TOPSHAM — The Friends of Midcoast Maine, in partnership with the Orton Family Foundation, will sponsor a community building workshop at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Topsham municipal building, 100 Main St.
The workshop will provide “practical ideas to enhance public engagement, public process and democracy,” an announcement about the event states. “Attendees can learn new techniques to make sure everyone’s voice is heard, as well as methods to build consensus.”
Such methods will include key pad polling, the sticky note method, story telling, how to build a word cloud, meeting facilitation and making it fun through festivals and events. Additional techniques will include using the press and Internet, how to engage youth in the community, the plus-delta method, and other ideas, the release states.
The workshop is open to selectmen, planners, planning board members, town managers, community members, developers, consultants, nonprofit organizations and “anyone with an interest in furthering democracy and good decision making,” the announcement states.
The workshop is scheduled to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Attendance is free. RSVP to Rich Roedner, Topsham planning director, at 725-1724 extension 3 or rroedner@topshammaine.com.
For more information call Jane Lafleur at 236-1077 or email info@friendsmidcoast.org.
According to its website, www.friendsmidcoast.org, the Friends of Midcoast Maine “identifies and encourages opportunities for positive change in the Midcoast region.”
The Orton Family Foundation, founded in 1995 by Lyman Orton and Noel Fritzinger, “is an operating foundation that helps communities in the Northeast and Rocky Mountain West discover, describe, apply and sustain their ‘ heart and soul,’” according to www.orton.org.
news@timesrecord.com
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