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Notes on this Data:
The group Greater Victoria Amalgamation Conversation strongly
believes that
community engagement on all levels is necessary to ensure vital,
relevant, and
visionary decision making.
For this reason, we chose to invite the public to engage in
convivial conversation
about their thoughts and ideas around the topic of amalgamation.
At the meeting,
the attendees were promised that their concerns would not go
unheardthat the
group would ensure that a report would be prepared on the basis
of their comments
and presented to councils, interested groups and individuals,
regardless of whether
the group continues in its current form, or not.
This report is written to honour our promise to the many people
who attended the
Community Conversation, discussed their ideas passionately and
respectfully and who
took the time to write for themselves and others, these
thoughtful comments.
Consequently, what we see emerging as a public involvement
discourse here was
formed or guided by two very simple questions: what dont we
know? And what
can we share? These questions were presented in the hopes that
the attendees
would be able to transcend dualistic pro/con discussions. And,
judging from these
insights, the questions were successful. In that sense, the
comments and ideas in
this report came from a relatively pure, undiluted raw public
involvement exercise.
It is important to note that this report does not claim any
scientific objectivity or
statistical representation of the populace of Victoria. While it
can be considered
embedded, social action research, its findings are in no way
indicative of the relative
importance of the issues, nor does this report claim any
particular legitimacy as a
basis for future decision making. The report does, however,
provide a snapshot of
what issues, concerns and ideas that some engaged citizens, who
were willing to
devote their evening to having a conversation on how best we can
work together,
concluded.
There were no people invited specificallyother than
conversations we may have had
with members of the public. All attendees probably learned about
this meetingthrough either print or radio media. There was also an
advertisement placed in the
Times Colonist on the Saturday prior to the event and posters
distributed to
communities.
At the most basic level, the Greater Victoria Amalgamation
Conversation could have
fulfilled its commitment by presenting the actual white poster
papers as the report.
However, we were mindful that rolled poster papers are bulky,
unorganized and
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impractical to engage with.
Consequently, we have decided to present the results in a series
of mini-reports:
Where Attendees Reside Currently, comments left on smaller
pieces of paper are in
the document Questions/Comments and the bulk of the responses
came in from
the tables, these can be found, labeled both numerically and
alphabetically in no
particular order in the document table writings: A, B . The
editing process here was
non-existent, since the objective was to get the undiluted input
from the community.
Two people entered the data from the sheets and this accounts
for the conflicting
labeling.
In the interest of transparency, we have also decided to allow
free access to the
original poster papers to anyone who would be interested in
viewing them. Our group
believes strongly that the key to good decisions in the long
term will be the ability to
collaborate and to harness the knowledge capital of our
residents. This report is a
first step in this direction. Consequently, the original
brainstorming papers will beavailable to anyone who is interested
in viewing them. In the interests of
transparency, the papers will be photographed and available in
the longer term. For
the next few weeks, they will also be available in the
originals. Requests can be made
via email to Shellie Gudgeon ([email protected]).
When reading the report, we recommend that the reader be aware
that the
comments were harnessed from a group ranging in size from eight
to eleven around a
table. We suggest that while reading the thoughtful results of a
creative
conversation, that we all need to become more comfortable with
ambiguity,
ambivalence and begin to look to create harmony within
apparently divergent views.
