Horizons Action Forum Completed December 16th
Tuesday September 16th saw the culmination of the first round of Horizons Study Circles with the Community Action Forum. The forum, attended by forty-four participants in study circles and special guests, enjoyed a delicious Mexican style supper and reviewed the Horizons Road Map. A member of each study circle reported out the 3 “low hanging fruit” action items that the group had come up with. The group used multi-voting to select several ideas to put emphasis on during the next 30 days. Interested folks volunteers for some of the teams.
Supper was prepared by the Butte School District Food Service personnel, lead by Lupe Haney and assisted by Lori Rexford and Sue Heller. The super supper included chicken and beef fajitas, Spanish rice, refried beans, salsa and chips, gelatin fruit salad and cake.
After supper, Lennie Ramacher and Chad Cheyney reviewed the Horizons community development program. The program is funded by the Northwest Area Foundation and delivered in Idaho by the University of Idaho Cooperative Extension. The program is an effort to help the citizens of small rural communities come together to fight poverty. Mr. Ramacher reviewed the “Horizon Road Map” which is the series of programs that the Foundation is funding as a package to help communities build social and community capital. The programs include study circles developed by Everyday Democracy, which concluded with the Action Forum. Coming up in January will be LeadershipPlenty, a nationally acclaimed curriculum, developed by the Pew Partnership for Civic Change. Continuing, professional and academic credit can be obtained for participating. This program puts emphasis on developing personal leadership and group management skills. Finally in April, David Burel, an internationally recognized community development facilitator will help the Butte Communities develop a shared vision at a Visioning Rally. During the summer and fall “action teams” will form to work on implementing work that has been in planning, and to identify missing resources and educational opportunities. The Foundation will also make available up to $10,000 in seed-grants for the community to implement plans, after the Visioning is complete.
Arco I Arco II Moore Howe High School
Safe Community Values Peaceful Positive Legacy Safety
Respectful Opportunity Thriving Prosperity Family Values
Spiritual Education Diversity Peaceful United in Community
Prosperous Harmony Community Spirit Friendly Hardworking
Proud Diversity Scenic Respect Caring
Words used by various circles to describe the community they would like to see created.
Representatives of the five study circles talked about their circles, vision and “low-hanging fruit” action items. Mr. Ramacher explained that in order for the community to continue to be funded at least one of the items needs to have significant action taken on it by January 15. Dallas Taylor, representing the group in the High School identified a new track, a swimming pool and a theater as important assets to work on for providing places for youth to gather. One of the Arco circles, represented by Tawna Jones, found that community potlucks to increase communication and networking, store front renovation for improved community pride and a youth council to help expand participation in community decision making were important. The other Arco circle, represented by Pastor Mike Harris could see a need for a community welcome wagon and comprehensive guide for those moving into the community, a comprehensive paper and on-line guide to social services for those in need and improved methods of accessing services of the Department of Commerce, as well as a local job listing service could help in the community. The circle in Moore identified a mentoring program to help youth network with established professionals, a website to promote all of the communities in the area and an area cleanup and beautification program to build community pride, as being high on their list. The folks in Howe, found that they had lost some sense of community and wanted to redevelop this by providing Christmas stockings to single members of the community who would be spending Christmas without family, build a skating rink and a sledding hill to give youth and adults a place to get together.
21 Community Welcome Wagon 9 Community Potluck Meal(s)
8 Mentor Program 0 Christmas stockings for single people in the community
26 Build a new track
4 Comprehensives Social Services Listing 9 Store Front Renovation
14 Website 2 Build an ice skating pond
10 Swimming Pool
2 Local Dept of Labor Access and Local Job Listing Service
2 Youth Council w/Youth Involvement 15 Area cleanup-Area beautification
0 Build a snow hill for sledding 0 Theater
Action ideas developed by each study circle that were felt might be implemented in the near term with low financial investment.
Each of the groups had come up with more than 40 ideas that might help the community grow. Listings of these other ideas will be available on the blog at http://arcomoore.communityblogs.us/ as they become available. These more complex ideas and others will be the grist for the Visioning Rally and the Action Teams to work on.
When the explanations were all clear, every member of the gathering was given an opportunity to indicate which items they felt should have priority. Cheyney pointed out that this did not mean that the other ideas could not be worked on, or that they would be discarded or lost. The new track, the welcome wagon, area cleanup and website, garnered the greatest number of votes, and participants were given an opportunity to sign up to become involved in one or more of these activities. Other items which had been identified, such as the Christmas stockings were already going forward.
If you are interested in working any of these ideas, please contact the Extension Office at 527-8587 or ccheyney@uidaho.edu and we will put you in touch with others. To learn more about Horizons Butte Communities, check out the Horizons blog at http://arcomoore.communityblogs.us/.