30
Wednesday, January 6, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
CIVILITY: Multiple
community meetings
are on offer
Continued from page 1
as churches, will meet noon
to 1:30 p.m. for lunch at the
Sisters fire station community
hall, 301 S. Elm St., hosted
by C4C. RSVP to C4C at
541-549-1482.
Thursday evening, 5 to 7
p.m., C4C will host a free all-
community meeting at the fire
station community hall. No
RSVP necessary.
At each of the Thursday
meetings, questionnaires will
be available for citizens to
complete and then, on Friday,
January 15, 8 to 9:30 a.m. at
the fire hall, there will be a
“Next Steps” meeting, for
anyone interested in hearing
the results of the question-
naires and helping to plan
how and if to proceed with
the Civility Project in Sisters.
Those unable to attend a
Thursday meeting are encour-
aged to come to the Friday
gathering.
A graduate of University
of Kansas in journalism with
an MBA from University of
Chicago’s Booth School of
Business, Karwath began
his journalistic career as a
reporter at one of America’s
leading newspapers, the
Chicago Tribune, where he
eventually became the busi-
ness editor, general manager
and director of product devel-
opment. As business editor, he
led a team of reporters whose
series on the downfall of the
Arthur Anderson accounting
firm in the Enron scandal was
a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer
Prize.
Karwath’s career has
involved other print, online,
and broadcast journalism jobs
in both Chicago and Duluth,
MN, until he returned to
Duluth in 2011 to establish
North Coast Communications,
where he serves as president
and CEO. His firm helps large
and small clients navigate the
complex world of communi-
cations and messaging.
The Duluth Superior Area
Community Foundation,
which established the SYP
project in 2003 to address
difficulties the communi-
ties were having in solv-
ing difficult challenges, was
Karwath’s first client and
accounts for about half of his
business. He serves as their
national representative when
inquiries regarding SYP are
received from across the U.S.
and the world.
Karwath, who as a journal-
ist first viewed SYP with skep-
ticism and a mild disinterest,
has experienced first-hand the
positive impact of the proj-
ect when bringing together
disparate parties with deep-
seated differences, as well as
those who are in agreement
but stuck in their process.
In his experience with
SYP, he has observed that
breakdowns in process and
communications usually
come not from dealing with
big issues but rather from not
observing very simple tenets
of civility, which allow every-
one involved to feel heard and
fairly treated. Often opportu-
nities are missed or subopti-
mized when the attitude is,
“We know what they’re going
to say before they say it;
there’s no point in engaging.”
When communities or
organizations agree to adopt
the SYP tenets of civility, or
some version of them, they
are agreeing to conduct them-
selves and work on issues,
being guided by the over-
arching concept of “Is this
process, communication, or
action civil or not civil?”
Karwath summed it up:
“The SYP project provides a
community of any kind with
an intellectually simple, easy-
to-understand set of tools….
SYP doesn’t provide a single
‘aha’ moment nor is it a one-
time inoculation that is good
for life.”
Rather, it is a way to cre-
ate a safe platform for people
to respectfully communicate
with each other in public
photo provided
Speak your Peace national spokesperson Rob Karwath will introduce the
community-building initiative to Sisters January 14 and 15.
meetings and organizational
settings, to minimize divisive-
ness and misunderstanding,
and to maximize collaboration
and creative problem-solving.
For more information,
contact Robyn Holdman
541-549-1482 or the SYP
national office www.dsaspeak
yourpeace.org.
Local nonprofit promotes civility
Citizens4Civility (C4C) is
a local nonprofit corporation
formed in 2015 by residents
of Sisters Country who care
deeply about the community.
They came together
around the idea that when
citizens in a community are
provided with tools for infor-
mation, education, and com-
munication, they will have
every opportunity to create a
safe and respectful platform
Specializing
in Central
Oregon Rural
Properties
from which to work to
improve business, economic,
and social aspects in Sisters.
They have observed over
the past few years that Sisters
Country has faced many
challenges that have created
controversy in the commu-
nity. Communication often
broke down and the qual-
ity of the discourse became
unproductive.
As a volunteer-driven,
grass-roots effort, their goal
at this time is to give citizens
an opportunity to become
familiar with Speak Your
Peace (SYP), a successful
program that has been repli-
cated in some 34 communi-
ties around the country.
Following the SYP intro-
duction on January 14-15,
and with community feed-
back, C4C will assess how to
move forward.
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