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Step 3: Community Values and Vision <br />Meeting One <br />This is an important meeting. Your values create your vision for the future. They help define what you <br />want your community to be. Values help you understand who you Are as a community And they Are tools you <br />can use as a guide. Your first meeting is focused on defining your values. Look at the tasks outlined in <br />this step. If you feel you need more than one meeting to complete the work, then take more time by <br />holding a second meeting. You be the judge. <br />Be sure to send out notices for the meeting. They could go home with the school children. Post notices <br />in regular meeting areas like the post office and store. <br />Asking Some Basic Questions <br />One of the best ways to identify your values is to answer some very basic questions about your <br />community, such as: <br />• What do you like about your community? <br />• What don't you like? <br />• What do you want to keep? <br />• What are you proud of? <br />• Why do you stay? <br />• Why do you think about leaving? <br />• What do you worry about? <br />A way to get to the answers to these questions is to ask each person in the room to list the one <br />or two things they think of when they ask themselves these questions. Traditional talking circles <br />or breaking into small groups may be useful. Sometimes people are more comfortable dividing into <br />groups of men, women, youth, and elders. Ask them whether they want to divide into smaller groups <br />or stay in one group. <br />Now go around the group and ask the questions to each person. (Your high school students can <br />help record what is happening at the meeting.) Write the answers on a big sheet of paper. As <br />you write, divide them into a positive list and a negative list. Your values Are reflected in the common <br />things that people list. <br />Listening for Common Answers <br />If you have split into groups, come back together into one large group. Hang up the group sheets. <br />Now each group may read its lists aloud. Have people said the same things differently? Combine <br />the common things into one list where possible. Ask the entire group the question: "Is there <br />anything important that has been left off the list ?" If there is, add it. Now work to transform <br />negative statements into positive desires. For example, "Our children are leaving" becomes a <br />positive value expressed as "Building a community in which our children want to stay." Make as <br />many of the negative statements into positive ones as possible. <br />15 <br />