Our second planning meeting for the Divide Community Forest built on the strong foundation established during our first gathering. Community members and GPC staff met at the Village Green Community Center in Kingston, WA to take the next steps in shaping our shared vision for this special place.
During Planning Meeting #2, community members reviewed the comprehensive list of objectives and community benefits that were brainstormed during our initial meeting. Together, we worked to prioritize these objectives, first organizing them within GPC’s three core pillars: Conservation, Stewardship, and Public Engagement.
The energy in the room was focused as we then dove deeper into more specific priorities. Everyone received a worksheet listing all the objective subcategories that emerged from our first meeting’s brainstorming session. These subcategories were created by carefully coding and grouping the themes from our original master list.
Using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (Low Priority) to 5 (High Priority), participants thoughtfully evaluated each subcategory. The response was tremendous! We collected 948 data points from 30 community members, giving us a robust picture of our collective priorities. We’ve calculated the average responses for each subcategory, with the median scores presented in the tables below.
These prioritized objectives will help guide our discussions in the final planning meeting as we work together to create a community forest that truly reflects our shared values and vision.
Join us at future meetings and tours to be involved and bring the voice of your community to the future management and use of the Divide Community Forest!
Divide Community Forest Tour #2, May 3 , 9:00 am – 11:00 am
Divide Community Forest Planning Meeting #3, May 6 , 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Divide Community Forest Tour #3 & Ribbon Cutting, May 17 , 9:00 am – 11:00 am
Check out the charts below, as well as some representative input from our community members.
