they were mad at me). I will not be > able to attend many of the Community Matter sessions because I am scheduled > to speak at an APA conference in Steamboat Springs on Oct 6 but I will be > around on Oct 7 and I look forward to welcoming you to Denver. > > > Susan Kirkpatrick > 210 W. Magnolia #430 > Fort Collins, Co 80521 > <email obscured> > > > > > > Susan Kirkpatrick > Fort Collins > About Susan Kirkpatrick: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/5aRfP5JxpQeMNHVBECZqpV > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/4r7xg6r45qIlmUPLeVEhqy > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > -- Sent from my mobile device *Yasmin Fodil* *http://BYOconsulting.com Enhancing community engagement through technology <email obscured> <http://twitter.com/yasminfodil> / (+1) 818.419.1651 / @yasminfodil <http://twitter.com/yasminfodil> http://wethegoverati.wordpress.com (my blog)*
Hi! Bruce Smith - Glendive, MT - Farm-to-Table Project - Montana State Univ. (one of the other MSUs) Extension Agent. Born and raised 40 miles from Canada, 10 miles from North Dakota. The USDA Hardiness Zone 3 line pretty much ran right through the yard on the farm - very cold - very windy. Attended MSU, spent a year in France then went back to the family farm - between drought and grasshoppers - went back to college, Cal Poly - SLO to get MBA. Worked three years for Pillsbury/Green Giant in Watsonville, CA freezing vegetables and packaging food. (Rode out the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake - 12 miles from epicenter) Moved to Illinois to run a margarine mfg. Plant for 3 years. Moved to Idaho to manage french fry plant until we were bought out in 1996. Have been an Extension Agent in Montana since then, two years in western MT and the rest here in Glendive. Only agent in the county, so I get everything from agriculture to yard and garden to 4H to family consumer sciences. Have been working on developing rural leadership and local food systems for the last 15 years. Tough to pull off sometimes in as rural an area as eastern MT and western ND. Hoping to get revitalized and re-energized by attending CM10. Have given up over 40 days of vacation over the last three years and put in a lot of 50 and 60 hour weeks to make our projects happen. I'm a farm boy so I'm used to a hard pull, just need to capture some of the energy that we will be generating at this conference to keep going. One stick by itself doesn't create much of a fire, a bunch of sticks together can create enough heat to warm (energize) the whole group. I will be on the Local Economies Breakout panel if you want to hear more about what we are up to. YouTube Link to an interview I did about sustainable communities:
1. Who are you? Be conversational.
Greetings! My name is Jared Ulmer and I am currently renting the 1st
floor of an adorable 1907 Victorian in the Greenlake neighborhood of
Seattle, WA, with my lovely girlfriend, Laurel. We love the house
& neighborhood because it supports our desire to live as healthy
& sustainably as we can afford. We are both easily able to walk
to work, several great parks, two weekly farmer's markets, and until
recently, a wonderful neighborhood grocery store that sadly closed.
We planted our first small vegetable garden this "summer," and
despite this year's almost total absence of sun & warmth, we at
least managed to grow some tasty lettuce, green beans, tomatoes,
peas, and a whopping two carrots. It has been quite the learning
experience! I'll remain hopeful about the squash for a few more
weeks...
Health & sustainability is also my professional/academic
focus, as I am currently working towards a PhD in Urban Planning
and an MPH in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. I've
been working on two main projects at UW: 1. A study of the impact
of the new Seattle light rail system on physical activity
behaviors, and 2. A study in King County, WA, on food store
access, shopping behaviors, dietary content, and obesity. We are
also in the early stages of studying how the community environment
affects health behaviors & health outcomes in a national
database of twins, which will allow us to control for genetics.
Exciting stuff! My own research is focusing on the impact of
vehicular traffic near the home on stress & stress-related
illnesses.
Prior to my return to graduate school, I worked for four years
for Renaissance Planning Group, a small consulting firm based in
Florida and Virginia that helps communities to plan for and design
vibrant and walkable public spaces. One of the most satisfying
projects that I worked on at Renaissance was the compilation of
best practices and case studies garnered from staff and residents
of small towns and rural communities across the country (see link
to the final report below). The aim was to provide peer
communities with land use and transportation strategies that could
be used to promote local accessibility, economic development,
tourism, sustainability, and health. While I miss working
directly with communities and hope to return to it before long, I
am very appreciative of my current opportunity to take a time out
and enhance my knowledge about the critical issue of community
health.
2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you
attending?
I have enthusiastically followed the work of the Orton Family
Foundation and its partners from afar for the last several years,
and this will be my first opportunity to attend a CommunityMatters
conference. I'm excited to meet new friends & collaborators,
and gain new ideas & inspiration for my work. Most
specifically, I'm interested in further exploring the relationship
between the health of a community's local economy and the health
and well-being of its residents.
3. Share any links or contact information you like.
Best Practices to Enhance the Transportation - Land Use
Connection in the Rural United States:
http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/Best_Practices_to_Enhance_the_TransportationLand_U_159290.aspx
Complete Streets for an Aging America:
http://www.aarp.org/home-garden/livable-communities/info-08-2009/Planning_Complete_Streets_for_an_Aging_America.html
UW, Urban Form Lab: http://depts.washington.edu/ufl/
Renaissance Planning Group: http://www.citiesthatwork.com/
Jared Ulmer, AICP
University of Washington
Graduate student in Urban Planning (PhD) & Epidemiology (MPH)
434.242.8988
<email obscured>
Hello Everyone: My name is Marcy Allen, and I am the Executive Director of BREDD, a three county economic development district in Western Montana. I live in Missoula, MT and now in route to Denver via Seattle (yeah I know). We are a three county district with vast difference, for instance Mineral County has 4,000 residents and is 87% public land. Missoula is home to 100,000 people and Ravalli has 40,000. Our region was heavily dependant on the resource extraction industry, in the past 20 years we have seen a steady decline. In the last 3 years two of the largest mills in the region have shut down laying off more than 800 people. Each of our communities is unique but we have a common bond of poverty. Montana is 50th in wages for the US, women rank dead last. We have more people per capita needing to hold down two jobs to get by. We rank 48th in exports. We are an economy in transition, our top industries are health care, retail, and services. Our district also has some great assets. We also have higher than average graduation rates. We have over education population. We live in a incredible place (don't tell anyone) where the natural world is intricately involved in all of our lives. For lunch break, we run in the mountains, kayak, ski, or simple enjoy the Montana sunshine etc. My organization is working to develop a more collaborative regional approach to economic development that promotes high paying jobs and maintains our quality of life. BREDD is not traditional economic development, we don't have loans funds nor do we provide technical assistance to businesses. We think of ourselves as catalyst, information brokers, regional planners, and facilitators. Our main clients are business service providers, communities, local government, and non profits. I have always been interested in Communities Matters and previously worked for the Orton Family Foundation. My attendance this time was spurred by a discussion of developing capacity at a local level to implement economic development building blocks. In economic development road, sewer, water etc are often talked about as the foundations for economic development, I believe that projects that a community is vested in, park development, a mineral museum, a Nordic ski facility, a trail system, are foundation pieces to a healthy community. I am interest in learning ways to engage, share, encourage, facilitate these types of projects throughout my region. I look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones. See you all tonight.
Marcy On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Jared Ulmer <email obscured>> wrote: > 1. Who are you? Be conversational. > Greetings! My name is Jared Ulmer and I am currently renting the 1st > floor of an adorable 1907 Victorian in the Greenlake neighborhood of > Seattle, WA, with my lovely girlfriend, Laurel. We love the house > & neighborhood because it supports our desire to live as healthy > & sustainably as we can afford. We are both easily able to walk > to work, several great parks, two weekly farmer's markets, and until > recently, a wonderful neighborhood grocery store that sadly closed. > We planted our first small vegetable garden this "summer," and > despite this year's almost total absence of sun & warmth, we at > least managed to grow some tasty lettuce, green beans, tomatoes, > peas, and a whopping two carrots. It has been quite the learning > experience! I'll remain hopeful about the squash for a few more > weeks... > Health & sustainability is also my professional/academic > focus, as I am currently working towards a PhD in Urban Planning > and an MPH in Epidemiology at the University of Washington. I've > been working on two main projects at UW: 1. A study of the impact > of the new Seattle light rail system on physical activity > behaviors, and 2. A study in King County, WA, on food store > access, shopping behaviors, dietary content, and obesity. We are > also in the early stages of studying how the community environment > affects health behaviors & health outcomes in a national > database of twins, which will allow us to control for genetics. > Exciting stuff! My own research is focusing on the impact of > vehicular traffic near the home on stress & stress-related > illnesses. > > Prior to my return to graduate school, I worked for four years > for Renaissance Planning Group, a small consulting firm based in > Florida and Virginia that helps communities to plan for and design > vibrant and walkable public spaces. One of the most satisfying > projects that I worked on at Renaissance was the compilation of > best practices and case studies garnered from staff and residents > of small towns and rural communities across the country (see link > to the final report below). The aim was to provide peer > communities with land use and transportation strategies that could > be used to promote local accessibility, economic development, > tourism, sustainability, and health. While I miss working > directly with communities and hope to return to it before long, I > am very appreciative of my current opportunity to take a time out > and enhance my knowledge about the critical issue of community > health. > > 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you > attending? > > I have enthusiastically followed the work of the Orton Family > Foundation and its partners from afar for the last several years, > and this will be my first opportunity to attend a CommunityMatters > conference. I'm excited to meet new friends & collaborators, > and gain new ideas & inspiration for my work. Most > specifically, I'm interested in further exploring the relationship > between the health of a community's local economy and the health > and well-being of its residents. > > 3. Share any links or contact information you like. > > Best Practices to Enhance the Transportation - Land Use > Connection in the Rural United States: > http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/Best_Practices_to_Enhance_the_TransportationLand_U_159290.aspx > Complete Streets for an Aging America: > http://www.aarp.org/home-garden/livable-communities/info-08-2009/Planning_Complete_Streets_for_an_Aging_America.html > UW, Urban Form Lab: http://depts.washington.edu/ufl/ > Renaissance Planning Group: http://www.citiesthatwork.com/ > > Jared Ulmer, AICP > University of Washington > Graduate student in Urban Planning (PhD) & Epidemiology (MPH) > 434.242.8988 > <email obscured> > Jared Ulmer > Seattle > About Jared Ulmer: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/4C7rlulCMq0GS7Y6ALdoEp > > View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc: > http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/5yhXp49sc4fKCEddfZC4MH > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > To post, e-mail: <email obscured> or "Reply-to-All" to > post publicly. > To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject > instead. > > Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/community > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks: > http://OnlineGroups.Net <http://onlinegroups.net/> > Follow us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/edemocracyorg > > -- Marcy Allen Executive Director BREDD, Inc 200 West Broadway Missoula, MT 59802 406.258.3435 www.bredd.org Please consider the environment before printing this email.
Welcome to the final group uploaded from the registration system. You are probably just waking up and getting ready to meet folk in person. Feel free to zip out a short intro today and ask the person across the table to pass the coffee. Please reply to this message, answering: 1. Who are you? Be conversational. 2. What interests you about CommunityMatters? Why are you attending? 3. Share any links or contact information you like. Replies go to the group. Posts to this online group are public. To catch up on past introductions: http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/10anHNcjrSlPGHwUCIMPBS
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