P-A Community Conversations
Paul Born, President Tamarack Institute for Community Engagement
The real hope of community conversations is not dramatic change. Rather, it is establishing a new set of relationships that, over time, become the norm. In any community effort, the people involved learn to work together to realize a desired vision. By collaborating, people establish a new set of relationships that over time become the norm. They learn because they are motivated by the vision. And as they learn, they change. We begin to see the transcendent impact of collaboration as we see its effects on organizations, the lives of individuals, and the community.
For those readers who are learning about this initiative for the first time, I proposed this idea to Perth-Andover Village Council and got their endorsement in February 2013. I offered to launch this experiment in order to help counteract the spread of post-flood despair that seemed to be drowning out our collective hope and motivation to move forward.
As a volunteer with no budget to work with, the Council’s endorsement was important and much appreciated. Their endorsement allowed for use of meeting space, free of charge, and Village staff helped with photocopying material and publicity.
Here are the events that have occurred so far:
March 28, 2013:
- Social Enterprise Workshop: Facilitated by Amanda Haché from the Co-Operative Council of NB. Amanda came up from Moncton to put on this very informative workshop to give us a heads-up about this growing economic trend.
April 20, 2013:
- Georgetown Conference: Conference organizer, Paul MacNeill came up from Charlottetown to provide information about the conference on Rural Revitalization planned for Oct 3-5 in Georgetown PE.
- Earth Week Art Workshop was also hosted on this day.
May 10, 2013:
- Naturopathic Medicine: Grand Falls’ Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Marie-Andree Nowlan, presented an Introduction to Naturopathic Medicine. In this day and age of looming health care costs, it’s wise to practice prevention.
October 24, 2013:
- Georgetown Conference Delegates Presentation #1. Area delegates Francine St.Amand, Joe Gee, Linda Nicholas and Luke Sinstadt shared highlights of the conference experience.
November 28, 2013:
- Georgetown Conference Delegates Presentation #2: Area delegates – Francine St.Amand, Joe Gee, and Luke Sinstadt led a discussion about concrete things that can be done to help revitalize the area- based on what they learned at the conference. Guest speaker, Kathy Orser, from the Dept. of Healthy and Inclusive Communities provided information about grants available through the department to launch and support community projects.
Dec 14, 2013:
- Snowflake Making Workshop: Maj Gagnon facilitated a fun-filled afternoon workshop at the Library. Participants learned how to make gigantic paper snowflakes and at the same meet new people. Hands-on events like this attract a diversity of people who normally don’t get together in the same place for a common cause.
April 26 & 30, 2014:
- May Day Basket Making Workshops: Reviving the tradition of making May Day baskets. Our region is home to a very particular style of May Basket design. Workshops were led by Maj Gagnon at the library on the 26th and Pam McPhail at the Perth-Andover Arts & Crafts Centre on the 30th.
