Upriver Visioning Rally

We came together, 101 of us, in the Upriver school auditorium on September 12, 2007. We created a vision of where Upriver could be in 10 to 15 years. A Vision for which we can all work together:

Our Vision

"Upriver is a close knit community that welcomes newcomers and encourages participation of all its residents. We have vibrant and thriving village centers with organized community-wide activities that enhance our quality of life. We have a thriving arts and culture sector that celebrates our heritage and traditions."

"The Upriver community builds on our self-reliant culture with our entrepreneurial environment that preserves our rural lifestyle. We have achieved a balance in economic growth, tourism, and quality of life. Our community is unified by our family-friendly village centers."

The Rally

Valdasue Steele reviewes what we have accomplished so far in the Horizons program. Then she introduced our facilitator, David Beurle.

David talked about committed and focused action by all our upriver people to allow us to take charge of our future. We share with one another our challenges and vision for the future.

He presented to us the Top Ten Attributes of Successful communities. We need to work on these attributes to create the elements of a community vision for 10 to 15 years from now. These Ten Attributes were posted on the wall and we were each given 4 red and 4 green dots for voting. The red dots were for attibutes that needed work and the green dots were for attributes we already do well at. So we all voted. The rest of the discussion was based on the results of the voting which we could clearly see posted on the wall.

Economy

• Maintain culture / heritage
• Create entrepreneurial environment while maintaining rural character.
• Arts / culture
• Village center - active - art - family oriented
• Local jobs
• "catch & release" tourism

Community Values and Community Lifestyles

• Thriving arts and culture
• Close - knit community values for locals and visitors alike.
• Participating community
• Celebrate history and embrace the future.
• Defined center

Culture is created and manifested in what we say, the stories. Reputation emanates from what we say about ourselves.

What actions do we need to take?

• Expand leadership base
• Connect communities together
• Build a broad-based community 'buy in' to vision
• Create a positive culture

Key 'Think Tank' action areas

• Communication à 'buy in' / minutes
• Connect community in upriver
• Cell tower
• Business development
• Creative conversations à a meaningful dialogue.

We would all like to thank David Beurle very much for helping us to create our Vision of the future for Upriver.

"but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible. . ."