Update (May 2021)
Following up on our Pandemic Dialogue event, a report of this dialogue is now available. This report summarizes the dialogue as we began with sharing stories of our experience so far during the pandemic, moved into sharing concerns and hopes for communities and the planning procession, and arrived at “calls to action” for planners and the profession. The Chapter Executive would like to build on this dialogue in future sessions. Please let us know if you have any ideas for how a future session could be designed.

Click here for a copy of Vancouver Island North Chapter's "Pandemic Dialogue".

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Few of us would have ever imagined that we would live through a global pandemic in our lifetime. Collectively, we are living through a significant life event that has impacted our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. As planners, we have a unique and important role in community-building amid the pandemic and in the post-pandemic world to come. 

We invite you to join fellow planning professionals in a dialogue to make sense of what we have been through so far, so that we can learn from this experience and generate ideas for how to move forward now, even as many things remain uncertain. We cannot go back to exactly the way things were before the pandemic. This dialogue is an opportunity to begin to imagine what might be possible now, that wasn’t possible before, for the health and well-being of our communities. How has the pandemic elevated the importance of active transportation? Of equity in housing, employment, and access to technology? Are people leaving cities for the smaller communities in our region? How do we encourage urban density when backyards are more popular than ever? How do we address climate change, aging in place, and COVID safety at the same time?

This will be a two-and-a-half hour gathering on Zoom and we welcome you to join by computer or by phone. The session is built around conversations in small groups of four or five people. The conversations will be summarized in a report that will be shared with Chapter members. 

Please come prepared to:

• Listen to different voices, stories, and perspectives.
• Share your own experiences, insights and questions.
• Practice simple ways of being together with greater ease and creativity through the uncertainty.
• Turn insights into action, together.

Before the event, we invite you to share a photo or image of your community that represents your experience in our changing times, or a hope or idea you have for the planning profession in the future. These photos will be used during the session and in the report. You can send your image to csimpson@rdn.bc.ca.

What will happen during this session?

Two facilitators will be guiding the session. You can read about them below. The full group of participants will be together for short periods of time, but most of the session will be spent in a series of conversations in small groups with up to five people. We will also be using a shared Google Document for taking notes during the session. 

What will we do with the information that we gather? We will gather the information from the Google Documents into a single document that we will share back with participants. This will include recommendations for action, drawn from your ideas during the session.

Registration

PIBC members: $32 + gst
Non-Members: $42 + gst
Students Free (but must email Courtney Simpson at: csimpson@rdn.bc.ca to register)

A Zoom link will be sent to registrants via the registration confirmation email.

Register Here Now!

About the Facilitators:

Erica Crawford is a community planner, facilitator and counsellor specializing in collaborative processes for building community resilience and climate change adaptation strategies. She focuses on awareness and capacity-building through multi-stakeholder planning processes. Erica’s work in climate change adaptation led her to pursue training in somatic therapy, as she recognized the importance of addressing  psycho-social dimensions of dealing with uncertainty and change, incorporating body-based methods. She has a Masters in Community and Regional Planning, is a co-founder of SHIFT Collaborative and a Registered Therapeutic Counsellor. Erica lives in the Comox Valley.

Jenn Meilleur is a social innovation facilitator, sense-maker and strategist. Her passion is for cultivating bold, creative, and participatory leadership to build capacity and create the conditions for happier, healthier, and more environmentally sustainable and resilient communities and workplaces. She has two decades of experience supporting and leading initiatives at the intersections of sustainability, community development, organizational development, and systems change. Locally, she is a member of the Food Policy Council and is on the Coordinating Circle of the Comox Valley Community Health Network. She is the Farm to School Learning Circle Coordinator and the Executive Director of NewStories.  Jenn finds her inspiration in nature on the traditional lands and waters of the K’omoks Nation on Vancouver Island with her husband, two children, and many furry friends.

Register Here Now!