Melrose Community Conversations
Let’s “listen deeply, speak openly, and make connections,
even when (we) fundamentally disagree,
in order to address those tough challenges together.”
- Essential Partners co-Executive Director John Sarrouf
The Initiative
As part of Mayor Paul Brodeur’s ongoing commitment to community health and wellness, the City of Melrose announced in January the launch of a Community Conversations Initiative to build the community’s capacity to hold civic dialog on a range of important issues facing the City. Through the initiative, and in partnership with Essential Partners (EP) Inc., the City of Melrose will train a diverse group of community volunteers to become facilitators and conduct community conversations.
“Our intention is for these trained facilitators to become long-term resources that help break down barriers and grow and support dialogs at all levels, with the goal of building a more open and engaged Melrose.” - Mayor Paul Brodeur
The Community Conversations Initiative will recruit, train, and deploy 20 community dialogue facilitators drawn from community leaders, City staff, and other volunteers. Essential Partners will provide a two-day training and professional consultation services to plan and implement a program of facilitated public dialogue on issues of concern to the community.
There is still time to get involved in the Facilitator Training!
The Mayor’s Office welcomes and encourages volunteers of diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences–including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, religious or political beliefs, age, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
To get involved send a letter of interest by Friday, April 21st to communityconversations@cityofmelrose.org or call the Mayor’s Office at (781) 979-4440.
What happens after the training?
Once you’ve completed the training you will become part of the MCC community dialogue facilitator network, and will be invited to use your new skills to help plan and facilitate community conversations. There will be no official obligation, but we hope you’ll be inspired to continue facilitating conversations that help our community strengthen mutual understanding and make better decisions together.
We all have a truth to speak and deserve a safe forum to express it in without fear of having the truth be exploited.
We are going to talk about difficult things…and deserve facilitators to help us have these difficult conversations when we need to have them.
- Doug DiBrielle
The Planning Team and Our Progress
Christopher Robinson, Cory Thomas, Doug DiBrielle, Maribeth Darwin, Maureen Buzby, Joe Phillips, Sam Hammar, Julie DeLillo
The planning team has been meeting regularly to design the initiative specifically for Melrose, including creating the vision and goals, recruiting facilitators for training, and planning how to host future conversations.
Timeline
March - mid-April: Socialize the initiative with over 150 formal and informal stakeholders
late-April - May: Recruitment of facilitators
June 16-17: Facilitators will be trained
Fall: Conversations can commence
About the Power of Community Conversations and Essential Partners
Founded in 1989, Essential Partners (EP) helps people build relationships across differences to address their community's most pressing challenges. EP’s flexible and effective dialogue approach equips people to live, work, worship, and learn better together. Find out more about EP, browse a library of free resources, and register for public workshops at whatisessential.org.