Friday, May 22, 2009

A meeting I actually enjoyed

Like many people, I often don't enjoy meetings. It doesn't matter whether the meeting is held in a nice cafe or on a sunny beach - if it is boring, badly run and clearly going nowhere, it's a total waste of my time.

That's not how our first meeting of the Canada Bay CSPC graffiti group went yesterday. We had a good introductory talk, throwing lots of ideas and issues around and then paying a visit to a nearby site. I got a strong feeling that this is not a "fig leaf" group - that is, where you hold meetings to put a fig leaf over a problem, and then do nothing about it. There are no "talkers" in the group - everyone is a "doer".

There's no quick fixes in this game - I'm digging in and preparing for a long slog. We've identified some opportunities, and we've also identified plenty of problems that need to be worked through. It's entirely unglamorous and unspectacular work, yet I can't see how building co-operation between residents, the Police and the Council won't pay off in the long run.

The other nice thing about the meeting is that we are a small group - we can all fit in one car at the moment, which means none of the trauma of running a large gathering.

You know, I am actually looking forward to the next meeting! I must be going mad.

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