Citizen-Police Relations and The Redefining of Power

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call 
Thursday, October 1 at 7:00 p.m.

This Week’s Tentative Agenda 

• Thursday’s forum is likely to continue on with the radio show topic, Citizen-Police Relations and The Redefining of Power. 
  
• Acting Frederick City Police Captain, Jason Keckler will be the evening's radio show guest, He will join us, also, for our Coffee House Conversation by Conference Call Forum.

Follow these easy steps and you’re in! 

1. Dial in at: 712.432.0600, access code 640883#;
2. Say your name and;
3. Welcome to Coffee House Conversation by Conference Call with Anastasia and Jack;
4. Stay as long as you like until around 8:00 or 8:30 p.m.
5. Just listen and say nothing or speak up and get into the heat of the discussion.

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call Forums are preceded by …

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show

With Anastasia and Jack Slattery

You can listen to the show, if you like by dialing 347.237.5351 at 6:30 p.m. or not, totally optional.

This week’s topic: 

Citizen-Police Relations and The Redefining of Power

Oops and Awe!

Folks, I did the darn-dest thing. I hope you’re gonna forgive me for it.

“I” cancelled our last scheduled Coffee House Conversation on “Humanizing Our Citizen-Police Relations” --  and – totally forgot --- I do mean FORGOT – to tell you!

(“I cancelled” but not exactly unilaterally as I did get a group consensus before we made it official. Then I did have the presence of mind to, at least, get the word out of the cancelling and subsequent rescheduling to Saturday, October 17 to our email list.  Hope this did not inconvenience any of you who are not on it.  Oops!)

One thing and another had happened since our last Kids and Kops In Conversation program. Mainly a new Frederick City Police Chief was hired, not unexpectedly getting our usually beautiful communication flow with the City Police a bit off kilter.  As a result, as our event date grew closer and closer I could see that our “synergy” had been somewhat diminished by this change.

This meant – in my “exceptional community” building mind – that we were not going to have the magical quality that makes a successful Coffee House Conversation, New Horizons-style.

Synergy in a group, especially a working team, makes all the difference. When synergy is missing that, too, makes a huge distinction, on the down side. 

So, I got the votes needed for us to reschedule to Saturday, October 17!!   We hope you can be with us then, if geography doesn’t make us undesirable.

I made a smart decision to ask for that cancellation and subsequent reschedule. And, guess what that change is already bringing us – AWE; the lift that comes when people work together, with hearts and minds connected, on their way to building a better something for all.

It just works out that way!

We are on our way, now, better and better connected than ever before, co-creating with one another in our Coffee House Conversations Volunteer Planning Meetings, heading toward just the kind of potentially AWESOME event New Horizons has long been striving to develop in our local Frederick County, Maryland community.

We are, at last, growing ever so much more beautiful as we refine our methods that before long, you, too, in your local community, may be wanting us to help your community also come together in our special “exceptional community” model way

That is, if you haven’t already figured out how to do it on your own without us.

The Next Generation: Coffee House Conversations

Some people, even police officers, are visionaries with hearts and minds that give substance to dreams.  Over the past eight or nine months since New Horizons began offering our Coffee House Conversations On Race Relations series, last January, I have had the good fortune to meet a few of these officers. Two in particular of the local Frederick City Police became my friends, Captain Jason Keckler and Corporal Rebecca Carrado.

Captain Jason Keckler,
police officer with a vision.

Even back in early July when I wrote an article for my Anastasia The Storyteller blog site titled, “The Challenge of Humanizing Our Community-Police Relationships,” I was certain I had, without ever intending, developed genuine friendships with these officers. 

Topping off that surprising and, thus, unexpected occurrence was an earlier police officer friendship Sue and I had established, about ten years back, with former Frederick City Police Chief, Kim Dine, now Chief of the Capitol Police in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital.

And, then there has been one more delightful and inspiring new friend, also a former police officer, Karl Bickel, a Frederick County candidate for last year’s Sherriff race, and a former college professor of criminal justice, now retired, enjoying his gardening and volunteer projects upon the re-election of the incumbent, Sheriff Charles Jenkins.

There couldn’t be a more important, nor potentially challenging community issue these days than citizen-police relationships. I now realize, while I did not before, that citizen-police trust and cooperation is a key to building safe communities.

This group of officers has, however,  opened my eyes to this reality, along with a whole new range of other important possibilities where citizen involvement and community policing are concerned. And they have, thus,  helped me see formerly unimagined potentialities for citizens and police, working together to better our communities – and – expand opportunities that ensure the growth and safety of our communities.

One week from today, Saturday, September 19, a vision, or at least I surmise it to be that, that Jason handed off to me – and – my colleague in everything, Sue deVeer, is about to manifest with a scope that only time and traveling together could possibly  bring to fruition; Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations; a program specially designed to develop ground rules that will help to ensure productive, problem-solving dialogue between citizens and police officers in Frederick .

(I don’t know that these or any other officers would ever show up at my house for dinner. But imagine this, I am actually wanting to invite them. And, I am now even on a first name basis with police officers! I never, heretofore, even considered such an anomaly to be a part of my life! Who could have thought such a thing?)

I don’t know for sure what exactly the vision was that Jason held, back there in late January, at the end of our very first Coffee House Conversation. But I am certain he had already seen that New Horizons was offering something that couldn’t but help our City Police with their community outreach objectives. 

So with a special kind of visionary capability on his part and Rebecca’s, New Horizons will, next Saturday, September 19, take the next steps forward to expand the potential of community cooperation through dialogue in Frederick, Maryland where lots of people, including Sue and myself, want to build a better than ordinary community in a municipality that truly aspires to be exceptional.

Conference Call Conversation: Tonight at 7:00 p.m.

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call 
Thursday, September 1o at 7:00 p.m.

This Week’s Tentative Agenda 

• How To Talk About Politics and Race etc. etc.
  
• David Bohm – “On Dialogue”

Follow these easy steps and you’re in! 

1. Dial in at: 712.432.0600, access code 640883#;
2. Say your name and;
3. Welcome to Coffee House Conversation by Conference Call with Anastasia and Jack;
4. Stay as long as you like until around 8:00 or 8:30 p.m.
5. Just listen and say nothing or speak up and get into the heat of the discussion.

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call Forums are preceded by …

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show

With Anastasia and Jack Slattery

You can listen to the show, if you like by dialing 347.237.5351 at 6:30 p.m. or not, totally optional.

This week’s topic: The Nature of Dialogue

Tonight’s Possible Society In Motion Radio Show

Topic: The Nature of Dialogue

Date and time: September 10. 2015, 6:30 p.m.

This evening’s show signals an expansion and a deepening of principles Anastasia and Jack have been discussing on the essentials of overcoming polarization, socially and politically, since the very beginnings of their program. 

Tonight Anastasia and Jack invite listeners to consider how citizens of this country can best take advantage of our Constitutionally-given freedom of speech to enhance their own personal lives and that of others by taking note of the essential nature of “genuine dialogue.”

Drawing on the theories of noted physicist, David Bohm, who was known also for his expository work on dialogue, Anastasia and Jack use this program to introduce perspectives that Bohm and others have contributed to a way of exchanging and interacting with others that can lead to new and greater understandings and help solve the communication crises that face society. 

On Dialogue
by David Bohm

This quote of Bohm’s ...

"If people were to think together in a coherent way, it would have tremendous power."

....is one of the many principles he held as a rationale for this manner of conversing. 

With this perspective, as a working base, Anastasia and Jack draw on these ideals as inherent in their intent for the goals of the Possible Society In Motion Radio Show and their Coffee House Conversation By Conference Call Forum that follows the on-air broadcast.

Please join us!

Tonight’s Possible Society In Motion Radio Show

Topic: The Nature of Dialogue

Next Live, Face Time Coffee House Conversation

Humanizing Our Citizen-Police Relationships

Saturday, October 17, 3:00 to 6:oo p.m.

This Week’s Agenda: Coffee House By Conference Call

We are learning forum by forum “How to Talk About Politics, Race, Citizen-Police Relations, Religion” and whatever else shows up – in meaningful dialogue that promises to elevate both your consciousness and your humanity.

Join us this week from the comfort of your living room.

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call 

Thursday, September 1o at 7:00 p.m.

Details here.

This Week’s Tentative Agenda 

• Iran nuclear deal; Jewish and non-Jewish perspectives;
• Election Campaign, 2016 – Explore personal principles behind your favored candidate leanings;
• Citizen-Police Relations, New Horizons’ Coffee House Conversations Projects in motion.

We are challenged to make our forums into meaningful dialogues, not heated debates.  Are you up for this "experiment" in civility? Join us if you are!

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call Forums are preceded by …

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show

With Anastasia and Jack Slattery

This weeks topic: The Nature Of Dialogue

*You can listen to the show, if you like by dialing 347.237.5351 at 6:30 p.m. or not, totally optional.

Humanizing Our Citizen-Police Relationships

A Coffee House Conversations Program

This event specially designed to develop ground rules for dialogue between citizens and police officers.

Join us and become a part of the solution!

Presented by New Horizons Support Network, Inc., partnering with the Frederick City Police.

Saturday, September 19 

3:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. 

Dublin Roasters Coffee

1780 N. Market Street  Frederick, Maryland

For details and reservations, contact Anastasia Rosen-Jones at:

Cell: 240.409.5347 or HarpersFerryNH@aol.com