Category Archives: Outreach and Engagement

The Greenwood CC Blog

Get Involved in Greenwood and the Greenwood Community Council!

Have you ever thought about getting more involved in your neighborhood?

 

May is Get Involved Month

Every year, the Greenwood Community Council looks for new board members and volunteers, and we could use your help now! There is a lot going on in Seattle and it’s hard to keep up. We are an all-volunteer group focused on helping Greenwood residents and businesses get involved in the neighborhood, and to make sure the Greenwood community has a vision and a voice. 

We provide:
  – Face to face dialogue to counter divisiveness and find compromises
  – Opportunities to talk directly with people shaping Greenwood
  – An open forum for all perspectives
  – Information and resources to get involved in the community

And most of the time we have a good time doing it – join us!
We are looking for people interested in chipping in:
  – Monitoring key issues affecting the neighborhood
  – Creating a better website, with news, information and resources
  – Writing for the new opinion blog we’re thinking about
  – Helping plan meetings on current topics
  – Joining our board, where we have openings now

If you’re at all interested, please check out our volunteer page to see some of the things we’d like help with and learn how to get involved.  While you’re there, take a look around our newly redesigned website and you’ll see there are many pages and resources missing – another example of something you could help with. And if you have any interest in joining our board we’d particularly like to hear from you. We’ll schedule a time to meet and discuss your thoughts and interests over a beverage of your choice. Please give it some thought – there’s a lot going on!

Engage your neighbors

Help launch the GCC Outreach and Engagement Committee


First 2017 Meeting of the
 Outreach and Engagement Committee  
7:00 PM Wednesday, March 29
The Couth Buzzard, 8310 Greenwood Ave N

On Wednesday, March 29 we’ll have the first meeting of a re-launched Greenwood Community Council committee on neighborhood outreach and engagement.  This committee will focus on bringing new voices into neighborhood discussions, helping people who don’t normally go to meetings get their voice heard, and help develop common ground on issues that polarize people and problems needing resolution in Greenwood.  Some immediate projects might include improving our website, and establishing a promotional restaurant passport program, but all ideas are welcome.

Please join us! We welcome participation large and small. Even just contributing your perspective to brainstorming will be helpful.

Proposed agenda:

  • Introductions 
  • Interests and ideas – around the table
  • Summary, action items – what to focus on first.
  • Future meetings, meeting location, etc.

First Meeting of the new GCC Outreach and Engagement Committee

First Meeting of the new Greenwood Community Council
Outreach and Engagement Committee  
7:00 PM this Wednesday December 2
Chocolati, 8319 Greenwood Ave N

(If you’re getting this in your email, it’s because you’ve indicated an interest in neighborhood outreach and engagement sometime over the last couple of years.  If you’re still interested, read on!  If not, you can click on “manage your subscriptions” at the bottom of this email to remove your name from the mailing list)

This Wednesday we’ll have the first meeting of a new Greenwood Community Council committee on neighborhood outreach and engagement.  This committee will focus on bringing new voices into neighborhood discussions, helping people who don’t normally go to meetings get their voice heard, and help develop common ground on issues that polarize people and problems needing resolution in Greenwood.  That’s my clumsy way of introducing it – what we actually do will depend on the interests of whoever shows up.

Please join us – everyone is welcome!  Whether or not you can make it Wednesday, if you’re interested let us know by filling in this survey monkey survey (though you can skip the questions about regular meeting dates because we’ve picked a regular meeting date – the first Wednesday of each month).  

Proposed agenda:

  • Introductions 
  • Survey results – to get conversation started
  • Interests and ideas – around the table
  • Summarize, action items – what to focus on first.
  • Future meetings, meeting location, etc.

Note that I have not reserved space at Chocolati; we’ll just try to carve out enough room to sit together where we can hear.  If you arrive early, please see if you can find some defensible space for us.

 

Sorry for bad links in the recent post on community engagement!

I’ve had comments already from people having trouble linking to the survey monkey page from the email they received on “GCC Looking for Help in Community Engagement.”  There are two problems, one of which I need help to fix. 

In the meantime, let’s try a more direct approach I hope you’ll try.  The survey is located at this address (if it doesn’t show up as a link, you’ll need to copy/paste into your browser):  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Y6YGSPJ 

You can also go to the website (where this message will also be posted) and follow links from there.  Links from the website are working fine; it’s only links from mail messages that are not.  The website is located at https://greenwoodcommunitycouncil.org

In case you’re wondering what’s wrong, there are two problems.  One is that people who follow the link from the mail message are getting a page of error messages in their browser.  This seems to be happening all of a sudden for all links from GCC email, including the “manage your subscriptions” link.  This looks like a website database problem that I’ll need help to fix.

The other problem some people are having is that links in community council email messages link to the GCC website, which then redirects to the website the link points to.  Some people’s browsers give them a message in this case warning of spam.  It isn’t, but I will look into whether there’s another way to embed links.

Sorry (and embarrassed) about the inconvenience!

GCC Looking for Help in Community Engagement

The Greenwood Community Council exists to facilitate and amplify neighborhood involvement and engagement.  I always have a slightly different answer when asked my personal opinion about what the Greenwood Community Council does, but this week I’m thinking we’re about place-making and community-building – which often involves dialogue and advocacy with the city and developers.  

Ultimately we’re effective only to the extent that we engage all sorts of people and understand the many perspectives among our neighbors. And here’s a surprise — most people don’t like meetings!  Face-to-face dialogue is still important and far more conducive to dialogue, learning and solutions than polarized, anonymous blog comments – but we also need to break out of the meeting paradigm and find other ways to engage people in the way they’re most comfortable, and to reach people whose voices may be neglected.  

To that end, we are looking for people who are interested in helping to engage the community more broadly than we can through traditional meetings.  If you’re interested, please take a few minutes to fill out this surveymonkey survey.

The survey asks what types of activities and outreach you’re interested in or think are needed.  It also asks whether you are willing to be on an engagement committee (I know that’s ironic) and will sample availability to find possible meeting times that could work out for everyone.  If you have other thoughts after filling in the survey, let me know that too.
 
On another note: We are looking for a new chair of our outreach and engagement committee. (We are also looking for a new community council vice president.) If you have any interest in taking on either of these, please let me know.  The committee chair is responsible for setting up committee meetings (or delegating that of course) and participating in monthly board meetings.
 
Thanks!
Rob Fellows
Greenwood Community Council

March 11: Candidate Forum for Seattle City Council District 5

Broadview Community Council, in association with the Greenwood, Haller Lake, and Pinehurst community councils, presents

District 5 mapA Candidate Forum for Seattle City Council District 5

Wednesday, March 11, 2015, from 7:00 to 8:30 pm
Doors open at 6:30 for socializing
Bitter Lake Community Center
13035 Linden Ave N

Calling all community council members, neighborhood activists, business advocates, political junkies, civic troublemakers, citizens with a beef, and all other North Seattle voters!  

This is the time to meet candidates for Seattle City Council in YOUR VERY OWN District 5

Sandy Brown
Mercedes Elizalde
Debora Juarez
Mian Rice
David Toledo
Halei Watkins

Learn about their background and experience, ask them questions, grade them, and challenge them to be transparent. Decide who might get your donation and/or your vote.

Don’t be late. Seating is limited.

District 5 runs from Puget Sound to Lake Washington, from 145th St. to roughly 85th St. See the official map for details.