Health Summit Underway
Posted by Brent Finnegan on August 29th, 2009
More than 100 people representing a wide range of interests and organizations gathered at First Presbyterian Church this morning as the Harrisonburg Health and Wellness Summit kicked off around 9:30.
The Health Summit is the second of several in a series of community meetings organized by Mayor Kai Degner and partner organizations. The inaugural summit, held in May, centered around themes of sustainability. Today’s meetings are (ostensibly, presumably) about issues related to health and wellness. The stated purpose of the summits, from their website:
Harrisonburg Summits are opportunities for hundreds of people and organizations to come together to discuss issues related to an important theme or issue facing the Harrisonburg-Rockingham area.
A summit is a scheduled event that brings together partner organizations and citizens for a combination of discussions, workshops, brainstorming, and education.
The summits blog should be updated throughout the morning and early afternoon as a schedule is established, and reports from the groups start rolling in (RSS feed).
Sen. Creigh Deeds is visiting the summit, attending a breakout session.
Thanks to everyone who attended – the session reports are starting to roll in. For some reason, the feed isn’t being picked up at Hbblogs.
Please keep in mind the remaining 2009 Harrisonburg Summits:
Intercultural/Interfaith: Thursday October 22 3-9pm
Sustainability (II): Saturday November 14 9:30-3:30
As expected the DNR did the ” One Horse newspaper” bit again. Creigh did get top billing, however, there was mention of the Obenshain and Lohr token peons and no one else. No mention of Gene Hart (who was there all day) or Greg Marrow (there most of day) or Steve Shannon who came in the afternoon. For that much, Richard Baugh was there all day and he isn’t even running for office now! I feel very good that Democrats do care.
Peons? Alan, it says very clearly in red text over the comment box “no name-calling comments.”
I spoke with Del Lohr and Sen Obenshain directly to extend the invitation. Both were interested and supportive of the event, and regretted having previous commitments. They each, however, made the commitment to send their designated aids. Both Joel and Jared were engaged and picked up information, and I was pleased they were able to attend.
These summits aren’t meant to be political and the attendance of specific individuals aren’t supposed to be the main story. These summits are opportunities for people to connect with people, projects, ideas, and decision-makers. They coordinated by the Community Mediation Center, which has a goal of convening safe spaces for people to talk, listen, and make decisions together.
We’ll have ongoing opportunities to attend the summits over the next year. All the information and reports are at <a href="http://www.harrisonburgsummits.com?HarrisonburgSummits.com
HarrisonburgSummits.com
Wait a moment, do you mean to say that you made a direct request for their participation?
My question was directed to the Mayor.
No, not a request – an invitation. Only about 10-12 days before Saturday’s event, I shared the vision for the series of Harrisonburg Summits and I extended an invitation to attend. It was short notice for both Sen Obenshain and Del Lohr. Despite my delay in contacting them, they were both very interested, saw the benefits of such an event, and regretted not being able to attend due to prior commitments.
Again, they did both send their aids, who were recognized at the event along with other local elected officials and candidates.