Let the Mapping Begin!

Last weekend, almost 30 members of our rural community in the Little Applegate Valley got together for our first ever community mapping event.  It was relaxed, fun and even exciting.  My wife and I got there 20 minutes late but that was no biggie since one of the organizers was also late due to daylight savings time.  So we didn’t miss anything formal, just a bunch of friends and neighbors getting a chance to chat and catch up on how the winter was and how the spring was looking.  The purpose of the meeting was to start a dialogue and explore what resources of all types we have to offer to each other now and plan to offer in the future.  The group consisted of a sampling of farms from our valley but not every farm or homesteader from our valley was able to be invited due to space constraints. So, after a more formal introduction we let the mapping begin.  This wasn’t the type of map I usually think of when I hear the word map.  We were about to map a wide range of things not just geographical locations. Then we would group the like items out of that brainstorm to make sense of all the information. Our wonderful community organizer whose inspiration had called us all together had already prepped 10 large sheets of butcher paper to brainstorm on with different headings on each.  Headings such as: Historic Sites, Communication and Culture, On Site Businesses and Education, social services, Big Dreams. We then broke out into small groups based on which farm we were from and spent 5 minutes in our group brainstorming around what our group had to offer under that heading.  So that took about an hour.  This was called assessment.  We were asked to be specific. If under education we wrote Music Lessons, we would also write the name of the person who was able and offering.  Under communication, we would note which person’s Twitter account or which business  webpage.   As the minutes ticked away we listed whatever came to mind for each topic.  And wow,  at the end of it all, there was so much information on each piece of paper. I felt amazed by how much was being offered by all these different people and the places they loved and the things they loved to do.  I could not help but be excited by all the potential being expressed.  It also blew me away that this was only a sample of the valley community but far from an exhaustive group.  It was clear to me that this was just part of the story.  And it was just the beginning of our story.   Our story of who we are and what we do and how we want to do it together.  Every community ought to do this.  Let the mapping begin!