I thought it was a great session and clearly highlighted a Chattanooga success story (CNE) and its ability to shine. I’m a contractor and building “affordable”
housing is about as easy as getting my hair to be brown again (almost impossible) but CNE has done more than almost anyone to help with that aspect. I also really appreciated the exercise they did.
I also really enjoyed the speakers and how well they fielded questions.
With that said…as to why weren’t more people there these are my guesses:
·
The “new” wore off?
·
People view housing as someone else’s problem?
·
Maybe some people didn’t think a meeting about housing would be interesting?
·
I just walked around my office and asked random people what CNE is or what they do. One person got it right. All that is to say that I wouldn’t take
last night as a trend…
I think y’all need to keep pushing the concept of “The next version of Chattanooga will be crafted by you!”.
Just my two cents!
Arch
Arch C. Willingham IV
President
T.U. Parks Construction
1207 East 23rd Street
Chattanooga, TN 37408-2304
Direct dial: 423-648-3813 (use my cell if you have it….I’m never at this number)
Mobile: 423-667-0291
From: Greg Laudeman, Ed.D. <greg@eduity.net>
Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2026 10:37 AM
To: CVSG Study Group discussion <cvsg@list.chattanooga.digital>
Subject: [Cvsg] Last night's Chattanooga Venturing Dialogue... and next week's regular meeting
Thanks to Chris Thompson and the CNE team for the program last night! It was very informative.
I thought the learning games were especially interesting as an engagement practice. They definitely helped folks — some of whom had deep experience with the topic — understand the issues. With a bit of tweaking, learning exercises like
that could become powerful catalysts for collaborative action. They are a bit labor-intensive but that issue could be addressed by creating generic versions or templates for facilitators to use without any/much pre-work.
Unfortunately, it was not as well attended as past sessions. Does anyone have any thoughts about why? Was it lack of a Venture-era “celebrity” to anchor the discussion and/or singular focus on CNE? Is the topic just not that important or
interesting? Surely not! Did we just not reach the right audience?
My goal is for the dialogues to be interesting and useful to activists and change-makers, especially as we consider changing format. Any input or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Our next regular meeting, next Tuesday, May 5, at noon, will focus on means to address our new focus and goal.
Based on your input the Study Group’s goals are to build community infrastructure for engaging people and to connect causes, initiatives, and organizations in the community. Rather than telling people what’s happing, our goal is to hear
about and share others’ goals, issues, needs, opportunities, and resources. Basically, we’re applying lessons learned from Venture and similar initiatives to learn-by-doing about community venturing, we’re facilitating community problem-solving rather than
just providing solutions.
The proposed focus is how to increase incomes and prosperity in our community, guided by the question, “how might we do better and make more?”
—
Greg Laudeman, Ed.D.
Executive Officer and Principal
Eduity, LLC
www.eduity.net
greg@eduity.net
706-271-5521
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