Community Action Lab Event Agenda

In-Person Workshop Agenda Outline

Please use this material as reference when planning your Community Action Lab (CAL). Strong Towns expects to have an in-person meeting in your community during the second, seventh, and eleventh months of the first year of your CAL contract.

Day #1

• Morning/Afternoon: Strong Towns speakers arrive in town. In some instances, this may happen the night before. 
• Afternoon/Prior to Evening Presentation
  • Leadership Team Briefing and Listening Session - 90 minutes.
  • With host community permission, Strong Towns will send email invitations to the Leadership Team a week prior to this event. 

• Evening: Public presentation and Q&A. 90 minutes total. 
  • Workshop #1 (Month 2) Presentation: Strong Towns: The Bottom Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity
    • Goal: Introduce Community Action Lab - Changing the Conversation
      • Objective A: Introduce Strong Towns ideas to the general public 
      • Objective B: Build rapport with all involved stakeholders
  • Workshop #2 (Month 7) Presentation: Refinement of Ideas 
    • Goal: Cover themes considered crucial within the local community as identified by the Action Team. 
      • Objective: Dive deep into Action Team ideas and practical implementation
  • Workshop #3 Presentation (Month 11): Close Out
    • • • Goal: Review the progress of all aspects of the project.
          • Objective A: Recognize all who have contributed and participated in this initiative
          • Objective B: Encourage ongoing conversation

Day #2

• Morning: Two Stakeholder workshops. 90 minutes each.
  • Each group will be organized by topic or group they represent. Examples: Business community, development community, municipal staff, etc. 
  • The specific groups will be invited by the host community  

• Afternoon: Action Team Meeting. (90 minutes)
  • Review the content from the event and discuss any observations or findings

Venue and AV considerations 

Day 1 public presentation in the evening will require a large lecture space where a PowerPoint presentation can be given. This could be a community center, Council Chambers, local Church or theater space.

All other meetings can take place in any kind of meeting venue with access to give a PowerPoint presentation that you feel is appropriate since these will all be much smaller groups compared to the public presentation. This can be a more intimate space like a community center classroom, conference room, etc.