05/24/2017
Dear Neighbors,
With so much happening around our Southside community it’s hard not to feel a swell of excitement, anticipation, and inspiration, but also a bit of concern, reservation, and sense of overwhelming. With all the change and uncertainty, the Southside Cowart Place Neighborhood Association (SCPNA) provides you a clearinghouse for information and a mechanism to be sure our voice is heard during the tumult. However, we believe that we can do better.
Over the last year, the Board has successfully:
a.) created a new, online process for submitting
initiative ideas, and tracking status;
b.) opened public ([email protected]) and
official ([email protected]) email addresses
for access to our mailing list, while protecting
privacy;
c.) experimented with mission-focused responsibilities
within the Board;
d.) expanded our neighborhood boundaries to
encompass areas from Carter street (west), to 12th
street (north), and the Chattanooga Choo Choo;
Unfortunately, we still struggle to excite and engage members on initiatives, our email channels are hardly used, our focus is broad and our voice tends to be too quiet. To that end, the Board is proposing two new measures to strengthen our association objectives.
1. Single-Issue Meetings
Over the next year, we will transform our “town-hall” style meetings to “single-issue” meetings. SCPNA meetings in January and July will focus on introducing a single, specific issue within our neighborhood. July 20th, 2017 will focus on Traffic. We will identify key community and city officials and invite them to speak on specifics related to the meeting’s theme. During these meetings neighbors will communicate our concerns and needs, identifying milestones and commitments from community and city members. Over the following six months (and at meetings in April and October), the Board and neighbor volunteers will document and track these commitments, communicating progress back to the association.
2. Technology-based Model
Changes and news happen more quickly than our meetings, and we want to discipline our discourse to leverage technology tools that make communicating with one another more effective. As such, SCPNA will add extra focus this year on completing enhancements to online tools that facilitate community input and provide a forum for ease of sharing and discussion. These enhancements include existing channels (such as Facebook and Nextdoor), better instructions for utilizing our public/official email lists, publicly maintained/accessible calendars, online repositories for document sharing, and an easily maintainable web presence.
SCPNA should be a model neighborhood association, with high levels of member engagement, facilitating insightful communication, and participating in change. As we strive to identify the most effective means to affect change in this community your support is paramount. If you are not yet a dues paying member, join now at sscowart.com or paypal.me/sscowart/25.
Neighbors, we are proud to live in the most vibrant and rapidly developing section of Chattanooga. We are established residents and new, we are start-ups and staple businesses, we are owners and renters. Through all our differences, we are all Southside, and we are together.
Thank so much!
SCPNA Board Members
Go to paypal.me/sscowart and type in the amount. Since it’s PayPal, it's easy and secure. Don’t have a PayPal account? No worries. Getting one is fast and free.
