Tonights community meeting: Thank you to the facilitators of this community meeting tonight for bringing everyone together and offering food. it was very nice of you to do that. I want to thank the the funding agencies who hired you to do this. First I want to Say How Very proud I Was Of The Youth Tonight. Seeing them stand up and speak their mind and heart gave me great hope for the future. The leadership in the meeting had a definite agenda and I hope that their goal were met. the fact that those young people were able to speak past the agenda was encouraging too many of us. WHile I think their comments went over the heads of some they were definitely heard by many.Shawn Middelton spoke about the communitys need to heal from some of the past events, and how hard it is to move on without that allowance for healing. I found that to be so very true especially after watching the interaction. Andy Sarcia Peltierspoke to the need for the community to have regular meetings, amongst other Excellent points. He suggested open monthly community meetings on a regular day, at a regular place, so that a need for Internet notices wasnt as necessary, meeting the needs of the many community members who do not have internet or live by Facebook. It was an excellent suggestion and I hope somebody heard it. other community members also had excellent suggestions, some of which were written down and shared and some of which were not so easily heard.. I like to listen to the ones that are not so easily heard as those are often the ones we need to hear the most.I think that the history in our community of organizations and programs counting us as clients for funding but not actually engaging us as humans caused some folks to not interact completely because no one had an answer to exactly what was happening there tonight. I had questions that I was never able to get answers to even when I asked Them quietly and politely. but there were good things that came out of it and information that I hope will be shared with everyone. I hope some good things come for all of us. one thing that was a little sad, the facilitators didnt seem to know what had been going on for the last couple of years here. There seem to be an assumption that the community had not been putting in energy. It would have been good if the 10 community leaders they interviewed, & I dont know who those 10 were, had told the facilitator how much the community has done lately. For instance, United Indians,definitely in their final hours, were not saved by 10 community leaders. They were saved by regular community member putting in hours and hours volunteer time meeting with King County officials, city officials, state officials, tribal officials, nationally recognized funders, bringing to bear every resource we could find. It was, in part, the everyday Indian who use their influence to get the funding that has kept United Indians afloat. I remember when Fern Naomi Renville insisted on community people coming too the board meeting, and taking a lot of flack from other people for involving the community so much. Gail Morris meeting with and responding to the families needs, finding real resources to help people, not just writing a report about us. It wasnt 10 community leaders who recently had a King County Council meeting advocating for the continued bus route to the Daybreak Star building. actually fern was the only representative from United Indians Who .showed up there to represent. Chris and pamela came and spoke, and Sean Middleton for Chief Seattle Club, but everyone else were just regular everyday community members. even the money for the new early childhood education program was brought in by community members, who never asked for recognition are stardom for their contribution. And every person who chipped in $5 or $10 or $100 that they didnt really have but gave anyway have kept that program alive. the people who had no money to give but offered a prayer every day have kept that program alive. in return for their contribution they go to a community meeting and are hushed, gossip about, call troublemakers, called negative, or worse yet, ignored. one common thread I heard tonight in conversation was that if were going to be counted for funding for programs we are to be respected by those programs. people tonight were asked to break into five groups and come up with ideas. I heard really wonderful concepts and thoughts from the summaries of each of those groups. I honor and I applaud the work of those five groups and I fully encourage everyone of you to read whatever summary or report comes out of tonights meeting. I also honor and applAud the 6th group, the little informal conversations that happened that was so very important. There were future community meetings announced that are Apparently not connected to this group but sounds really good. Theyre calling them Red Talk, a take off from something else call TED talk. Those meetings are going to be open for all community to voice their Thought. they said theyre going to put announcements out but the first one is in two weeks also on Wednesday also at daybreak star. I like the idea of that so much I made a commitment to make a big pot of stew or soup for their first meeting. I strongly recommend community participation in those meetings. I also strongly recommend all you leadership people should go to those community meetings and listen and find out what your community that you serve want from your program.
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 06:55:19 +0000
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