LOVELAND, OHIO - ROSS: SOME FRESH AIR

Dear Loveland Magazine:

I extend this open invitation to each of you who lives, works, or feels invested in Loveland to participate in Fresh Air. This invitation is one way for me to say "Thank you!" for the rewarding experiences I had volunteering with Loveland in the late 90s to prepare, conduct, and report on the White Pillars town meeting. This new project reflects those and many other learnings, which I've turned into a ground-breaking innovation in community issues work. I would like to share this FreshAir with Loveland.

I am seeking at least 30 diverse people who can participate by committing to six weekly sessions, beginning early October. These individuals stand to gain personally useful new skills and insights while co-creating a full "portrait" of a local issue they select. After this project, the issue booklet can be the handout for a "ya’ll come" town meeting on that issue. FreshAir is a win-win-win for these participants, Loveland, and issues that need citizens’ wise voices of lived experience.

I invite you to let your imagination roam and explore how participating in this project can benefit you, Loveland, and its public issues. Contact me by Sept. 20 to participate. I'm excited about this project and looking forward to doing it in Loveland.

Sincerely,
Sara Ross, your Clermont County neighbor
Bethel, OH 45106
sara.ross@global-arina.org

To read more about Fresh Air:

FRESH AIR

This innovative project uses a systematic public process I developed, which gives people all the steps required to prepare any of their local issues for community-wide attention, deliberation, and comprehensive action. Now the whole process can be done in far less time and effort, and with far more clarity and insight, than has ever been possible before. This user-friendly method has been field-tested and is not experimental. I am using it as the centerpiece of my dissertation research project, and inviting you to participate in the project and its benefits.

Sessions will be on whichever consistent week day evenings the most volunteers can be available, and Saturdays are an option if enough people elect them. I want to begin the sessions by the first week of October so they finish before Thanksgiving. Below are short descriptions of what happens in each session. They are followed by a list of the beneficial outcomes from participating. Each session is about 2 hours long and includes a free refreshment break (one or two sessions may last up to 2.5 hours, depending on the small group).

Session 1: Identify all the topics of concern in the community, identify what kind of challenges they seem to be, and map how they connect with each other (for example, any subtle or obvious "domino effects" that suggest some things are like roots that feed or contribute to others). 

Session 2: Select an initial topic to focus on and, by using a several-step process, identify precisely what the real issue is that the group wants to work on in the remaining sessions. Use a natural, human process to understand why the issue exists, and the wide range of things that are "keeping it alive" as a problem.
Explanation: FreshAir makes distinctions between topics and issues. A topic is a generic name for a huge category, like "education" or "crime" or "economic development." By contrast, an issue is a specific need or set of troubling conditions that people want to impact with positive, observable outcomes and systemic improvements. This distinction helps us get beneath common labels so we don't mistake the tip of an iceberg for the iceberg of "real issues" at the bottom of things.
Session 3: Use insights provided in FreshAir to catalyze abilities to identify all the kinds of reactive and proactive actions the issue needs.
Explanation: Some issues need reactive-type remedies if they have gone on for a long time; all issues need positive, proactive or preventative changes that "starve the problem" of whatever it has been "feeding on."
Session 4: Group the reactive and proactive actions by the categories they seem to fall into: voluntary activity and behaviors, public policy related, and deeper questions or issues that don't have quick-and-easy answers, which people will need to grapple with further. Choose which of those questions to work on. Begin an orderly (and usually rather enlightening) process of "framing" it for community dialogue and deliberation. 

Session 5: Finish the process of "framing" the issue.
Explanation: "Framing" results in 'charts' that enable people to recognize and hear all the strong, different perspectives on what should be done about an issue (and why). It ensures everyone hears the voices that may disagree with each of those perspectives (and why they disagree). This fosters mutual understanding and respect among citizens, assures that all the different impacts and benefits of possible actions will be considered, and avoids decisions that create unintended consequences.
    Framing also helps everyone see that one simple or "pet" approach is not enough to fix or address complicated questions or issues. Especially for old familiar issues, it shows the variety of "feeding tubes" a community needs to remove if it really wants to "starve the issue" and do things differently. It helps people feel motivated to create new ways of doing things that support community health, because the "portraits" of old familiar issues, and new questions that arise, become so much clearer using FreshAir.
Session 6: Test the issue-framing created by each small group, by using it to discuss (deliberate) the pros and cons of different approaches to address the issue. Testing helps assure that the framing is realistic and will accommodate all the perspectives and life conditions in the larger community.

Beneficial local outcomes of the project:
1. Project participants get to keep the FreshAir booklet and use it over and over for any other issues.
2. The Session 1 issue mapping created by participants can be used like a map of the local territory and inform priority-setting for efforts to address issues and improve the quality of life.
3. Participants stand to gain essential new capacities and practical new ways to think about and approach issues with the kind of attention they need (and rarely get). These benefits extend to personal and organizational settings, too.
4. The comprehensive work done in the project serves the community by identifying a range of systemic approaches (voluntary, policy, and public participation) to address particular local issues (including item 5).
5. The entire community can use the issue booklets produced during the project for town meetings to deliberate how to address the issues and move into systemic action on them.

Optional: If project participants elect to work on it:  Community-wide public dialogue and deliberation using the issue booklets they developed. (Including planning, followup reporting & action planning, and task groups to coordinate whatever volunteerism, policy attention, and further issue work the community voice identifies as necessary.)
Explanation: A number of Loveland area residents participated in a large community-wide issue deliberation in late 1998 or so, when we did the White Pillars town meeting. This kind of large meeting is optional in this research project. I am committed, however, to help (if and as needed) to plan and facilitate another such public meeting and its followups so the work of project participants can benefit the entire community in an enduring way.
Also, because this is research, I will meet with each person who volunteers to participate - once before the sessions, and once after - for a brief, casual interview-conversation that I audiotape (so I can listen and not have to take notes!). At the first one, we'll also go through the informed consent process so research-participant rights and mutual expectations are clear. Everyone's identity, and what they say, is kept confidential by using traditional research methods to protect that privacy. There is no monetary compensation for participating, nor are fees required to participate.

Please RSVP by September 20. If you would like to participate and/or if you would like more information, please call me at 734-7996 (day or evening) or email me at sara.ross@global-arina.org .

If you know anyone else who you think may be interested, please forward this email-invitation to them or post it where citizens and officials can see it. I am relying heavily on word of mouth and existing social networks to reach potential participants and diverse populations. Please accept my thanks to you, in advance, for spreading the word!