a little more from Seattle...

I am behind in these blogs, I know. The idea was to do one a day. Oh well. The thing is that we are meeting so many passionate people doing cool things that, well, we keep on doing rather than write about it... I know many of you will get that (and at least I don't have someone emailing me asking me to write something by a due date :-))


On that note though, those of you who have contributed learning and outcome stories will see them beginning to go online now on the IC website. Check them out, the breadth and depth of them is truly inspiring!


Here, Dylan and I have finished in Seattle now but not before meeting Joanne Donohue at Senior Services and talking about their 'Aging Your Way' initiative and how they developed it through 12 community meetings and a summit to get to this:



Many of these things are going on already, in some places at least. Deborah Greer and Karen Berge filled me in on their 'Block captains network' and the learnings they have been making with this and with their 
'be prepared' efforts in West Seattle. They are two energetic and savvy women who are focused on the development of communication hubs for when there is an emergency. It was a fabulous open conversation and hugely enjoyable!

Dylan and I also met with Cathy Tuttle who is another person involved in numerous locally focused activities, One of these is the development of greenways across Seattle - essentially places that provide safer, quieter alternatives for people to walk and bike while making neighbourhood streets safer. Cathy is also involved in SCALLOPS and Sustainable Wallingford too. Plenty to talk about!


As well we hung out in town, up the Space Needle, at the first Starbucks, the market and in a variety of plaza's, pocket parks and cafes. 

Public spaces work very well here! And I need to put my feet up :-) More from Vancouver soon.

This is to prove Dylan is still with me, even tho his blog is silent!

Denise