City Councillor Discovers What’s Important to Rosslanders and Wants to Share with All
By Contributor
Nearly 1,000 heartfelt thoughts came forward from the community when City Councillor and mayoral candidate, Kathy Moore asked Rosslanders two simple questions: What’s going well and where we can improve as a community?
With a goal to uncover the community’s shared sense of values and priorities, Moore – using Thoughtexchange’s unique approach to online engagement – opened up a conversation with her community on the future of Rossland. Anyone interested in having a say was able to take advantage of the opportunity, including other candidates, resulting in more than 300 community participants.
“Rosslanders told us what’s important to them, by assigning nearly 14,000 ‘Stars’ to priorities that mattered most,” said Moore, “Really validating what I think are the key issues in this election.” Moore believes that governance and fiscal issues need to be addressed in an open and transparent way; which the community loudly echoed back through their responses. Many positives were heard as well, including the immense value that the community puts on the superb natural environment Rossland offers, and the excellent recreation opportunities available to all.
The results also strongly underscore another key issue in the upcoming election – leadership. “Generally the concerns relate more to the steps that need to be taken by Council or staff,” continues Moore, “making it even more important that the community ensures strong, positive leadership is elected this term”
Jim Firstbrook, Thoughtexchange’s CEO, continues to be impressed with how passionate and community-minded Rosslanders are. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to help my community better understand and learn from each other,” says Firstbrook. “If by facilitating a deeper conversation, more Rosslanders gain a common understanding of the issues at stake, I believe that our efforts as a local, values-driven company will really pay off.”
Moore is pleased to share the results with all Rosslanders and candidates in the municipality’s upcoming election, and further states that regardless of whether she personally wins or loses, she “encourages all voters to consider the results in the context of their own perspective and cast their ballot.”
Discover things for yourself: http://kathymoore.thoughtexchange.info/
About Kathy Moore: Kathy Moore has been a Rossland Councillor for the past 6 years and has been a Rossland taxpayer since 1997. She has a background in management and law. Through her work in Rossland with various strategic sustainable development initiatives and volunteer organizations, Moore continues to look for new ways to learn from her community and bring this knowledge forward to her work in municipal government.
About Thoughtexchange: Thoughtexchange (formerly Thoughtstream) is an online consultation company headquartered in Rossland with staff across BC and in Washington State and Oregon. Thoughtexchange has a patent pending “group insight platform” and consulting services to support large scale online consultations in school districts, health organizations and businesses. They are the only technology company with an online process that allows participants to share answers to open ended questions, learn from one another and discover what matters most to the group as a whole.
This article is a press release from Thoughtexchange.
