In this first workshop we heard about Peak Oil, Individual and Community Solutions from David French and Ron Rancourt, and saw interesting pictures from David Chernushenko’s trip to Europe. His presentation showed how we can choose to design a city to encourage cycling and car sharing, among other things. Dr Ann Dale from Sustainable Community Development spoke about the process by which communities can work towards a sustainable goal.
After the presentations the group debated problems in each area of Food, Energy, Biodiversity, the Built Environment, and Water. We created tree posters with each idea occupying a leaf. These will be used at future workshops.
Participants are asked to reply to this post with comments about this first workshop. A brief introduction (Name, profession, etc) would be a great start.
Thanks!
Hi my name is Ron Rancourt and I would like to thank Ann and Heather for taking the initiative to hold these Redesigning Ottawa workshops. It was a pleasure to speak to the group about Peak Oil and the importance of Individual actions and Community solutions. Looking forward to the next workshops.
I too compliment the organizers on getting this project off the ground. I look forward to receiving the compilation of the id. of issues on the various “trees” and what the mandate of the Ottawa committee is to which this group will be reporting; and what the “sponsors” of this effort expect and by when; and the url for the document the presenter (Ann?) referred to so that I can take a look at it.
I am hoping perhaps the organizers will formulate some kind of a “suggested” rough game plan for the next three meetings, with a bit of time at the beginning of the next meeting to discuss that plan.
It might be useful to assemble a list of those who attended, and what they think their contribution can be beyond a general one (eg. special knowledge on a subject matter, knowing useful contacts, etc).
I neglected to mention the following about the Conference: It was a well organized event and took place at Oakland University in Rochester Michigan. It went from Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon and included keynote speakers (Pat Murphy, and others listed here: http://www.plancconference.org) and a series of “tracks” in the areas of Energy, Food Housing and Transportation. There was also tours of an
Ecological Awareness centre and a sustainable restaurant. I’d estimate 350 people attended, from mostly US states but about a dozen from Ontario. There was also a “Connections Cafe” where we met to have roundtable discussions and for networking.