A community conversation about
a sustainable future in changing times.
Click here for Working Group Meeting Schedule
March 27, 2009
Conference Videos and Slides
Videos from the Sustainable Action, Sustainable Leadership conference are now posted on TellurideWebTV. The presentations by JoDee Powers and Myles Rademan with the Working Group Panel discussion are all in one file here. Breakout workshops by JoDee and Myles are separate files.
The entire set of slides for Myles Rademan (both Keynote and Workshop) is here.
The slides for JoDee Powers' Workshop are here.
March 19, 2009
Quick comments on the conference
Probably the most important thing to say about yesterday's conference is this: It was only the beginning.
Since the event was held at a time that was inconvenient for a lot of people, we will be making an effort to get the videos and other support information from the conference out to the community. The videos will be posted on TellurideWebTV.com in the next few days, and this page will link directly to the videos when they are ready.
February 13, 2009
Thoughts on Economic Development
I recently came across two articles in the Winter 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association regarding economic development. They take completely different directions, but both touch on concepts that may be worth exploring. You can find them in PDF format on the project wiki.
The issues raised in these two articles are worthy of a general discussion:
- The New Firm Entry article discusses the differences in how new businesses form and grow in urban, suburban and rural areas. As might be suspected, the primary constraint on new business growth in a rural area is the size of its potential market. But this article also gives a good overview of local economic development theory in its introductory discussion.
- The Vernacular Culture article discusses the economic value of a neighborhood identity. Although the study focuses on neighborhoods in urban areas, there are a number of concepts that appear to transfer to our situation – centered on the idea that local culture is an economically valuable asset for neighborhood business.
Together, they build a general idea of how we might approach two questions:
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of rural areas in the creation and survival of new businesses?
- How does local culture and a sense of place contribute to the local economy?
I've set up a discussion page on the project wiki for this subject. If you want to participate, click on the "discussion" tab at the top of the page.
January 29, 2009
Working Group Schedule Poll
We've sent out a series of emails to participants who have signed up for a Working Group asking about meeting availability. The Schedule will be based responses received by Sunday, February 1st.
If you haven't signed up yet or want to participate in a different group, you can visit the Working Group Scheduling page to add your name to the list.
A meeting schedule will be posted early next week.
January 25, 2009
Kickoff Video
A video of the Our Changing Regional Economy presentation from the Kickoff meeting has been posted on Telluride WebTV. In some cases, the PowerPoint graphics don't display well (the slide show wasn't designed for low resolution web broadcast), so you may want to look at the pdf copies of the slides posted on the project wiki and listen to the audio from the website.
January 19, 2009
Continuing the Conversation
The next RSVP meeting has been scheduled for Saturday, January 24th, 3:00 pm at the Wilkinson Library Program Room (the large room on the right as you enter the library). Please note that the time was incorrectly posted before.
This meeting will continue the conversation started at the Kickoff Meeting last week, further define the various Working Groups and describe the research and visioning tasks in greater detail.
You are welcome to join the conversation at any time. If you can't be at the next meeting, you can still participate online via the RSVP wiki. Future meetings are open to new participants at any time (the Schedule page has the meeting outline and will also have the most current information). In addition to meetings, you can participate in other ways:
- Working Groups: Forming now, the groups will go deeper into the research about changing conditions.
- Paired and small-group interviews: Get together with colleagues and friends to research each other and report the results online.
- Online personal contributions: Consider the research questions and post your own answers.
The starting point for self-guided participants is the Meeting Activity Plan . The more answers we get to each research question, the more our changing conditions and sustainability visions will come into focus.
January 14, 2009
Wiki Open
The project wiki is now open to the public. Prior to this, you could only view and submit comments.
Participants are encouraged to contribute to the wiki. Basic instructions and guidelines are posted on the home page of the wiki. You do not need to be signed up for wikispaces to contribute, but the credibility of your contributions and the ability for others to discuss your contributions with you is greatly enhanced by identifying yourself with a wikispaces profile.
Note that some of the pages of the wiki are protected by the project staff. Contributions and questions for these pages are still encouraged, but should be submitted via the discussion page for the page in question.
January 08, 2009
Bring Your Questions
Part of the Kickoff Meeting will be a presentation called "Our Changing Regional Economy". The project consultants recently staged a run through of this presentation for the Steering Committee and a few invited guests. One of the striking things that happened during this meeting was the number of excellent and detailed questions that the presentation generated.
We hope to see a repeat of this at the Kickoff Meeting.
The questions that the presentation generates are very important to bring focus to the Working Group efforts that follow. There is no better way to know what information might be useful to other people than to ask them what they'd like to know.
So what do YOU want to know about the regional economy?
What to Expect at the Kickoff Meeting
As part of the Kickoff Meeting on Tuesday, we will be doing two things:
First, there will be a presentation given entitled "Our Changing Regional Economy" that sketches a broad overview of the key components and relationships the local economy, followed by some detailed discussion of the local visitor and real estate/development/construction components and their relationship to employment, housing and transportation.
Second, we will describe the Working Group process and form groups around 6 or 7 key general areas of activity that comprise the local economy. The Working Groups will be encouraged to collaborate on answering two basic questions:
- What information do you think would be helpful for others to know about the state, changing conditions and/or business-as-usual projections for this component of the economy?
- Based on your own experience in this component of the economy, as well as what you have learned from your Working Group’s assessment, imagine yourself here in five years, repeating this assessment, and being surprised and pleased with the progress you see. What do you see?
Once Working Groups are formed, we will have further meetings with these groups in preparation for the final conference in mid-March.
December 24, 2008
Press Release - December 24th
TNCC launches new phase in the Regional Sustainability Visioning Project and issues a call to arms.
San Miguel and Ouray Counties, Colorado (December 22, 2008) – The New Community Coalition (TNCC) announced this week the launch of the next phase the Regional Sustainability Visioning Project (RSVP) and issued a call for community action.
“It’s absolutely essential for our community that we act immediately towards sustainable economic solutions,” says Kris Holstrom, Director of TNCC. “If you live or work here and you’d like to continue to do so, we’re asking you to put on your thinking hat and roll up your sleeves. When times are tough there’s a window of opportunity for us to meet these challenges creatively. The whole notion of sustainability is big picture. Many of us have in-depth knowledge of our own ‘slice of the economic pie. As a community we need to share our ingredients and come up with a recipe for the whole. We’ve got to do this together and we need everyone’s input!”
RSVP’s kickoff meeting is scheduled for January 13, at 6 p.m. at the Mountain Village Council Meeting Room. An impressive 13 member Steering Committee, formed to oversee the project, is hoping to attract a large and diverse group of community members to the meeting.
