A Community Discussion About Our Future
|
|
|
|
|
|
A Riddle For You
by Lynette Lombard
Where can you express your opinions about town
matters, get free childcare and delicious fare donated by local
businesses, win a great assortment of door prizes, be driven to the event
if needed, and in the process have FUN, meet new people, and help plan for
New Boston’s Future?
Yes, you’ve heard of it, seen posters and handouts around
town, and talked about it. It’s New Boston Speaks, a forum for you, members of the New Boston community, where you will have a
chance to guide our future, and improve and carry on our sense of
community. Whether you’re a parent, senior, business owner, outdoors
person, organization leader/member, minister, or whatever/whoever you are,
plan on taking a few hours out of your busy schedule on the evening of
Friday, April 2, and the morning and early afternoon of April 3 to share
your ideas in small discussion groups led by trained facilitators. By
contributing your best ideas, we will have a large and positive impact on
our future.
Think
about it.
o
Why you live in New Boston?
o
What special qualities keep you
here or brought you here? Many people responded to an
earlier article in this paper and told us why they are here. You may have
always lived here or you may have moved to this great town.
o
What was good then?
o
What’s good now?
o
How can we keep that going?
o
Changes have come to New Boston. Do we
like them? Do we want to encourage or discourage them?
o
What needs improving?
Using the answers to these questions we can work together to
develop a plan to improve our town.
What will YOU get from committing a weekend to our town?
You will
be involved in guiding our future and improving the sense of community
that we already have. A
report and an action plan will be generated from all of our discussions
and will be given to the Planning Board to be used in updating our town
Master Plan.
The
Event Timetable
Many of you know Phil Lavallee from New Boston. Phil will be
getting us off to a fun and interesting start after supper on Friday night
by presenting a quick history of New Boston in a neat slideshow. You’ll
also meet Mica Stark, a direct descendant of Col. John Stark, who will be
talking a bit about New Boston today and keeping the event on track.
Charlie French from UNH Cooperative Extension Service will guide us
through some general topics on Friday night that will allow addressing the
issues we want to discuss. The
approach he uses is a similar approach that the Extension Service has
successfully used in the past few years in over 50 New Hampshire towns.
Information gathered on Friday will steer the discussions on
Saturday. Saturday’s
session should wrap up around 2 PM.
There is still time to register for this event.
The fastest way is to call 487-5114 and tell us who will be
coming, whether you will need childcare and for how many children (ages
would be helpful), whether you will need transportation and if you can
bring a potluck dessert for Friday night. You can also sign up on our
website at, www.newbostonspeaks.org.
And finally…
We want this to be as free and open a discussion as we
possibly can have. The timing
works out well. Elections and
voting day have passed so there won’t be any immediate pressure to
advance one idea over another. It’s not too late to plan on coming. Just
call.
Remember: Your Opinion Counts!
Lynette Lombard
New Boston Speaks Steering Committee Member