Tag: community

Progressive Wayne County

I recently created a new website that I hope grows into a useful resource in our community. Progressive Wayne County is an interactive community site that promotes and chronicles the progressive efforts of individuals, organizations and businesses in the area. I figured there were enough places you could go to read or talk about not-so-progressive happenings, and I'm all into creating balance in the universe, so there you go.

The site still needs a lot of work to make it more collaborative and relevant, but I'm excited about the possibilities. The greatest part of it is that anyone can add content to it (news, events, blog entries, etc.) so it's not just about what I think of as progressive or know about going on. If you have comments or suggestions, send them my way!

The joy of nuanced relationships

One of my favorite parts of living in a small city in the Midwest is that many of us tend to wear multiple hats for each other. When you get to know someone new in one setting, if you stick around long enough, it's a pretty good bet that you'll encounter them again in at least one other setting. These multi-faceted interactions yield some nuances and texture in relationships that I think are hard to find in less personal settings, and perhaps larger cities.
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If I Were Mayor

I was glad to see today's article about the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns` "If I Were Mayor, I Would..." contest (PDF link on that last one). Such things can only improve the quality of dialogue about what we want for our communities. Local elementary school student Ross Mathews took the prize in the statewide contest for his essay; his plan focused on a few key areas: 1) making sure children in Richmond had better funding for school books and educational field trips, 2) adding more staple businesses to the West side of Richmond to save gas for those living there, 3) decreasing poverty through charitable giving events, and 4) keep Richmond clean so it looks nicer. Hats off to Ross for thinking beyond his years and looking selflessly at the big picture. If only mayoral elections took place on the true merits of such plans alone.

I haven't yet received my entry form for the "If I Were Mayor" essay contest to be held amongst myself and other local adult citizens, but in the greatest tradition of blogging, I shall now commence to ramble on regarding something about which no one has asked me:
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Props to the P-I for embracing conversation technologies

It wasn't too long ago that I took an inventory of the quality of public dialogue in Richmond, and in doing so, sprinkled in some cynicism about the role played and limitations imposed by the Palladium-Item in that measuring. A bit later I brought the cynicism up a notch (or, down a rung?) in predicting that their online forum wouldn't bear much fruit. Today I ought to take a moment to congratulate them on their recent efforts and successes in improving the quality of (or at least the opportunities for) public conversation in town, especially around the issues the paper covers. A few of the ways they've done this, if you haven't already noticed:
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Conversations with Rebecca Ryan

IMG_0636It's an exciting day for those interested in building a better Richmond. Consultant and speaker Rebecca Ryan is in town to talk to business leaders, civic planners, elected officials, community members, and especially young adult professionals about how to move from "Brain Drain" to "Brain Gain" in Wayne County. I'm usually cautious about having outside parties come in to a community to tell it what it needs (and the costs expended to do so). But after meeting and talking with Rebecca at a reception last night and hearing her speak to community leaders this morning, I know that she has some great things to say (and a really engaging way to say them) about the state of our community and how we can be better in ways that really matter for the future. Of course, I'm a little biased in that Summersault is a sponsor of the event and I'm on the planning committee that brought her here, but this is definitely far above the standard fare. In any case, if you're reading this on 2/22 and are interested to hear her speak locally, she's got another gig tonight at the 4th Floor Blues Club at 5:30 PM - e-mail [email protected] to RSVP. I'll hopefully get a chance to do another post soon with some thoughts on the substance of these conversations.

Got conflict? Want to work it out?

The notion of "conflict resolution" is one of those things that is tempting to assume we all understand as well as or as much as we need to. We all have conflict in our lives, and we all make decisions every day about how we're going to deal with it: avoid it, engage it head on, active passive-aggressively about it, pretend to smooth it over but not really deal with it, commit an act of violence, and so on. But most of the time, no matter what course of action we choose, dealing with conflict is hard. It's stressful. It can be draining and debilitating, at a personal level but also for an organization or business or family as a whole. And even though we may have learned a lot about how to deal with it by now, that doesn't mean we don't need help sometimes. Thank goodness for the existence of the Conflict Resolution Center, located right here in Richmond. They're a non-profit providing affordable, accessible mediation services to our community, and they educate us about non-violent resolution of conflicts of all types.
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The other Chris Hardies out there

Back when the Internet was small enough to fit on my current 80GB hard drive, there were no other Chris Hardies in the world. I was it, and I was certainly the only one with any sort of online presence. Even though I come from a long line of Farquharsons, if you looked for my name in search engines, you could find all sorts of stuff about me, but ONLY me. I was special, a beautiful unique snowflake.

These days, I am apparently part of the same decaying organic matter as everything else. I have some company from other Chris Hardies out there, some of them surprisingly close to me in either geographical, occupational or metaphysical location. Here's a survey:
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The quality of public dialogue in Richmond

I'm a strong advocate of the general concept that good dialogue can work wonders for resolving conflicts, building community, and improving the world we live in. (That's dialogue instead of, say, violence, explosive angry yelling, paternalism or monarchy, snap judgments, knee-jerk fear-mongering, heated debate, or silence and avoidance.) As a result, I am constantly aware of the need for better dialogue in my own community of Richmond, Indiana, and for venues that facilitate that practice. I would go so far as to say that Richmond is, on the whole, handicapped by the poor quality of public discussion about the issues that matter to us, and that addressing this handicap is one of the opportunities most ripe for the picking in our community today.
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Oops, we ALL cut the trees down

I am hesitant to write more about the conversion of Hayes Arboretum land into commercial shopping space - so much has already been said. But I feel compelled to point out my sense that Richmond, as a community, is finding some good in a situation that, for a while, only seemed to have negative feelings and outcomes attached to it all around. Indeed, I am hopeful (perhaps naively so) that it may serve as a turning point in how we shape Richmond's future.
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Whole lotta learning going on

I almost feel like a student again! Not including my trip to the conference last weekend, which was a semi-academic learning experience in itself, I'm engaged in a couple of other great learning opportunities. I just completed a course in mediation training given by The Conflict Resolution Center here in Richmond as a part of preparing to volunteer as a community mediator. I already greatly enjoy studying and learning about how humans can communicate more effectively with each other (especially around difficult issues), so it was great to formalize some of those skills in this particular context, and to interact with other folks interested in doing the same. I also really appreciated that such a great resource with such important community services is right here in town.

I'm also taking a creative writing class from the folks at the Gotham Writers` Workshop. It's been an interesting experience so far, and I'm grateful for some structure around my desire to do more creative writing - or, dare I say it, "be a writer" - but I'll reserve for later my opinion of how well I learn in an online course environment - quite a contrast to face-to-face interaction. Anyone out there had any experiences with online education or training to share? What are *you* learning about these days?