Walkabout Talkabout Your Neighborhoods 2017 revised version

Now available to download for free at www.facebook.com/ROGUEcommunities

Note that the Walkabout Talkabout booklet is no longer available at www.communityrenaissance.biz which has been discontinued.  Community Renaissance's current website is www.communityrenaissance.webstarts.com

You can contact Community Renaissance through www.facebook.com/communityrenaissance or 520.331.5582

Walkabout Talkabout Book 2017/BlogtoBook

It's been a labor of love for community, and a community-relationship building experience to create the new (third) 2017 version of The Walkabout Talkabout Book.  The book originally was written and designed in 1988 by The Maverick Institute co-founders Leslie Johnston (graphic artist) and Anita C. Fonte (writer) and funded by the Arizona Humanities Council. It was reprinted by the University of Arizona's Cooperative Extension and 4-H and used by 4-H Groups throughout the State.

In 2016, as part of the collaborative effort to Build UP^ Tucson & Beyond, others came into the process of envisioning how a revised version could benefit various community-building efforts.  These groups include:  the Southwest Fair Housing Council, the Pima County Ending Poverty Program, the Geospatial Collaborative LLC, the Limberlost Neighborhood Association and Feng Shui Planning.  

In 2017, Leslie Johnston/What We Think Design, created a new cover for the book which features a water-harvesting element.  Content suggestions from the City of Tucson's Trees for Tucson Program, the Pima County Ending Poverty Program, and Feng Shui Planning were added under the authorship and coordinationa of Anita C. Fonte/Community Renaissance & its pro bono program, The Partnership for Equity and Civic Engagement (PECE).

The Walkabout Talkabout Book is free and available to download at www.geospatialcollaborative.org.  It is a book that is friendly to children as well as adults.  Limited hard copies are printed by the Pima County Ending Poverty Program and the Geospatial Collaborative LLC.  

Please use the Walkabout Talkabout Book and let us know how it helped you and your neighborhood at anitafonte@gmail.com 

www.publicdomainpictures.net

UA Geo Spatial Planning Project, a collaboration with BuildUP^ Tucson & Beyond

While the TENWEST Festival was wrapping up the UA Collaboration Leadership Summit on Poverty was taking place.  It's impossible to be in both places--which is why it's so important to connect through social media resources.  And that's what Iris Patten and Anita Fonte have been doing since the first BuildUP^ Tucson & Beyond gathering in April.  Through the summer BuildUP^ gatherings face-to-face, the first UA GeoSpatial Project meeting in July, Facebook pages, and yes, the occasional phone calls, the trajectory of the UA's effort has been generating next steps.

Last week, through site visits to two neighborhoods (Barrio Anita and Barrio Blue Moon), 10/27-28 Summit sessions on how to measure project outcomes and how to impact local policies, how to frame the project with authentic community-based language, the effort is designing these actions:

• With the two, and possibly other engaged neighborhoods, conduct an "energy challenge" which measures concrete "energy" elements (water use, electricity, etc.) as well as the less concrete element of neighborhood activities/social capital. January 7-March, 20, 2017 
• Note:  The conclusion of the initial challenge will coincide with 3rd International Day of Happiness 
• Develop a partnership with Tucson Electric Power and other energy corporations.
• Apply for seed money 
• Create a University of Arizona "Planners in Residence" Program with graduate students embedded in the participating neighborhoods 2017 and into the future.

For more information on how to get involved in this effort, contact Iris Patten at ipatten@email.arizona.edu

One of several groups at UA GeoSpatial Summit, photo by Iris Patten

More highlights from the TENWEST Festival  www.tenwestfestival.com Field Notes by Anita, will be coming in the days ahead.

Photo by Anita C. Fonte