Gather a Group, Brainstorm and Submit Your Group’s Ideas
Step 1: Gather a Group
To help you prepare to form a group and share your ideas, you may want to ask people in the community
that have already formed a group you belong to or know about, such as:
- Church groups
- Service clubs and civic groups
- School groups
- Non-profit organizations
- Business/departments/employee groups
- Student organizations
Or you may want to gather a group of your own with a variety of citizens in a more informal way, such as:
- Family members
- Neighbors
- Golfing friends
- Parent groups
- Card clubs
There is no limit to the number of people who can be in a group. You can meet wherever and whenever it
works best for your group. You can meet as many times as you like to discuss your ideas and prepare a list.
Remember, the focus is on broad community coverage. All groups are good/valued.
Step 2: Brainstorm
Brainstorming is a technique for gathering a wide variety of ideas from a group of three or more people.
With any group who brainstorms together, it is wise to discuss some group guidelines. As a facilitator or a
group leader, you should explain to the group the ‘guidelines’ for generating ideas for Community Visioning.
Share these guidelines with the group, either by reading these aloud, making a handout for each person, or
posting these on a large piece of paper in your meeting room/space.
Guidelines
- All ideas will be written down
- There are no ‘bad’ ideas
- Don’t worry about what it would cost
- Don’t worry about who would do it
- Discourage the use of ‘No’ and ‘Can’t’ in the group’s discussion
- Move quickly, to get as many ideas as possible
- Don’t get bogged down in discussing or evaluating any one idea
- Brainstorming is not about evaluating; it is about generating ideas
- ‘Crazy’ ideas are OK, and can often lead to other ideas
- Don’t worry about or keep track of who offered which idea
- Don’t categorize the ideas into groups, just let them happen
- Don’t try to sift through the list and get rid of any ideas. Keep everything that is mentioned.
- No one ‘owns’ and idea, either for discussion or for later implementation
Here are some questions for your group to consider as you begin your brainstorming session(s). You may
want to ask these questions of your group at the beginning of a meeting to put them in a community
visioning ‘frame of mind’.
Questions to Consider
- What would make Austin an ideal place to live and work?
- Where is the best place you have ever visited? What did you like about it? What did it look like? Feel like? How could those images fit here?
- What is missing here?
- What would make you stay here as a citizen?
- If you were ‘mayor for a day’, and could do anything you wanted, what would it be?
Step 3: Submit Your Group’s Ideas
Collect all ideas your group discusses. Write them down on the sheet(s) provided, and
submit them on-line or drop off/mail to.
Your group’s ideas will be added into a large list of all the ideas from every group in the community. You can
submit ideas until October 14, 2011.