International Perspectives

Music, like the United Nations Agenda 21, is a type of plan that occurs on a national scale where each member impacts the environment in which it exists. Take Drum and Bugle Corps as an example. This is a world wide music scene that personifies the word "community". Music is the same in every language, the notes don't change between country, race or religion. No matter what language you speak or god you believe in music is the same language to every person that listens to it.

Drum and Bugle corps (http://www.dci.org/) brings together every summer, people from all over the world to unite in one loud passionate display of community engagement. The corps jacket one wears is like the flag of their country. The gathering of anaudience to listen to parking lot warmups before the big show is like many communities joining together to give thanks to this one all powerful group that communicated to them in a certain passionate fashion.

Drum corps encourages it's community to "leave it all on the field". Every community should act this way, to have so much dedication that you show up to a community meeting fo sorts with one sole purpose. Everyone at that meeting has the same purpose and when all is said an done that purpose has been communicated in such a way that everyone who has been around to witness feel senspired to spread the word and carry on that passion.

If every community could be like drum corps I believe that each single community and nation could function as an integrated whole in which every member reaped the benefits it had to offer.

Vague Goals Give Poor Results

In a recent lecture by Judy Brownoff, a council member for the community of Saanich, it was stated that clear objectives were given to create a sustainable community plan. After a review of these objectives it was concluded that the clarity that they were supposed to provide was some what muddled. How do city and community councillors believe that they can achieve community engagement and sustainability if they do not lay out clear guidelines as to how they will achieve those objectives?
Yes we all strive towards a more vibrant and healthy community and that sounds really great, but how are we going to get that vibrant healthy community? What are the council people doing to initiate that change? This is seen in so many different forums around the world, not just on a community level.
The government wants us to cut back our green house gas emissions by 2010 or 2020 yet they do not set out guidlines as to how. There is no education program put in place as to why we are doing that or how we should go about doing that. Citizens are expected to educate themselves and make changes themselves without government prompting. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that if people do not care about what is going on or don't understand why they should be doing something, they will not educate themselves or take the necessary steps toward change.
If the governmnet does not enforce these grandiose plans that they have put in place to become a healthier community then is anything really going to get done? New leadership could put these current plans on a back burner. So how do we deal with that if it is so important? People need to stop thinking only about the here and now and start thinking about how that is going to affect the future and what needs to be done to make it better in 20 years.

Community Engagement

Community engagement is such a huge deal to make a community function sustainably and successfully. The problem is that very limited people actually know how to become engaged. In the community I lived in in Calgary I never once was aware of a community engagement initiative. Right before I moved we finally got a community news letter in the mail. In the back in tiny print showed the results of an apparent community election for a community council. I had been living in that community for 4 years and not once was I made aware of the existence of a community council.
Although the newsletter is a good step in the direction of beginning community engagement I don’t think much effort was ever put forth to kick start I large community gathering or response initiative. The only way anyone would have heard about this community council if they shopped at one grocery store in the area and read the bulletin board. If the community could create a website and make it well known to everyone residing in that community that it existed and what it was for community engagement would probably sky rocket.