By Clare Strawn
On October 5th I attended the monthly River Road Community Organization general meeting. We were invited to sit at different round tables with topics “your Idea”, “artists,” “RRCO topics,” and “Resilience” for discussion with other neighbors. I hopped between the “your idea” table and the “RRCO topics” tables.
What struck me most was that people were not shy about jumping in…everyone wanted to talk. The eldest participant at our table shared some of her personal story in the neighborhood that people enjoyed hearing. She also had suggestions stemming from her advocacy for seniors: it’s not all about more bike lanes, seniors have important transportation needs too, can we get microphone amplification at meetings? She added the perspective of single elders to the idea of community mutual aid networks. Another woman shared lots of ideas about how to meet various needs and was fascinated by the idea of neighborhood ham radio use.
The RRCO table was also very lively, mostly discussing road safety/transportation. Beth, the table facilitator collected thoughts to bring up with the city manager at the November meeting.
The artists’ table and permaculture discussions were very popular. And the consensus summary from meeting participants was positive for the format for future meetings. After walking out of the Land Use “forum” a few days prior because it felt like more ‘blah blah blah’ from the city experts than an exchange of ideas, I too was energized by the conversational format.
People are hungry to talk to each other and have venues for connecting. It’s great to get out to a meeting, and we can also take any opportunity to get to know our neighbors and help each other out.
If you want to help facilitate building a strong neighborhood, please consider joining the RRCO board.