166 Hubbard Street
Concord, MA 01742
(978) 371-3134
(978) 287-5431 fax
Hi Jay and Erline:
Well, what a day it was! Thank you, thank you, thank you! We at Leadership MetroWest had high expectations for the Forum, but it went above and beyond anything we could have imagined. It was an amazing morning, and the feedback from attendees has been incredible. Even people I know who I thought might be cynical or bored by a "table activity" were thrilled by the conversations and the connections they made with people they might otherwise never get to know.
I was in awe as hundreds of people in the same room were actively engaged in creating ideas to make the community a better place. Your creatively designed activity and superb and upbeat facilitation was a joy to watch. The Forum attendees were engaged, energized and enabled as they hatched dozens of civic initiatives across a wide range of community themes, and made commitments to one another to go beyond just talk and take personal or group action.
Here’s some feedback from the evaluations: 91% of the participants said the Forum was “excellent,” and the most important part of the day for the greatest percentage of attendees was the civic engagement exercises. I have to tell you that after weeks since our “Engaging Conversations” Forum, not a day goes by that I don’t meet one or more people who attended the event and have genuine praise for what went on in the room that morning. I’ve heard from several people that they are staying in touch with their table partners, and I am sure we will be seeing some terrific end results from many of the initiatives that developed around the tables.
The MetroWest region will benefit tremendously from your ability to bring people from across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors into meaningful dialogue and action. The immediate results of the event were tremendous and we believe the long-term positive results will have a measurable impact in our communities.
The Governor's remarks at the end of the program were an inspiration to all who attended and they capped an exciting morning of civic engagement. His Office of Public Liaison is interested in following the results of the morning's activity too! We are so appreciative of the work you did and the time you spent with us to prepare for an event that helped us further our mission of building civic leadership...on a large scale!
Warm regards,
Helen Lemoine
Executive Director
Leadership MetroWest