A bounty of positive, progressive and practical ideas about Sooke’s future intended for use by the next Mayor and council were generated at Transition Sooke’s Election 2014 Open Space think tank, Oct. 18 at the Sooke Harbour House. A summary of the day’s working papers is attached below.
A group of 33 concerned citizens – the three mayoralty candidates and five individuals running for council included – huddled with six of Transition Sooke’s core team to discuss and map out next steps related to the day’s discussion topic: “In a spirit of cooperation and self-reliance, the people of Sooke have successfully established lives, overcome hardships and responded to change for more than 160 years. (And the people of T’Sou-ke have done so for much longer). Within this tradition, how can we elect and support a council that will transform current and future challenges into opportunities?”
Seven discussion topics were determined at the day’s start in an open process by the attendees: i) energy independence and collaboration with the T’Sou-ke Nation; ii) health, education and social services; iii) jobs and transportation; iv) local food economy; v) quality of life (beautification, trails and parks, infrastructure); vi) council/community relationship (structure, communications, integrity); and vii) emergency response services.
As facilitators Tony and Christiana St-Pierre noted in their introduction, Open Space meetings allow participants to express diverse opinions, self-select into discussion groups, work through each issue and, at day’s end, reach firm and meaningful conclusions. Invites to the event were extended to Transition Sooke members, election candidates and to the community at large via ads, bulletin-board posters and social media updates.
Community, Resilience, Climate 