Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and Leadership Evansville Executive Director Lynn Miller-Pease today announced the launch of VOICE, a community-wide, citizen-driven vision process that allows community members to share their ideas, hopes and visions for Evansville’s preferred future.
Through facilitated sessions, VOICE aims to bring together diverse members of the community to discuss their dreams for Evansville in an open forum. The facilitation is led in such a way that respectful conversations will occur, all voices will be heard, and opinions will be documented, ensuring that the entire community has the opportunity to take part in creating a desired future.
“This initiative is about building trust amongst the members of our community and learning that if we all join together and have civil dialogue about our future desires and current issues, we can create a strong society that will thrive and grow,” said Mayor Lloyd Winnecke. “Through this effort, it is my hope that residents become engaged in a civic dialogue that will result in a greater sense of pride in our community.”
Multiple VOICE sessions will be held throughout the year in order to obtain feedback from people of all ages, all ethnic and religious backgrounds, and multiple neighborhoods.
“I firmly believe that communities with a shared vision, and an appropriate processes to capture, record and inspire action around common goals can achieve healthier, more vibrant futures,” said Miller-Pease. “The approach we are taking with VOICE is allowing citizens to actively create and participate in envisioning their own their own future, so they can dream big and be part of making it happen.”
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The VOICE Process
• Leadership Evansville will facilitate discussion sessions each month starting on August 15 at easy-to-access public locations, such as Evansville Public Library branches and Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation schools. The sessions will be advertised in neighborhood newsletters, the newspaper, television, radio, and the Internet at www.evansvillevoice.com.
• Comments from each session will be available to the participants and the public. A summary and detailed notes will be posted on the VOICE Web site one week after the session.
• Once all comments are collected, additional community sessions will occur to verify that the information collected truly represents participants’ opinions.
• Then, common themes and ideas will be grouped by topic area to serve as guidance for organizations, businesses, universities, individuals, and government bodies with interest in that topic to move forward with further research and planning toward a common goal.
Meeting Dates:
• August 15th (Launch) @ The Center from 6:00pm-9:00pm
• August 20th @ Helfrich Park STEM Academy from 5:00pm-7:00pm
• August 25th @ Harrison High School from 10:00am-12:pm
• September 5th @ Career & Technical Center from 6:00pm-8:00pm
• September 10th @ Central Library from 10:00am- 12:00pm
• September 26th @ Potter’s Wheel from 5:30pm-7:30pm
• September 29th @ Caze School from 2:00pm-4:00pm
Note: After the 7th session, the process will be evaluated for effectiveness and a second series of meetings will be scheduled.