January events

January has been a busy month for VISIONS. As promised, Susan McFadden and her team at Open Door Communications produced all the materials for our mailing about the Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty. The only cost to VISIONS was the postage. Susan designed the wonderful poster seen here. The mailing went out the end of the first week in January to about 75 churches and agencies. Lindsy Gardner also promoted the program at a meeting of the Rotary Club and met with Robert Mason, the editor of the Rappahannock Record. The Record ran a great article on Community Conversations on the Thursday before the Kick-Off event.

Gwen Whiting came from Richmond on January 16th to train the executive committee and some volunteers to be facilitators for the Community Conversations. It was a day-long training and gave us all a feel for the entire process. We worked through all five weeks in one day and took turns facilitating each session. It was an eye-opener and we all learned a great deal. The turnout was low, however, so it may be hard to schedule facilitators for the groups.

The Kick-Off Event for the Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty was held at the Upper Lancaster Ruritan Center near Lively on January 23rd. The Ruritans very generously made this space available to us for free, since they felt this effort will benefit the community. Pastor Ken Rioland did a wonderful job of inspiring all those who attended. Delegate Albert Pollard was there and we were able to provide him with information on the dialogue-to-action process we are undertaking. We had a good turnout of nearly 30 people, and there are many more who expressed an interest in participating who could not be there. We are on target to begin four groups in February. We were able to organize and settle on times and venues for all four groups. I continue to get emails and registration forms, so I believe all four groups will be full.

Study Circle Orientation, August 18 & 19

Approximately 30-35 people came out for a two-night event at the Northumberland County Community Center facilitated by Gwen Whiting. VISIONS plans to sponsor study circles as a way to invite Northern Neck citizens to discuss poverty and to identify actionable strategies to reduce it in our area. Gwen lead the group through activities and discussions to help us better understand the power of the study circles process and the organization required to make them happen successfully in the Northern Neck.

After a review of the agenda, an introduction, and a fun ice breaker activity, Gwen gave us an overview of the dialogue to action process. We then watched a video and heard more about how other communities have used this process to tackle a number of issues. It was interesting to hear that the process was so successful that many of the communities continue to use it to tackle other problems.

We then broke out into smaller groups to get a feel for what a study circle was like. We were given questions that might be asked in an initial study circle gathering. It was surprising and inspiring to find that people in a small group setting can share so much about themselves so honestly.

Lindsy Gardner reviewed the history and progress of VISIONS over the last couple of years and explained the DuPont Fund initiative to reduce poverty in their target communities.

In our large circle, we each had an opportunity to share our hopes for how our community might be improved and what we saw to be the barriers to that improvement. I have had an opportunity to transcribe those hopes and potential barriers and, while they are as diverse as one might expect, there is also a surprising amount of consensus. More than half of the group saw communication and attitudes as being problematic and the hopeful target for substantial change.

On Wednesday, Gwen met with some people who had not been able to attend on Tuesday over dinner before beginning with the large group again. We considered some of the potential racial issues that will inevitably come up in a discussion of poverty. We broke out into smaller groups and shared our personal experiences, our first awareness of racial differences and what impact, if any, it had on us. Again, it was illuminating to hear how honest and straightforward that conversation could be in a small group.

During a break, we were encouraged to sign up for some committees that will do the work of organizing the study circle process. Gwen reviewed some of the organizational needs in planning the study circle process. One of the key areas is communication. Three groups were then formed to discuss ways to communicate with and attract the participation of three separate groups, the been here’s, the come here’s, and the come back here’s. Those ideas were then shared with the whole group at large.

Finally, we had an opportunity to meet as smaller groups around four areas, planning, recruiting facilitators, recruiting participants, and communication. When we all got together as a large group afterwords, it was clear that we had only scratched the surface of what each of those committees needed to accomplish. As a result, it was determined that the planned timeline for implementing the study circles needed to be adjusted to allow for more time to properly organize the study circles for success.