19th Ward World Cafe

About 35 19th ward neighbors gathered last night at the Staybridge Hotel for the first World Cafe. This is an event that was planned by the 19WCA and neighbors. People who participated were energetic, passionate and clearly committed to making a difference in our neighborhood.
Some of the clear themes that emerged during our dialogue included the following:
* need for improved communication/networking and information sharing
* the importance of reaching out to neighbors - knowing them by name
* the importance of reaching out to our youth and finding positive ways to involve them
* development of a strong, unified voice - as a neighborhood
* strengthening of the 19WCA and ensuring that the association is a strong advocate for us with the City of Rochester
* finding balance between "what's good" about the 19th Ward and "what's not so good"
* the need for honesty about some of the significant challenges that we have
* the need for follow up and ongoing attention - i.e. development of action plans and follow through with them
* the importance of personal responsibility
* the desire to have more FUN!

Attached is a photo from our wrap up discussion - I hope others who attend might add their own comments about the evening!

0 members like this

Attachments:

19th World Cafe.jpg, 41 KB

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by John Boutet on July 15, 2010 at 4:23pm

Thanks for putting this on Margy. It was fun and worthwhile. People can see all the pictures you took at:
http://www.location19.org/photo/album/show?id=2047650%3AAlbum%3A126...
Please don't forget to send the attendance list with name and email addresses to the participants.
Thanks again, John

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on July 20, 2010 at 5:47pm

The 'list' of people who attended the World cafe is not available at the moment but how about hearing right here from those who participated??
If you attended, please take a few minutes to share your own thoughts about the cafe and what you learned from your neighbors.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by MacClurg Vivian on July 26, 2010 at 5:03pm

Margy, can you send me your tel #?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Laura Suda on July 27, 2010 at 10:20am

Margy, thanks for presenting this World Cafe for our neighbors. I was impressed by the number and enthusiasm of the attendees - we have a very dynamic neighborhood and events like this can help bring us closer and hopefully get good things accomplished. There were many good ideas and suggestions put forth, and I hope there will be more opportunities for these meetings. It was great to meet more friendly and like-minded and perhaps, not-so-like-minded neighbors (but that's why events like these are important - we need to know how others think and feel in order to get along in this world). I hope we can keep the ball rolling on this: "the need for follow up and ongoing attention - i.e. development of action plans and follow through with them". My time is limited because I work full-time and have a huband and 2 teenagers, but I do want to help make life better in the 19th Ward for all of our neighbors. Thanks again, Margy, for this opportunity.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Margy Meath on March 7, 2011 at 9:50am

Hi everyone-

we are in the midst of planning for a 2011 World Cafe and we're looking for volunteers to become part of a small planning group.

The time commitment would probably be a couple of planning meetings during which we would do the following:

discuss a ‘theme’ or focus for the café
decide on a date/time (this will require us to also find a suitable location)
identify someone to act as a graphic recorder
organize roles for people helping out – i.e. Locating space, advertising, ensuring we have needed supplies, etc

Outside of the meeting, we might ask the planning group to help out with a few ‘tasks’ - none of them would require large amounts of time.

If you are interested in being part of this planning group, please either respond to this post or send me a private message. I anticipate scheduling a meeting sometime in the next few weeks.