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Green Change Community Consultation

Posted on November 27, 2012September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Join us for a conversation about the future of the Green Change Agents Program, in a co-design process we will be gathering input on the future of the Green Change Agents Program, the vision for the core curriculum, the “ultimate” Green Change Agent and what community partnerships look like.

Green Change Agents Program – Community Consultation

WHEN: Friday, November 30, 2012 from 12:30 pm to 4:00 pm
WHERE: Driftwood Community Centre, 4401 Jane Street (southeast corner of Jane St/Driftwood Ave)
WHO: Individuals and community partners working on, or interested in, local environmental action, community engagement/education, and social justice, as well as past participants of the Green Change Agents Training Program
OVERVIEW: Green Change presents an immersive, interactive session to (re)engage community partners and residents around the next iteration of the Green Change Agents Program and develop strong partnerships that will influence its new structure and content

HOSTS:
Clara Stewart-Robertson, Project Coordinator for Green Change
and Jennifer Chan, Education Innovation Consultant

We have included some important background information below on the Green Change Project and Green Change Agents Program to help bring everyone up to speed. We promise that it is worth the long read!

What have we been up to lately?
Since the last round of agent training in early 2011, the Green Change Project has experienced numerous challenges, including a complete staff turnover and the loss of organizational memory, partnerships, and participants. While the resulting transition proved difficult at times for our new staff and caused some delays in our programming – as well as the construction of our new Centre for Green Change, – it also presented an incredible opportunity to pause, breathe, and reflect upon the project at a critical stage in its development. Moreover, that very “break” gave us the space to experiment with new creative processes and activities, seek new relationships with other innovators across the city, and stretch our capacity to lead change. Many of you played a part in this exploration and we are so grateful to you for your dedication and your inspiration over the last year!

So, once we had distilled all the lessons learned as well as our emerging ambitions for the project, we recognized that we needed to:

Develop better organizational clarity and communication
Develop more systematic and systemic community outreach
Scale up inclusion and diversity in our operations and programs
Formalize our commitment to community design, environmental health, and just sustainabilities

What better place to start this transformation, we thought, than with the redesign of our cornerstone Green Change Agents Program?

The purpose of the Green Change Agents Program was, and continues to be, to uncover and grow the capabilities and potential in all Jane-Finch residents to transform the way we treat each other and the planet. Through the program, participants are offered opportunities to build their environmental knowledge, take leadership on community projects, connect with a network of local mentors, and create pathways to employment.

Can we co-produce a more effective and sustainable program?
Over the last year or so, we have been working with graduate students from York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies to unpack what happened during those previous agent programs, interview past participants and facilitators, and discover emerging trends in the “green economy” and “green jobs.” More recently, we have begun to evaluate similar environmental education and community leadership programs operating throughout the Toronto region, Canada, the United States, and Europe to help us think about how we could do our work differently.

We will be posting more direct outputs from our research online in the coming months, but for now, please get in touch with us for more information!

How can YOU contribute to this process?
As we begin to translate this research into more concrete ideas and practices for a revised agent program, it is important that we hear from as many different people as possible by hosting meaningful public conversations with our partners and residents. We want to ensure that we provide a fertile ground where we can all work collaboratively, creatively, and strategically toward the program’s growth and development. All of you have so many wonderful ideas, projects, and job/entrepreneurship opportunities to share with the Jane-Finch neighbourhood, and we want to find the best ways to move them forward.

Unfortunately, our timeframe for delivering a redesigned Green Change Agents Program is extremely short due the conditions of our funding. Our goal is to test run the new program this February during the “12 Days of Green Change,” and then deliver two consecutive rounds in March and June 2013. That said, we are strongly committed to ongoing dialogue and community engagement, starting with the community consultation on November 30th.

The purpose of this community consultation session will be to:

Share the draft vision and principles for a redesigned Green Change Agents Program
Engage with community partners and residents to amplify/coordinate emerging partnerships and learning opportunities
Collaborate on the challenges currently facing the Green Change Project

If you know other community members or organizations who might be interested in contributing to the Green Change Agents Program, please share this invitation with them or contact us directly. We will do our best to accommodate everyone at the session, however, space is limited at the Driftwood Community Centre.

Additional details: Lunch and refreshments will be served. Please let us know if you have any specific food allergies or needs. Childcare can be provided upon request.

RSVP to the Green Change team by email at cstewartrobertson@gmail.com, or call 416-663-2733, ext. 235

Growth

Posted on October 16, 2012September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Yesterday, we facilitated a furniture design charrette in Jane and Finch for the Centre of Green Change. After a bit of dinner and an idea dump on the floor about the 4 main areas of programming, the participants were off to the races. With playdoh and hot glue guns, there was little need for enticement to get some of the youth building furniture. We ended up with a variety of table designs of different heights and convertible features, some firm stances for and against benches, and a pizza oven! Designs ranged from functional to artful, each with personality and adaptability in mind. There was a desire for open spaces and hidden spaces, like the indoor treehouse reading space. There was a strong focus of bringing natural elements and inspiration.

The process delivered many ideas and introduced the project to a whole new group of youth, this furniture charrette was the beginning of a longer conversation about sustainability and what you can make with your hands.

Maybe, one day we can build this growth table.

A Seat For Change – Furniture Design Charrette October 15

Posted on October 15, 2012September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

WiToPoli Workshop

Posted on October 11, 2012September 3, 2014 by lvizard

A small selection of the post-its from the workshop.

Sometimes the challenges we face in creating a better city can seem very big and overwhelming. Some might even say impossible… So what better place to meet on a Sunday morning with a group of incredible, interesting women, than the Academy of the Impossible. Coming from diverse backgrounds like planning, community engagement, engineering and entrepreneurship, everyone there had in common the belief that women have an important role to play in city building.

Women in Toronto politics had conceived of this workshop as a way to get women together to brainstorm around ideas and issues to be put forward as a deputation for city council, in advance of the next budget. Facilitated by Exhibit Change, the day was high energy, with inspiring conversations from the get go. The world cafe format started the day off, allowing us to identify which conversations were already in the room.

The first question, where is your heart in Toronto, led to impassioned conversations about home, family, neighbourhoods, which touched on topics like development and opportunity. Following this, the groups dispersed and reformed, to think about the question “what does the city of Toronto give you?” The host at each table facilitated, building on the previous themes. Topics of opportunity, way finding, community and a sense of home expressed the appreciation and conversely some of the frustrations that people experienced in Toronto. Finally, the question “what does the city of Toronto need from its citizens?” sparked conversation on engagement, action and mobilization around some of the challenges the city faces. All the participants were then asked to note down challenges on post its for harvesting the rich conversations.

Delicious lunch gave time for mingling and personal connections, while the. WiToPoli team worked to link and connect the post it’s into themes.These themes informed the after lunch session, but not before a fun “idea speed dating session” to get the neurons firing in novel ways. Participants broke out into themed tables and got down to the nitty gritty details of coming up with practical solutions to some of the issues identified, to be presented as a deputation.

The next two hours was a flurry of intense discussion, debate, and proposal making. Note takers kept careful track of the core of the proposals, to be given to the WiToPoli team to create deputations from. At the end of the workshop, everyone offered their reflections on the day. Inspired, connected, and engaged seemed to be shared feelings, with comments in how heartening it was to be among a group of people who don’t think “you care too much”.

Lastly, the participants wrote their pledge as to how they would Exhibit Change going forward. WiToPoli are working on the deputation, so watch this space!

Participants in full swing with intense discussion at the World Cafe

“Women Are City-Builders” co-hosted with Women In Toronto Politics

Posted on September 24, 2012September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

On September 23rd, we gathered with 30 brilliant minds in a co-hosted workshop with Women in Toronto Politics at the Academy of the Impossible.

We were primed for a day of discussion, multiple view points and a lot of work. I had the utmost pleasure of getting to facilitate the day and it was made so much easier by the sheer brilliance of the participants. We hosted a group of women (& a few men) who’s backgrounds came from politics, law, non-profit, education, community-based organizations, you name it. Very interestingly, the majority of the participants were not born and raised in Toronto, with only 6, the others landed in Toronto at different times varying from the last few months to 10+ years ago.

This really shone a light on the fact that citizen engagement is not necessarily about your geographic roots. The diversity didn’t stop there either, we had folks coming from all parts of the city which was highlighted in discussions about how Toronto is a city made up of smaller “cities” with overlapping issues.

From a process side, I am always delighted when people really give in and let go of their stranger shields early. We were asking people big questions early on and after a bit of hesitation the conversations never stopped. In fact, I always feel a little bad when I have to be the one to move to the next question or agenda item. I am sorry, I promise I do it for a reason!

It was nice to be reminded that our style of facilitation is unique and lent itself well to this conversation. We were able to map out the themes in the room over our morning discussions and then emerge to do the work in the afternoon. The energy and momentum from the day are indescribable, what comes next, only time will tell. WiTOpoli fueled the fire, now we have fanned it a bit more, so the next piece is to set this place a blaze 🙂

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

p.s. THANKS SOOO much to my beautiful team – Linn, Alex and Terrence, you are rockstars!

Furniture Design Charrette for the Centre for Green Change

Posted on September 12, 2012September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

We have been working with the Centre for Green Change for a few months now. In the summer, we hosted a “Design Jam” to start generating ideas with residents about what the space might look like.

The jam spurred a whole slew of ideas that will add life to the Centre for Green Change programming and space on the inside and outside. One big idea was about the furniture: what could it look like? how could it be flexible and adaptable to all the different programming? how will it be sustainable?

On September 26th, we are meeting again to focus on furniture. We will be designing furniture for the new space and will have access to the York University sculpture studio on November 2nd and 3rd to build stuff! We are looking for designers, builders, ideas people, photographers, creative folks in general to join us. Please RSVP to designthinking (@) exhibit-change.com

Lofty Proposals

Posted on August 19, 2012September 3, 2014 by Colin Lacey

We recently participated in an amazing and unusual focus group as part of the Upper Toronto experimental proposal. For three consecutive weeks, we collectively bashed our heads together on Tuesday evenings to dream up plans for a world in which a new city of Toronto would be built above our current city, with the intention to eventually abandon our former homes below. Sounds scary, right?

The creative minds behind Upper Toronto acknowledge that such a project is a bad idea, but if we had to do it, what would be the best way to build a new city, and why? As our group attempted to dream up this City of the Future, the problems we had to confront are ones that are not so foreign to the challenges Toronto has faced before, but perhaps on a much more catastrophic scale: planning and executing long term visions without completely destroying the lives of the people who already live here. Be it transit, social housing or gentrification, the problems with building the City of the Future are very much rooted in the challenges of running the City of Today. Planners and politicians need to address resistance to redevelopment and relocation, incredible and often unthinkable capital expenses in building and upgrading new infrastructure, and the necessity for the political will and momentum to actually see the plan through from start to finish.

How do you plan for the City of the Future 25, 50, and 75 years down the road?
The real-life trend seems to favour ambitious plans that extend 25 years into the future. Believe it or not, there are many of these plans already being implemented that will dramatically impact, and hopefully improve, our experience of living and working in the Toronto region. Some great examples of these ambitious plans already underway are Waterfront Toronto’s redevelopment plan, Metrolinx and the Big Move, and Ontario’s Places to Grow regional plan.

6468073299_2336114dbc_z — Image: Exhibit Change

Waterfront Toronto is making great progress towards redeveloping an area bigger than four times the size of Monaco, close to 2000 acres. This is as close as it gets to literally building a new city, and as everyone may remember the Ferris Wheel and monorail idea, the Waterfront Toronto plan also serves as an example of how easily a long term plan, no matter how great, can be derailed by the politics of the day.

Ontario has crafted up two important plans to address regional transit and growth. The regional transit agency Metrolinx has begun implementing a 25 year initiative which includes building a much anticipated rail connection between Pearson Airport and Union Station. The Big Move initiative is aiming to create an integrated transportation system for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton area to tackle congestion, increase transit use and improve satisfaction and accessibility across the region.

The provincial “Places to Grow” initiative has taken a wider view and focused on the Greater Golden Horseshoe (PDF) to begin to manage growth in the region centred around Toronto. The aim is to set development guidelines to help municipalities to revitalize downtowns in communities throughout this region while simultaneously curbing sprawl and promoting denser development to protect green spaces, the crown jewel being the vast green belt comprised of the Oak Ridges Moraine and the Niagara Escarpment.

ExC_UPblog2 — The million dollar question: what does authentic community engagement look like? Image: Exhibit Change

To Build or To Engage?

During the Upper Toronto exercise what became clear was the need to address how to authentically engage people and communities from planning to implementing over such a long time frame. Planners and politicians are great at drafting initiatives and putting shovels in the ground. The problem is whether or not the best laid plans will meet the needs of the future community. Conflicting opinions and doubt can literally stop a project dead in it’s tracks, wasting time and money.

Once the Upper Toronto focus group sessions ended, the question that we walked away pondering over was if you were given a chance to recreate the City of Toronto, how would you improve not how it’s built, but how people become involved in shaping its future, from planning to implementing?

Sound off your ideas in the comment section below!

Centre for Green Change “Design Jam”

Posted on July 20, 2012September 3, 2014 by Jenn Chan

Together with the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre, we are hosting a Green Building Design Jam for the Centre for Green Change.

The Centre for Green Change is a new innovated space for the community of Jane and Finch residents to build awareness, be hosting community members, designers,Toronto Community Housing Staff and York University Students to offer their ideas on the future of the Centre for Green Change. community engagement and action around environmental impacts. The Centre for Green Change will have it’s home at 2999 Jane Street. On Thursday, July 25th at 5:30pm, we will

If you’d like to attend, please email Clara Stewart-Robertson at clarasr@janefinchcentre.org

See you there!