Meeting Report from Sunday

Hey everyone... our third meeting was a small one, especially compared to the great turnout last time. Maybe it was the weather, or people had already made other plans. In any event, we talked about the strengths of the group as well as the areas that we wanted to develop.

We all expressed a desire to see "something come out of the group" -- there's so much potential that remains to be tapped. Specifically, trainings and workshops were proposed as one concrete activity that we could initiate to better use the skills of the individuals who make up the Chicago Idealist network. There was also a desire to forge links between the city and the suburbs, broadening the reach of our network and bringing in more resources.

The Google Group seems like the best way to have a discussion about these ideas. There's a new topic called "what's your agenda?" for everyone to share their vision for the group.

And mark your calendars for the 4th meeting!
May 20th, 2pm, at Loyola.

Southwest Side Meeting a Success!

Thanks to everyone who braved the freezing temperatures to venture to the Southwest Youth Collaborative for Tuesday's start-up meeting. We had a nice time getting to know each other and discussing the Idealist mission. We even watched some video clips from other meetings!

Personally it was really great to have people coming from Chicago neighborhoods far and wide to see what the meeting had in store for them. We discussed where we all were coming from, what resources we knew of and what we were looking to get out of it all. Whether looking to change the world, learn a specific skill, take a first step into community involvement or just meet new people, I think everyone came away with a new connection or two.

Regarding the Idealist 'Imagine' campaign, we're going to look into promoting utilization of Idealist.org resources from the volunteer and organizational perspectives by word of mouth advertising and by contacting organizations to let them know about the abundance of resources offered by Idealist.org. We would also like to build this blog as an online meeting point for this 'network' of community members and a collection of Chicago community resources.

See you at the next meeting!