The Council has always wrestled with the question of how to best involve the broader community in our work. As a coalition with lots of organizations involved, there is so much going on and so many moving parts. In the past our quarterly meetings focused on updating the group on all that was happening. This is incredibly valuable, of course, because we all want to know about and celebrate the great work being done around the City. Yet we knew there was more we could do together in this meeting time. We’ve tried some different formats, some different venues, and starting in January of 2013 we’re going to add some new and different elements.
- We’re going to change the meeting time and length. We’ll meet on a weekday from 4 pm – 7 pm. We’re hoping this will allow a broad range of people to participate, ranging from students to teachers, residents, businesses, and our usual non-profit and organizational partners.
- We’ll serve a meal. Everyone loves food, and building community around a meal is an important piece of deepening our relationships in the community.
- We’ll feature a guest speaker. We feel its important to highlight local, state, regional and even national work and think about how it connects to what we’re working on, or could work on. We’ll strike a balance between food-systems related speakers and active-living related speakers.
- We’ll schedule and publicize our meetings a year in advance so that everyone can get them on their calendar early and plan to attend.
As we experiment with these changes we’ll be interested in your feedback, experience, and suggestions. Stay tuned for the January 2013 meeting time and location!
