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On Saturday, March 19th, Fernwoodians sought refuge from a world of troubling news, turning instead to a world of pos-

sibilities right here in their own neighbourhood.Over one hundred friends and neighbours, resi-

dents and business people gathered in the Fernwood Community Centre to share their hopes and visions for Fernwood. They generated an astonishing num-ber of concrete ideas to make it happen.

“Ideas were hailing down fast and furious,” said Josh Schmidt, Sustainability and Volunteer Coordin-ator with Fernwood Neighbourhood Resources Group (FNRG), which hosted the event. “Good thing we had graffiti walls and feedback forms to capture them before they got away!”

Participants engaged in three rounds of café-style conversation on the cultural, environmental and

economic aspects of our neighbourhood. Recurring themes across the cafés included:• Creating a supportive environment for local busi-

nesses and skills, such as a local business associa-tion, a directory of businesses and skills, resources for co-ops and social enterprises, mentoring net-works, and facilitation of neighbourhood barter-ing system.

• Food! Encouraging more local gardens and boule-vard transformations, revitalizing and expanding the farmers’ market, and establishing a coop-erative commercial kitchen for local caterers and food producers.

• Affordable housing – participants repeatedly raised the need for more low-cost housing to keep the neighbourhood vibrant and welcoming to a range of residents.

• Many participants also voiced a desire to main-tain the friendly, independent and small-scale nature of the current commercial and residential mix in the neighbourhood.

There’s an enormous amount of great ideas to work with, and Fernwood NRG staff will be wading through it all over the next weeks to bring some order to them. These ideas will help shape the new strategic plan that’s going to be developed by the Fernwood NRG Board over the next few months. Watch the next issue of the Village Vibe for more details on the outcomes of the day, and next steps.

Thanks to everyone who came out to engage in the conversation about how to make our favourite neighbourhood that much better. We look forward to seeing the visions we co-created turn into reality!

NEIGHBORHOOD VIS IONING FORUM 2011

Fernwood Engulfed in Storm of Ideas! ›› Lisa Matthaus

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A s a relatively new resident of Fernwood I had no idea what to expect from the Neighbourhood Visioning Forum. With coffee and croissant in hand, I began the

day by moving through the various business kiosks at the event setup in a traditional ‘trade show’ format. I was enjoying the details of the Urban Village and Community Mapping initiative when a racket took my attention away.

Perspectives from an attendee

Only in Fernwood would a lovely tin-pot and acous-tic guitar Beatles cover alert us to the ‘press conference’ down below in the gymnasium. This was a fitting way to end the warm up and start the real show. In front of a large turnout, Fernwood NRG Executive Director Lee Herrin spoke directly, asking us to bring Fernwood our dreams. The floor was then handed over to Peter, an able facilitator. One of Peter’s themes in his remarks, bring-ing the global down to the local, appeared to pull the whole meeting into this grandiose historical narrative. His academic journey into the meaning of words, such as revolution (revolving, never ending) or conversation (to dance together), furthered the idea that we were a part of a larger, shared community.

We were then asked to move to well decorated and

›› Tanner Oscapella

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colour-themed tables, set up into three sections each focusing on a specific type of issue: Cafe Verde (Environ-ment), Cafe Cultura (Society) and Cafe Prospero (Econ-omy). I grabbed my fourth cup of joe and sat down with three other strangers. All of a sudden it hit me: what do I actually want in Fernwood? Compared to other neigh-bourhood’s in Victoria, I had fallen into complacency by all that Fernwood had to offer; the recent addition of a grocery store had settled my largest community complaint. But then I realized that food security was still a big issue, and that a local general practitioner would be quite useful, and that a beer and wine store was on a few other people’s minds as well... and all of a sudden we had more ideas than three 20 minute conversations could hold. Luckily, a trusted ‘Table-Host’ got everything

down. Still, the most common theme throughout the discussions was someone discovering that their idea was already in place. This was wonderful, but it also showed that communication was still a big issue even in such a small neighbourhood.

Breaking for lunch, things flowed nicely out of the cafe conversations, emboldening people to sit down and chat with more strangers. Representatives of each Cafe then attempted synthesize all of the issues in a ‘Talk Show’ on stage in front of the now-seated audience. Although help-ful for summarizing, this proved difficult in expressing all of the nuanced ideas pouring out of the audience. Not by chance, large swathes of blank paper had been posted up on the walls to help with this problem. People had filled the sheets of paper, affectionately named ‘graffiti walls,’

with ideas for Fernwood’s future. Every attendee was then given three red dots, each counting as one vote, to place near an idea of their choosing: ‘dot-mocracy,’ as it was called. As people eagerly placed their votes and wound their way out of the Fernwood Community Centre, the day came to an end.

Only now in retrospect do I see how well organized the whole operation was. Attendants to clear tables, ample portions of good food, note-takers ensuring our discus-sions weren’t lost in the heat of the moment, a simple ‘dot-mocratic’ mechanism and quaint music cues for the audience quietly kept the event on course. Such organ-ization and enthusiasm seems to be contagious, as I left eagerly awaiting my next opportunity to dive right back into my newly shared community!

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A BIG thank you to all those who volunteered their time and energy to make the Visioning Forum a success!

Facilitator

Peter Norman of Challenge Education Associates

Volunteers

Brock HaugCaitlin DaviesGeoff CrossKelsey SingbeilLisa MatthausMatt TakachNancy MacGregorSarah AmyotTania Wegwitz

Tony NelsonZoë EaklePaula DeBeckLauren WarbeckMadi MacRaeRoving MinstrelsDylan Moher“Timmy James”

Sound Technician & DJ

Mark Ednie

Videographer

Corinne Innes

Staff

Angie NolanAyleen LarsenCheyenne ArnasonFiona BongartsJosh SchmidtKate NauglerLee HerrinLenore RankinMaia AnsteyMila Czemerys

Sponsors

Capital Iron Victoria Times-ColonistGarside Signs