Action Forum held March 27. 2010

The final event of the first round of Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty in the Northern Neck took place on Saturday, March 27th. Paula Fisher, with the Visions steering committee, acted as moderator. She thanked Susan McFadden and Open Door Communications for all their work developing our logo, our promotional and recruitment mailing material. Paula went on to open the meeting with these quotes from The World Bank PovertyNet: "Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom."


"Poverty is a call to action -- for the poor and the wealthy alike -- a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities." Paula added, "Community, Community, Comm u-ni-ty, Comm – Unity. This is why we have come together today... to move from dialogue to action in designing a plan to reduce poverty in the Northern Neck."

Each group had an opportunity to share their experience, their process, their vision and their recommendations.



The Heathsville group, represented by Joe Thompson, shared the following report:

Vision:
Communities working together to move from poverty to prosperity
Purpose:
To develop an action plan for reducing poverty in Northumberland, Lancaster and other surrounding counties of Virginia
Background:
Thirteen (13) members and four (4) facilitators participated in five (5) conversation sessions of two hour durations where
a. poverty was defined, and quantified in our communities at 10%
b. problems facing the poor were identified
c. available assets were listed
d. a list of possible actions was developed, analyzed with a consensus reached recommended Action Plan

Recommended Action Plan:
Our recommended Action Plan contains three (3)elements; a Community Coordinator, a focus on jobs and a focus on education.

1. Community Coordinator: We believe our communities have both the people and the assets to reduce poverty, except for a funded Community Coordinator who will develop, coordinate, manage and measure our poverty reduction efforts. For example; we have banks, churches, schools, businesses, etc. who could work on projects; but would need someone to coordinate, organize and measure”collective efforts” full time… a Community Coordinator. Our cost estimate for one person, transportation, telephone, computer and space is $100,000 per year, which we hope would be funded initially by a grant or foundation. Further, this Community Coordinator will need an Advisory Board to guide him/her. Without someone dedicated full time to this effort real success cannot be achieved.

2. Focus on jobs! More jobs..Less poverty, period! Some opportunities are:
1.Establish a Clearinghouse for Jobs/Skills……people looking for work/people seeking jobs. 2. Create a website for free listing. 3. Establish a physical location for connecting.

3. Focus on education! Expand the use of Rappahannock Community College in providing training for jobs (Example: Austin CC “Construction Gateway Program” www.austincc.edu/bct/gateway.php and www.universitybusiness.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1543) Expand Warsaw VoTech program to adults. Provide counseling for success in work with volunteer counselors. Help people gain literacy skills for further college or skills training. The Community Coordinator will promote children’s mentoring, reading partners, etc. with churches, civic organizations, etc. to help children’s education.

Prepared by Joe M. Thompson 3/24/2010
Presented by Joe M. Thompson & Tom Price

I'll continue to post the plans and recommendations over the next week, so that everyone can give each some attention. Each report represents hours of work by our many volunteers in this process. Thanks to all of them, and a special thanks to our facilitators: Torrence Harman, Lorraine Justice, Jessica Jordan, Kathleen Watson, Dave Alberts, Marilyn Warren, Lance Barton, Jason Hughes, and William Smith.

Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty

VISIONS was successful in organizing four Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty, all full, with one so large it had to be split into 2 or 3 smaller groups. The weather was our biggest obstacle, setting us back in beginning 3 of the conversations until mid-February.

The winner of the "weather dodging" award goes to our Lancaster conversation. Facilitated by Torrence Harman with some help from Lorraine Justice of Bay Aging, they managed to start right away and got in 6 meetings and still finished before everyone else! Trinity Episcopal Church on Mary Ball Road in Lancaster hosted.

The largest group was our White Stone contingent. They had to break up into 3 groups to have their discussions. They met on Saturday evenings and shared a meal. This was a younger group who needed childcare for the 12 children of the participants. Lance Barton organized and oversaw this circle, which met at the White Stone Church of the Nazarene.

The Heathsville group, led by Jessica Jordan and Kathleen Watson, had some lively conversations from the sounds of things. This is the only circle we were able to organize in Northumberland County, so we hope to expand in this area in the future. Our thanks to Pastors Rioland of Macedonia Baptist Church for hosting this conversation.

The Kilmarnock circle met at the Lancaster Community Library on Wednesday nights. Dave Alberts and Marilyn Warren facilitated this conversation. I look forward to hearing about their thoughts and ideas, as this group experienced the most fluctuation in membership and attendance.

All of these groups will come together this Saturday, March 27th, at 10:30 a.m. for the Action Forum. We will be meeting at the Upper Lancaster Ruritan Center on Route 201 near Lively. The Action Forum will provide all of our Community Conversation groups a chance to share their experience and their ideas with the larger group as a whole. Lunch will be provided and participants will have an opportunity to complete an evaluation form with their thoughts and feedback on the dialogue-to-action process.

The Action Forum is open to the public. Please let me know if you plan to attend at 577-8421 or visions.lcl@gmail.com

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.

Plans for the New Year

During October and November, Ken Rioland, Marilyn Warren and Merthia Haynie facilitated a pilot Community Conversation. Participants included Lorraine Justice (Bay Aging CAP), Sandy Griffith (Grace Church Outreach), Torrence Harman (Priest, St. Mary's Whitechapel and Trinity Episcopal Church), Jean Poole (VISIONS advisory board), Wardell Carter (Boys and Girls Club), Jessica Jordan (Family Maternity Center of the Northern Neck), and Belinda Gaskins (Social Worker). They met on Monday nights for 5 weeks. Although the Community Conversation process would normally involve 6 weeks, the final week is an Action Forum meeting when all groups come together to share their ideas with each other. Since there was only one group, they could not do the final step.

The feedback from the group was that it went well, that participants were willing to invest the time needed, and they were able to identify some tangible goals. Specifically, this group wanted to develop programs to reduce teen pregnancy and find better ways to mentor children. They felt better mentoring would provide role models and promote higher goals. They also discussed the issues of financial barriers to getting drivers licenses and GED's and were concerned about high school graduation rates.

Towards the end of this process, Lindsy Gardner and Merthia Haynie got together with some people to begin the work of recruiting facilitators for the February-March round of Community Conversations. The training for those facilitators is planned for January 16th, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Trinity Episcopal Church in Lancaster. Gwen Whiting will be on hand for that training. We hope to recruit at least 15 facilitators; some of the participants in the pilot indicated a willingness to train to facilitate other groups.

The Communications group (Susan McFadden, Marilyn Warren, Paula Fisher and I) have continued to meet about every other week. Susan and her team at Open Door Communications have been enormously helpful. They developed a logo for us and will be producing all the materials for a mailing early in January. We are close to finishing a packet of materials that will go out to churches, social service departments, and other agencies at that time. The packet will include a cover letter, explanatory information, poverty fact sheet, mini-poster, and registration forms. In addition, to promote the activities of VISIONS, I have set up a Facebook presence which we hope will increase interest and reach a wider demographic.

Cindy Balderson (Connect Rappahannock) and I have continued with the Resource Sharing Forum for Lancaster and Northumberland Counties. We held one in October and one in November, but were unable to meet in December because of holiday conflicts. We will meet again on January 21st at 9 a.m. at the Lancaster Community Library. Although we feel we have made a good beginning, we are disappointed that there has been so little follow-up use of Connect.

The Kick-off Event for the Community Conversations on Reducing Poverty will take place on January 23rd at the Ruritan Center on Rte. 201 near Lively. All participants and facilitators will be invited to attend this two-hour event and we hope to take this opportunity to assign participants to groups and ascertain any specific needs that we will need to meet to help participants, including childcare and transportation. The groups will meet from late January to early March and will conclude with an Action Event to share their ideas and strategies. Those ideas and strategies can then hopefully be incorporated into an implementation grant.

Please visit the VISIONS Facebook and become a fan! I will continue to post news here and on Facebook, as well as on Connect Rappahannock.

Progress Report

Since the last meeting of the advisory committee in October, we have continued to make progress in a number of areas.

Cindy Balderson of ConnectRappahannock and I hosted the first Lancaster/Northumberland Resource Sharing Forum meeting on October 15th at 9:00 a.m. in the Lancaster Community Library meeting room. We had a good turnout of about 20 people representing a wide variety of organizations and agencies. We gave each participant a chance to tell the rest what their mission or function was and to share any materials they had brought. I discussed the goals of VISIONS briefly, and Cindy discussed how Connect can help all these organizations, agencies, and nonprofits stay in touch and be aware of what others are doing. We passed around sign-up sheets for the Connect affinity email groups. We assigned the "homework" of inviting at least one representative of a group that had not participated in this first meeting, but should. Our next meeting is Thursday, November 19th, same time and place.

Cindy has since added the participants to their desired groups and to the general Connect list. I have followed up with a thank you email to participants with a reminder of their homework. Cindy and I hope to attend a meeting of the Gloucester Resource Council, our model for this group, next week.

Communications (Marilyn Warren, Paula Fisher, Susan McFadden) has met several times. Since one of the recommendations that came out of their initial meeting was to develop a website, I have been meeting with them as well with the idea that I might be called on to develop and maintain that website. We have focused on communication around what we had been calling "study circles" but will in future refer to as community conversations. The communications group feels that VISIONS will become better known as the entity sponsoring this conversation process. We have a preliminary logo and Susan is checking into website costs. We are developing a "fact sheet" to introduce the community conversation process and aid in recruiting.

Recruitment (Merthia Haynie, Ken Rioland) has done a great job of inviting people to participate in a pilot Community Conversation. Their next task will be to recruit facilitators for training in January.

The pilot conversation started Monday at 7:00 p.m. Marilyn Warren and Ken Rioland facilitated and will continue to do so for 4 more meetings, three of them scheduled for Monday nights at the same time. The additional meeting they will schedule as a group. They had 8 participants and expect to add 2 or 3 more next week. They are meeting at Net Cruisers Cafe in Lancaster. The owner, Holly Ransone Pleasants, has very kindly agreed to host this pilot group and is opening the cafe on Monday nights just for them.

The advisory committee will meet again this Monday, November 2nd, at 8:30 a.m. at the Lancaster library.

Advisory Board Meeting on October 5th

For those of you who couldn't make the meeting yesterday, here are my notes. I apologize for their length; we covered a fair amount of ground. Believe it or not, I left out some! (Sorry, Jack, I know it all comes down to education and jobs and it was an interesting conversation, but I'm just going to focus on the nuts and bolts.)

There was a handout which you can view at this link:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20714739/VISIONS-Advisory-Committee-Handout

In the sidebar of the handout, one of the agenda items was the executive committee's decision to rename the steering committee. The name Advisory Board or advisory committee seems to more accurately describe the role this group plays. We would like this group to be active in advising and promoting the dialog-to-action process that VISIONS has decided to sponsor in seeking community involvement and conversation on potential strategies to reduce poverty in the Northern Neck. Please take a look at the handout.

We have identified 4 core committees to work toward this process.

Marilyn Warren, Paula Fisher and Susan McFadden have begun the work of Communications. Marilyn and Paula reported on their meeting with Susan last Wednesday. They are grappling with some of the communication problems and issues. They recommend moving away from "building assets" to improving lives and building community. They feel that the term "study circles" does not really describe in a positive way what we are sponsoring and felt the term "community conversations" did. They recommend that we develop a fact sheet for media, a short bulletin piece for church newsletters, and a poverty awareness fact sheet. Susan feels strongly that VISIONS needs to develop its own website, with links to the blog, a Facebook link, media links, and so on. The domain name northernneckvisions.org is available and the cost to register that for three years is $159.95. We may need to seek sponsors for the website. In the meantime, the focus of communication will be on the community conversations VISIONS is sponsoring or facilitating. They will meet again tomorrow.

The Recruitment committee, spearheaded by Merthia Haynie and Ken Rioland, will continue to work toward gathering a group for one pilot community conversation to take place in October and November. It would be on Monday nights, probably 7:00-9:00, beginning October 19th and going for 5 weeks. Marilyn Warren has agreed to facilitate, Ken is willing to co-facilitate when he is available, but we still need one more facilitator and 10-12 participants. The pilot group will help us better understand the process and anticipate planning needs for the larger round early next year.

Planning currently consists of me and Dave Alberts, with some assistance from Paul Sciacchitano. We hope to meet this week. The number one issue for us at this point is finding a venue for the pilot conversation. The library is not available, nor is the Bank of Lancaster Community Room.
Any suggestions would be welcome. It needs to be free and at least somewhat centrally located.

The handout includes a tentative timeline; please look it over.

The final area is resource sharing. Cindy Balderson and I have already scheduled and publicized the first Resource Sharing Forum. At the June conference and at the August orientations, the issue of identifying services already in place and promoting greater collaboration and cooperation came up repeatedly. We plan to hold monthly meetings, starting Thursday, October 15th at 9:00 a.m. with a 2 hour maximum time limit. We have deliberately issued a very broad invitation to any nonprofits, government agencies, and churches who wish to share information with one another to attend. Cindy will be encouraging them to sign up for ConnectRappahannock so their profiles can be shared electronically. Jack Russell and others pointed out that phone calls are our best bet for a good turnout, so Cindy and I will meet and divide up a list of people to call. Jean Poole has agreed to help with the resource sharing effort.

Paul Sciacchitano shared some news from the River Counties Community Foundation. They were able to raise $84,000 through various matching opportunities and have met with the three counties DSS to identify where those funds might best be spent. Each DSS will receive $25,000 as a discretionary fund to distribute as they see fit to people who "fall through the cracks" in terms of the moneys the DSS normally has to give. The rest is going to the Red Cross and to area Food Banks.

Finally, we would like to set up regular monthly meetings of the Advisory Committee. Lindsy will be sending you a Doodle Poll, a free online scheduling tool, through your email, giving some choices for days and times that are possibilities. Please, please respond! It is simple to do and we want to identify the best time for all our members.

Upcoming meetings

There is a meeting of the whole steering committee coming up this Monday, October 5th, at 8:30 a.m. at the Lancaster Community Library. We hope the steering committee members will be there to hear what VISIONS has been doing and what we hope to do in the months ahead.

Also, join VISIONS and ConnectRappahannock for the first meeting of its kind in our area. Together we are hosting a Resource Sharing Forum on Thursday, October 15th at 9:00 a.m. at the Lancaster Community Library in Kilmarnock. If you are a nonprofit, government agency or church that provides services to people in need in Lancaster and Northumberland County, please join us for this opportunity to share information about who you are and what you are doing in our community.

By connecting with each other, we can be more effective in addressing issues in our area. Bring a business card or any written materials you would like to share with the other organizations, churches and agencies.

As space is limited, we ask that only one representative from each group attend. Please reply to Alison Towles at visions@lancasterlibrary.org or Cindy Balderson at rappahannockinfo@connectnetwork.org