Now we have the Questions!
May 19th, 2008 by Administrator
Many thanks go out to the 25 participants who came together for our first Northfield Commons Café! We all drew out pictures of our visions and dreams for community, and after sharing, we came up with our questions. Many thanks to Norman Butler, who brought it two bottles of wine to Tiny’s, yet had to leave to take care of other business at the Contented Cow. And ultimately, many more thanks go out to Tim Sellars of Tiny’s for staying open late for this event! We love Tiny’s!
Pictures will be coming soon of the event!
Here are the questions that came out, all unedited. In our next café, we will wrench through these questions, and begin talking about how we might go about answering them. If you would like to join the discussion, these questions will also be posted on our new Bulletin Board – just register and start the discussion!
Our Questions:
- What are initial steps we can take to make our vision come true?
- Which ideas should we concentrate on first?
- What are our current resources and how can we share those resources now?
- How can we not seem isolated from the rest of the community? Are we just talking to ourselves?
- How will we elect good leaders?
- Could this group serve as a source of reliable information that could help us build community? (Including information about forces that threaten community)
- How can we engage farmers in the conversation on economic sustainability of farm land?
- How do we convert Ag Land to Farm Land, and how do we distinguish between them?
- How can we influence the creation of future urban co-housing at a city planning and development perspective (including self-reliance, sustainability, diversity, animal friendly, edible landscape, permaculture)?
- How can we strengthen the true feeling of community within our community?
- What can we do next – besides meeting and talking?
- How do we get from our visions to reality?
- What are the small (or big) steps we can make NOW?
- How do we (well meaning, idealistic people with many separate visions of what would be good to work on) come together and settle on ONE doable plan?
- How do we determine what is doable (practical, within the range of the possible)?
- How do we fund any concrete plans we put into play?