Year End Assessment: Coffee House Conversations Project

Bottom Line: Community dialogue in our locale has been a promising first step, but only a first step. 

We’ve still a long way to go, if systemic change of the whole is our aim. Which for New Horizons it definitely is.

As New Horizons first year of Coffee House Conversations began to wind down, following our final 2015 conversation’s event on December 5, Coffee House Conversation #3 on Humanizing our Citizen-Police Relations, my mind instinctively moved to assessment. 

What had we accomplished in this year of approximately nine major Coffee House Conversation events and many energetic behind-the- scenes planning meeting?

Pluses and minuses from a year well spent. What was our net?

At the top of the list, certainly, is that New Horizons made a lot of new friends, drew people together of a like-minded bent, at least those having a yearning to connect through dialogue with the hope of strengthening our shared spaces.

A promising first step! With that I am pleased and gratified.

Then there was the downside that I began to pore over; the weak spots that, when viewed from a reflective distance, were of concern to me.

Here are a few of these.  They are already showing up on my 2016 “to do” list insofar as I/we (meaning the collective at New Horizons) can be a part of solutions.

Areas where our program and participants need to develop proficiency, if true “exceptional community” development is a goal, which it most certainly is for us.

• Being able to truly enter into dialogue and move beyond debate with emotionally charged issues;
• Risking getting into emotionally charged issues that will need to be addressed if genuine community health is desired;
• Conflict resolution (at New Horizons we call this moving from “snags to synergy);”
• Learning to truly “lean in” to people who are different or who hold markedly different viewpoints, especially where emotionally charged issues present and need to be addressed for the good of the whole;
• Developing compassion and understanding regarding differences;
• Developing endurance and patience with the process of systematic community change upon which we are only newly embarking.

As I end this year of 2015, still recuperating from my recent cornea transplant surgery, these items are high on my list. I hope they are, also, objectives that matter to others in my neighborhood who will be courage enough to pursue them. These do, indeed, take a courage not everyone has -- yet. (Maybe they will later when they find out the benefits.)

On behalf of my devoted New Horizons Board of Directors, this is our way of saying that we are certain that the societal change to which we are committed is, indeed, a process, not an event, even a series of them as richly rewarding as our 2015 Coffee House Conversations.

Coffee House Conversations: The Love Story Behind It All

As 2015 nears its end and annual recaps come to the fore, we thought our readers and Possible Society In Motion Radio Show listeners might enjoy listening to the podcast of the love story behind the Coffee House Conversations Project.

Here is the link to the radio show that introduced the project through the story titled “Leaning Into Conversations on Race Relations: A Love Story.” 

If it inspires you to share how this past year of societal turbulence affected you, please write us by email at: zonesofpeacenh@aol.com or post your comments on this site.  

We would so much like to know how you have been affected and possibly moved into action in your own personal ways. After all, whatever it is that is going on, we are in it together.

You might also enjoy reading my blog article today at Anastasia The Storyteller titled “Coffee House Conversations And A Year Of Leaning In Lessons."

In An Era of Societal Stress

Does polarization among citizens, such as our politicians serve us up as daily fare, make sense? 

Or might our strength and our hope for “peace on earth” lie elsewhere such as finding opportunities for meaningful dialogue rather than debate to help us cross whatever divides one from another?

Anastasia and Jack explore this topic in tonight’s Possible Society In Motion Radio Show broadcast, "Dialogue Rather Than Debate In An Era of Societal Stress."

In this era of supreme societal stress with concerns such as terrorism, highly charged race and police relations, are U.S. citizens doing enough to combat these threats by merely giving voice to these matters?

Or is there more to be done that can be done? And even make a difference?

Anastasia takes a firm stand on the need for citizens to engage in ongoing dialogue with the intent to learn from others, the developing of skill in the art of dialogue and the ability to grow toward one another across whatever separates.

Tune in tonight to hear Anastasia and Jack discussing 

“Dialogue Rather Than Debate In An Era of Societal Stress”

On the 

The Possible Society In Motion Radio Show*

With Anastasia and Jack Slattery

Also join us for --- 

Coffee House Conversations By Conference Call 

Thursday, December 10 at 7:00 p.m.

This Week’s Tentative Agenda 

Your take on “Dialogue Rather Than Debate In An Era of Societal Stress”

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.

Citizens and Police In Conversation "III": Taking It To The Next Level

Join us next Saturday, December 5 when New Horizons guides Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen Police Relations "III" to the next level of community engagement and progress.

Citizens and Police In Conversation: A Promising First Step

Anastasia’s Commentary on last Saturday’s “Coffee House Conversation on Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations II”

With special acknowledgements on our podcast to Lieutenant Jason Keckler of the Frederick City Police Force, Jeanette Bartelt, Hillcrest Community Coordinator and Sue deVeer, New Horizons Curriculum Development Chairperson:

My Possible Society In Motion Radio Show co-host, Jack Slattery, out did himself in our broadcast today titled “Citizens and Police In Conversation: A Promising First Step”

With Jack’s astute and thoughtful partnering with me, I think we did an uplifting program. He certainly helped me recount some of the highlights of our wonderfully progressing Coffee House Conversations Project in Frederick, Maryland as it played out last Saturday.

If you would like a few moments of uplifting listening, in line with the spirit of our now approaching holiday season, today’s program can serve to remind you that citizens and police can work together to support one another in reaching the higher planes of cooperation. 

Listen to this show, now on podcast, to get a taste of this and what is to come from us in the months ahead through our Coffee House Conversations Project.

I think a listen will help lift you out of any discouragement you might feel with citizen police relations as the media paints them across the country though it was just a “promising first step.”

Perhaps you will even be uplifted enough with what you hear to make sure to join us next Saturday for –

Coffee House Conversation on Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations “III”

December 5, 2015

3:00 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Hillcrest Elementary School

Details and Reservations Contact: Anastasia 240.409.5347

Email: HarpersFerryNH@aol.com

Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations II

Here we are back again!

Another important community development event 

sponsored by the New Horizons Support Network, Inc.

Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations II

partnering with the Frederick City Police

Details below

Empowerment Series, Coffee House Conversations

Press Release

Coffee House Conversations Project Announces Plans For Hillcrest Empowerment Series

As the New Horizons Support Network, Inc. sponsored Coffee House Conversations mission heads into its second season, 2015 – 2016, the planning team for the project announced a forthcoming series, devoted to citizen-police relations in the Hillcrest neighborhood community.

The series will begin on Saturday, November 21 with a New Horizons’ format discussion geared toward establishing ground rules for dialogue on the presently charged topic of citizen-police relations. The second event of the series, scheduled for Saturday, December 5, will spotlight police officers’ personal stories, followed by a third conversation program focusing on citizen stories on the topic.

Bringing a “can do” message to the fore once again through guided community dialogue, New Horizons Support Network Executive Director Anastasia Rosen-Jones and the Coffee House Conversations Volunteer Team are now ramping up their efforts to empower citizens and police to work more closely together with the goal being enhanced teamwork. According to Rosen-Jones, a quote of Sir Robert Peel, father of modern day community policing, pointedly underscores the theme of the series, “….the police are the public and the public are the police…” 

These Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations will be introduced and moderated by Rosen-Jones and feature opening comments by newly appointed Frederick City Police Chief, Edward Hargis. The program will then move forward into an open group discussion to establish norms or ground rules for effective citizen-police dialogue that will serve as a foundation for the series. Input from the group at-large, as well as the participating police officers is expected to spark a lively discussion and help to ensure the objective.

This first in the series of four Coffee House Conversations On Humanizing Citizen-Police Relations will be held at Hillcrest Elementary School, 1285 Hillcrest Drive, Saturday, November 21 from 3 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. 

New Horizons Support Network, Inc. is a non-profit organization that offers programs designed to teach community development and violence-prevention skills and strategies through the conversations model of its “Small Zones of Peace” Project initiative. Now in the process of contributing these organizational strengths to the development of a Frederick County civic conversations coalition, New Horizons, under Ms. Rosen-Jones guidance, is currently building a coalition with a weekly volunteers’ meeting at Dublin Roasters. 

Information about the overall project and the coalition can be found at: zonesofpeacenh.blogspot.com. Ms. Rosen-Jones can be reached at: 240.409.5347 or zonesofpeacenh@aol.com.