All welcome to this public brainstorming event as our Sooke Region Multi-Belief Initiative fields input and ideas for a Sooke Compassionate Action Plan.

Saturday, October 27, 1 to 4 p.m

Sooke Baptist Church, 7110 West Coast Road, Sooke. 

Bring your ideas and energy as we identify key local social issues, look at how they’re being dealt with in the Sooke region … and then hone in on practical ways to tackle them further as a united Sooke region community.

This open-space meeting is the important first step in the development of a realistic, achievable Compassion Action Plan (CAP) for Sooke. Please contact the SRMBI’s Mark Ziegler (markziegler@shaw.ca) or Donald Brown (donhbrown@shaw.ca) to confirm your participation, or if you have any questions or comments. The SRMBI is a collective of caring individuals who share in common a belief in the golden rule. It is not a religious or political organization.

Much is already being done by individuals and organizations on such issues as homelessness, social isolation, community engagement, harm reduction, and other critical matters impacting youth, adults, families and seniors in the Sooke region.

The goal of the afternoon will be to identify as many as five key priorities that we as a community might want to tackle collectively with specific actions tagged to realistic timelines.  Under the direction of facilitator Michael Tacon, co-chair of Transition Sooke and a founding member of the SRMBI, the afternoon will unfold as follows:

i) Brief context-setting presentations from four speakers:

* Constable Sam Haldane, Sooke detachment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police;

* Kim Kaldal, president of The Sooke Food Bank Society

* Sherry Thompson, co-founder of the Sooke Shelter Society

* Jonny Morris, Director of Planning and Strategic Priorities for the BC Division of the Canadian Mental Health Association

ii) Attendees will then join breakout groups to develop lists of local issues and/or projects that a Sooke Compassionate Action Plan might address;

iii) Collectively discuss and identify which of these issues/projects should be included in the final CAP plan;

iv) Create specific activities (with time lines and resource requirements) through which community associations and agencies would work to implement the plan.

This Compassionate Action Plan will be subsequently submitted to Charter for Compassion International along with all else the SRMBI has been doing as we strive to secure official recognition for Sooke as a Compassionate Community.

We will also request that the document be incorporated within Sooke’s new Official Community Plan.

“We look forward to your participation in this important and ambitious workshop,” says Ziegler. “Building on the exceptional services provided by volunteers and service groups throughout our caring community, Sooke can join Victoria, Nanaimo, Parksville, Powell River and 400 other cities and towns around the world officially recognized as Compassionate Communities.”