[Winona Online Democracy]
Title: Notes Steering Committee Meeting
6/8/04
The Steering Committee met on
Tues June 8th in Wenonah Room of City Hall at 4 pm
Attendees: Craig Brooks, Kathy Seifert, Roy Nasstrom, Paul Double,
Steve Schild, and Randy Schenkat(note taker)
Working Agenda
1- role of facilitation.... volunteers requested.. see notes
below
2.- relationship to MN EDemocracy... your feedback- see
notes below and go to archives for full post
3. -issue of local and national
4. -what did we learn from Schild's survey
http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2004/05/12/opinion/00guest512.txt
5- Other
1) Facilitation= There was some discussion regarding the role
maybe being one of instigation, how is the pot stirred to keep the
discussion going with a diversity of opinion?
There were many positive aspects of WOD noted. To
state an opinion one would do well research to do.
It was seen as a great way for governing boards and councils to get
more involvement in an era when people are desiring to have more
voice. It was noted that in a small environment like Winona vs the
Metro area there might be a great fear of the repercussions of having
posted "honestly" It was suggested we might be
able to link our efforts with Civility by Stephen Carter and the work
being done on Crucial Conversations as we think more to community wide
norms on conversation.
Readers may find the following link interesting regarding
democracy and the internet.
http://bostonreview.net/ndf.html#Internet
Regarding the opening for a moderator/facilitator, in the interim
since the meeting and this posting there has been ample discussion
online in WOD. We are looking for a new volunteer(s).
2) E- Democracy.. Roy Nasstrom stated we're in good standing having
submitted our "charter". We've had no feedback
locally regarding new E Democracy procedures that are being developed
by our parent organization and they've asked our input. .
3)Local/National Roy Nasstrom has clarified this in a post to
the entire list: see below-
"The Winona Online Forum emphasizes local issues and those state,
national
and international issues that have a direct local impact. We
recognize,
however, that many seemingly remote issues may ultimately have a
greater
impact on the lives of Winona citizens than purely local issues.
Consequently, the people who feel strongly about a non-local issue
should
not hesitate to present their views online, but they should preface
them (if
at the beginning of a thread) with a comment on their relevance to
us
locally."
4) Steve Schild prefaced his comments by saying that his results
differed little from things we already know: 1) expand to more people
to be more representative 2) have more diversity in posters, and 3)
tenor(sometimes there is perception of attacks).
Schild challenged that we are not living up to our goal:
The goal of Winona Online Democracy is to empower, inform, and engage
the citizenry by creating an ongoing community-wide discussion of
local public issues.
It seeks to reawaken a spirit of more active participation in civic
life and provide an environment in which learning and knowledge
building can take place.
It seeks to be an agent for change in our community by improving the
quality of decision making and providing a direct link between the
public and community leaders.
He suggested that we modify the goal and scale back what we hold as
the ideal.
Also, regarding the tenor of attack, it was suggested by members that
WOD is much more civil that it was in its beginning few weeks almost 4
years ago now. Some of this perception of being attacked is only
a perception. Schild was asked if he might consider studying the
actual tenor of messages and the perception. Could this be
gleaned by some civility index? This was dismissed as too
subjective. It was not felt that this attack issue is very
significant currently by steering committee members.
It was suggested by Schild that we even use our own survey results. It
was acknowledged we don't know how often our results are read;
however, findings are considered at the steering
committee.
Next Meeting Aug 10th 4 pm Wenonah Room City
Hall�.
--
Randy Schenkat 1358 Skyline Dr. Winona, Mn
55987 507-452-7168
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