A Dialogue & A Guest Posting Series
We are happy to announce the first guest-posting series on the SCOPEblog! SCOPE is partnering with the Peace Education and Action Center and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to start a community dialogue in three important areas: Rethinking Education, Restoring Justice and Respecting Environment.
The conversation will start with guest columns on each issue appearing in the Herald-Tribune. Dr. Gordon “Mike” Michalson, President of New College of Florida (Rethinking Education), Dr. Gordon Bazemore, Professor and Chair of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and Director of the Community Justice Institute at Florida Atlantic University (Restoring Justice) and Don Hall, Founder of Transition Sarasota (Respecting Environment) will be submitting the initial columns. The Herald-Tribune will direct readers to the SCOPE website, where the columns will be reposted, to continue the dialogue on this blog.
On April 9th and 10th, the Peace Education and Action Center will host their second annual Teach Peace Conference with the same three focus areas. We hope the dialogue that begins through these multiple channels and the actions that result will bring about positive changes for our community.
Check back in the next few days for the first column, on Respecting Environment.
[Picture Added] Show us: What’s on your mind?
Greetings friends,
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
I agree! I think images are a rich and powerful tool for understanding and contributing to the world around us. As an artist myself, I’m intrigued by what could happen if each of us more freely exchanged the visual in community as a way to share, suggest, interact, and make sense of things.
The rest of my coworkers at SCOPE share my curiosity about images as a way to exchange and create in community. So, we invite you to send us an image that tells us:
~
As we move ahead in 2010, what image best expresses what is most on your mind?
~
I also believe that skills in communicating with images are more common among us (and within us) than we think. As Pablo Picasso said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
So–no matter what you believe or have been told about your own “artistic” ability, let this be your permission to reclaim the title from your childhood! Your image can be a photo, a painting or drawing, a collage, a scribble. Use whatever angle most inspires you–personal, family, neighborhood, community, country, world. Include words if you think it needs an explanation.
How-to:
1. Send an original image (photo/drawing/painting/etc.) in .jpeg format to us via email at scope@scopexcel.org with “Photo for SCOPE Blog” in the subject line.
2. Look for your image to be posted on this blog within the week.
3. Invite your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, or the next person you meet to share as well!
We look forward to seeing what’s on your mind.
-April & the SCOPE Team
Our first response is below:
“Never Give Up!”
-From Gary C.
February 23, 2010
Leann F.
March 8, 2010
Reflection - Projection - Inquiry
It’s the end of the year. It’s that one time when reflection is frequent and broad. We all know that reflection is vital to each of us throughout the year and it also matters to the organizations we engage as well as our neighbors, families and the community. It just seems like it is more OK at the end of one year and the beginning of another. As we think about this time and our reflections, maybe there are some questions that can help us along.
• What brought you joy in 2009 and what would bring you joy during this next year?
• What transgressions do you recall from this past year? Yours and others?
• What capacity for forgiveness do you hope for and what capacity do you have to forgive?
• What renewal do you wish for yourself, for others and for the community?
• With whom do you hope to surround yourself in the coming year?
• How will your beliefs be challenged in 2010 and how open will you be to change?
• How will you purposefully reflect in your daily life and relationships so as to make them better?
May each of you enjoy the grace of others who care deeply about you and who are forgiving.
May you have the wisdom to speak with honesty and compassion.
May our community heal economically and may that healing be realized by the many not just the few.
May the seeds of renewal sprout quickly and with strength – we all can use it.
Happy holidays and sincere wishes for the coming year.
[UPDATED] The Year in 3
Thank you for your comments on 2009 - we’ve put them into a wordle to represent visually. The more often a word was mentioned, the larger it appears in the image below.
We’re curious…
If you were to choose 3 WORDS to describe 2009, what would they be?
This is open — You can come from whichever perspective makes sense to you—personal, community, national, etc.
Jobs and Civic Engagement
There has been a long-standing claim that in those communities where residents are civically engaged there is a better life as measured by many things including more employment – jobs – economy. It strikes me now that with the national and local economy suffering and with so many people out of work, the impact on civic engagement cannot be good. The Civic Health Index - 2009 is a recent survey on this topic.
That survey was conducted in May of this year and some troubling data confirms this connection. Nationally more than 12 million people were unemployed when that survey was conducted. That is twice the number from one year earlier and our local environment is not better, with unemployment here in our county about 20% higher than the national rate.
My intention here is not so much to focus on the impact on civic engagement as it is to emphasize the importance of thinking about economy as an element of civic engagement. They are inextricably intertwined. One happens perhaps as a consequence of the other and neither is a pre-requisite since economy/jobs happen from connections and relationships and when people are employed there is also more connection – civic engagement.
Most jobs are secured through personal connections. That is, my neighbor or relative knows of an opening at his/her place of employment. When conditions in a neighborhood facilitate the exchange of such information there is an increased chance of finding a job. And in this case one can define neighbor broadly to include the businesses that are in or close to a neighborhood.
In a neighborhood in Denver a group of neighbors chose to set up meetings with all of the businesses (possible employers) within walking distance of the neighborhood. They talked with these businesses about their connection based upon where they are – in or close to the neighborhood; they were defined as “neighbor-businesses.” Many of the potential employers agreed that as openings became available they would let the neighborhood know first or early. Some even promised to give preference to local residents.
This happened because people in that neighborhood in Denver were connected around something they cared about. Let’s pay attention to the relationship between economy/jobs and civic connectedness. I think there is some “juice” that matters to both.
Now, the question. If the fact is that most jobs are found through mining personal relationships and, if the depth and significance of this particular economic downturn is more severe locally than nationally, and if the civic vitality is correlated with personal economic health – then what are three ideas that come to your mind related to this issue?
6-Word Contest Winner!
Our 6-Word Contest winner is Evadne Mela! Congratulations! Evadne has won a $25 bookstore gift certificate.
Her winning novel is: Rug burns, shotgun wedding. 50th anniversary.
To read the runners up, click here.
Thank you to everyone who entered - there were so many great novels.
Lime Lake - First and Second Investors
I took Euline Myrick to the Tiki Hut at O’Leary’s last week. We talked about a meeting that Euline invited me to attend the previous week at the Newtown Rec. Center. This meeting, half-celebration and half “next steps,” was the culmination of several years of work aimed at turning a retention pond into a community recreation asset - Lime Lake.
What is remarkable about this is the combination of past and potential. The story of Euline and the North County Community Organization is one of resolve. Frequent and exasperating bureaucratic barriers are now largely in the rear-view mirror; the opportunity lays in front of all the parties for the citizen-inspired and citizen-led transformation of this neglected lake to also be citizen-controlled. The norm would be for the institutions, many of whom were the very ones that generated resistance and inertia, to now assume control and credit.
It can take a different course. With an abiding commitment to paying attention to each of the next steps and to reflecting with one another along the way, this project and permanent community asset could also be an example for how citizens and institutions can alter the typical dependency relationship that often leads to multi-party disappointment.
What will it take? Maybe it will require vigilance and open conversations about the mutual desire for citizens to continue to be the decision-makers and for there to be a sense of ownership that is not an illusion but a deep reality. The institutions are not serving “customers” at Lime Lake, they are working with citizens who are producing their community. If things go well, the institutions will be thought of and will think of themselves as second investors, performing those tasks that institutions do well and leaving to citizens the knowledge that Lime Lake is their brainchild and they are the first investors; it is THEIRS.
Congratulations to the citizens of Lime Lake, the North County Community Organization and to my friend, Euline Myrick, a graduate of the Grassroots Leadership Initiative.
SCOPEs Six-Word Novel Contest
UPDATE: The contest is now closed. We will share the results on the blog by the end of October.
SCOPE invites you to write a six-word novel: an entire story in exactly six words.
FLASH FICTION! Can you say it in just six words?
The classic example is by Ernest Hemingway: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
We borrowed this idea from www.blueavocado.org who recently held a similar contest. A Blue Avocado judge notes: “Flash fiction differs from a vignette in that the flash-fiction work contains the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles/ complications, resolution . . . The limited word length forces some of these elements to be hinted at or implied.”
Read their winning entries at
http://www.blueavocado.org/content/6-word-novel-contest-winners
Have fun - be creative - and don’t hold back!!
Post your entry in the comments to this post. Contest is open till September 30th. Our panel of outside judges will select finalists and a winner. The winner will receive a gift certificate to a local bookstore!
Full, Empty & the First Lady
A few weeks ago, I followed an email link to this speech by Michelle Obama, delivered on June 16th in Washington DC. It does a wonderful job at describing the spirit, orientation, and aim of what we at SCOPE care about and work to practice locally.
(Follow link and scroll down to the bold text.)
http://www.abcdinstitute.org/faculty/obama/
This part stood out for me:
“all of us, every single one of us breathing in this community, in this planet, those of us serving and those of us who are being served, [are] all both half-full and half-empty. We all have skills and talents that make us good friends, family members, workers, and leaders, and we also have needs and shortcomings that come along with those strengths. We can’t do well serving these communities…if we believe that we, the givers, are the only ones that are half-full, and that everybody we’re serving is half-empty. Communities are filled with assets that we need to better recognize and mobilize if we’re really going to make a difference”
I think that you can know a powerful philosophy or approach to doing things when, no matter how many times you return to its founding ideas, you see how much space you have to grow into actually practicing it as a human being throughout your day. The asset-based approach, for me, always keeps me humbled and growing.
When I read this and sit back to think about my work, it’s easy for me to pick through how much space my community has to grow to really understand the heart of this approach. I don’t see a broad awareness of how disempowering it is to simply “serve” someone, creating a relationship that places greater priority upon one-way giving from “giver” to “needy” than upon learning about and finding a way to draw upon the “full” half of the recipient. On the other end, I also see how people in client or citizen roles default into consumers of services rather than spending time thinking with others about what they can do as producers of the kind of change they want to see.
How can I better help the people I work with in community to grasp the simple efficiency of this approach-of focusing on assets, gifts, talents, and opportunities for connecting them to realize shared goals?
One thing I can do is to expose myself to stories of what great things happen when people choose to think and act like this. At the same time, I think I also must take the First Lady’s words to heart that my work will not be effective “if we believe that we, the givers, are the only ones that are half-full, and that everybody we’re serving is half-empty.”
Instead of spending so much time and energy worrying about how to impart my knowledge of this way of doing things, this speech reminds me that any good philosophy is about the walk, not the talk. That is, I want to challenge myself to replace my “do-gooder” illusion that others are “emptier” than me with a constant preoccupation with what treasures of skill, talent, or vision is already alive in those I meet. What are their assets? How are they “full”? How can we best exchange our assets?
I’m interested in what others take away from this speech. What does it affirm for you? Where do you see space for growth, in yourself or your community?
~
Running in the Grocery Store
I’ve got a confession: sometimes I see someone I know in the grocery store and I purposefully head down another aisle. Not because I don’t like that person, but because I simply don’t feel like making that nice smalltalk that is required of grocery store interactions.
At a networking event, I would never do that. In my work persona, I would greet them warmly and ask how things are going.
I thought about this after reading a blog entry over at the Social Citizens blog, which asks “Are you a two faced social networker.” It made me realize I’m uncomfortable blending the personal with the professional on social networking sites, for sure. Take Facebook – it wasn’t around when I was in college, but I joined shortly after I graduated and so there are some pictures from college on there. I use it as a way to connect with my friends, not as a way to share SCOPE stories, but of course there has been some overlap. Because I recently got friended by some colleagues, I sanitized my profile & untagged myself from pictures. I also begrudged doing this. I’m on Twitter, but I purposely don’t use my real name so that I can keep in touch with my friends and not be identified as a SCOPEr if I send a tweet that someone thinks is questionable.
But it’s not like social networking sites exist in a vacuum – this extends to my real life (grocery store) behavior as well. Looking at this list of “Ways to Build Community” I realize that I don’t do these things. I mean, I know my neighborhood and wave to my neighbors and talk to them and even share a mower with one of them, but I cannot imagine ever doing #9 (Surprise a new neighbor by making a favorite dinner–and include the recipe). Or #121 (Buy a big hot tub). Or #140 (Hang out at the town dump and chat with your neighbors as you sort your trash at the Recycling Center - Seriously? I’m never hanging out at the dump).
It’s not as though I’m a curmudgeon who hates everyone on the weekends or anything. Thinking about it, it comes down to me not always being willing to do what I ask others to do. I sometimes choose not to build community. I think that’s ok and sane and normal. But, is making that choice limiting my growth or the potential for my community’s growth? Is it a reasonable reaction to there only being 24 hours in a day and so much time I can allot to community building activities? Is it just that some people have higher thresholds for interactions with people and community members? What do you think?
Recognizing that I sometimes make the choice not to build community makes the enormity of SCOPE’s mission seem more real to me. It also reveals how SCOPE’s mission intertwines with each citizen’s choices.
How about you? Do you selectively friend people when social networking? Do you ever do the grocery store aisle dash?