press with the local chinese narp or whatever language your community may need. thots one of the most effective way to get to community measures that may be more isolate the. and i think fundraising campaign is also a great way to build community because in our community, there are play grounds that are old and i'm sure there are play grounds in your community that are old and needs to be renovated. and i think play grounds is the way to bring people together because everyone wants their kid to play in a safe play ground. they want better facilities. it's a unifying goal that everybody wants. i think finding a unifying goal is important in community

building. i think and then all of what the other panelists have said are very useful. >> thank you. >> we heard from our exerts a lot about the successes and the tools and strategies that they use to really engage their communities. a lot of us in the beginning raised our hands and said we were very actively engaged in the community already. it's a good time to talk about the challenges that come up. i'd love to hear from you in the audience what you see as challenges. what you would like to hear our panel give advice to or just hear your concerns and see what we can do to offer you support. anybody have a question? yes. >> i have a question about [inaudible] what techniques do

you suggest from revitalizing a neighborhood association and get people become on the positive track [inaudible]. >> okay. i know that the film crew needs us to repeat questions. the question is what do we do about burn out in the community when we have success in engaging people and the energy sort of deplates out, what do we do? >> i can start with that. involving a large section of the community who's interested. we ask for volunteers. and we don't over burden them. we meet quarterly.

the reason we meet quarterly after two months people are eager to meet. if you meet too often there is the burn out. what we try to do and we do have emergency meetings and a shopping center we had an albertson's that closed we had special meetings between the quarterly meetings, well attended. and people interested in supporting that segment. we try to be inclusive and involve all segments of our community and people outside of the area attend our meetings. we are very positive much the key is communication, 2, not meeting that often, believe it or not with our group. other groups it may be important to meet every month. to avoid the burn out get as many people involved and meet only when it's necessary to meet.

>> just as someone who came into a community that was burnt out on having meetings because of the violence and all the issues that have happen instead western addition when we started up there were concerns about meets because people feel you meet all the time and nothing changeses so what's the point. we meet regularly. the key is with volunteer organizations i think nopna is good about tapping into the resources existing. find out what community based organizations and what the police department and what the mayor's office or the city has to offer and really try to tap into people who are getting paid to do some of the work you need to have done so you don't burn out the volunteers. using the volunteers for the event and project piece that happens so they can relish in the joy and beauty of this is great. we have something to show for. but for our time but to take

advantage of people who are getting paid to do some of that work so that that day to day the phone calling and the following up the creating the agendas. may be some of that stuff can be done through somebody else who's getting paid to do that. a lot of the neighborhoods have community organizes like safety network who do out reach and support. i think you have to find out what resources are available to you. and take advantage of them. the mayor's office of community develop. the mayor's office of housing. all of the departments have an out reach division or a piece you with tap into and take advantage of. initially you have to do what's realistic. you probably can't meet that often but make the best use of the time you do meet and find the resources in the city you can use to further your agenda. >> other questions people have?

>> can i say first off though that the city dcys funded a community convener for treasure island somebody is getting paid to have convener meetings and

bring the community together. >> i can get that information for you after this meeting. through the community -- i'm sorry -- department children youth and families of the city are paying the treasure island development housing initiative. it's being paid to do community convening. >> that's tidi and i understand tidi there is the residents out there. and tidi has their ideas there are market rate people that want to organize. >> this is a new funding that has come out where they will engage the whole community. follow up because they got money specifically to engage the entire community. >> i'd like to add that we up here we really want to help every single person every neighborhood organization in the

room. what we need from you is to sign the clip board that's come around because even though you signed in when you registered for this workshop that's going to city government. they don't share their information with us. we have no way of contacting you once this workshop is over unless you sign in. i particularly as coalition for san francisco neighborhoods would like to have especially those who said they want to start new organizations or revitalize an organization to get in contact with me or give me your information personally so i can help you with that. as to treasure island i'm going to have to pass on that one to somebody else but i could help you with your organization. not as a specific geographical.

>> i'd like to address your question. may be we need to talk off line but it's engaging the residents everything starts as a seed. any idea even with our neighborhood watch programs on a block by block level what we are doing is getting 2 or 3 residents together they form critical mass and they meet and it's a gathering a seed process you have to water it. if there are 3 or 4 of you interested in creating a neighborhood association. put up a flyer at the coffee shop and may be you will get more joining you. it will flower if you are consistent with your meetings. you need to be have routine set meetings whether it's quarterly

or every other month same day, same time of the month so people know when they are. and it's about communicating there are a lot of other people on the island that want to do exactly what you want to do. and you need to get to them and communicate out to them. you can start a yahoo group and add one e mail at a time. i would be happy to share with you on how we started our yahoo group. we didn't start with 600 people we started with 5. our yahoo group has grown by 200 people in the last year primarily because we made it easy for people to sign up and we have been promoting the neighborhood association we have flyers up. we are doing a lot of value added activities for the neighborhood including parties. what cheryl said about finding daniel holmesy.

do you know daniel holmesy? >> i know other people that are my husband is on the treasure island advisary committee. treasure island's an area the city is investing in. i think you can leverage resources. >> if i can briefly answer becky's question. this is for everybody. number one, stay positive. >> number 2, listen to your constituency that's important and i think the key to the whole thing is find somebody in if it's department of public works or any organization sfpuc whom ever and get a liaison and invite them to the meeting. don't just have a complaint session come up with a problem and say, we will work together to solve this problem.

here's what we can do. how can you help us? how can we work together. that's the key. organizations love coming to our meetings because it's not a c p complaints we try to keep it positive we work with the agencies and that's the key to it. >> we were going to have volunteers but i don't see them so we are doing it this way. [inaudible].

>> great question. the question posed was how do we engage the young professionals in our community? how do we pass up the time and speak from people who have been

engaged in the organizing effort to the younger people coming up. >> we organize block parties where we have bands come that are basically we have parties. and people come out for parties [laughter]. that's the bottom line. we have bbq. they can get a beer at the local corner store. you know. >> we have apartments and condos all over our neighborhood it's the same thing. i'm telling you you have an event where there is music and food people will come. they just will. may be it won't be 200 people may be 50 people but the next time you do it you get another hundred people. i have to share a story that's not related but sort of relate

the. we have block parties every year in may or september or something like thachlt this last one our block parties are great way for us to get everybody. we get the starving students. we get the musician and it is artists and the families we get the you know people from low income housing coming. we get the corporate america, we get everybody at the block parties. it's because we do a variety of things. we have the bounce house for the kid. the music. you at our last 1 the guy named didz hip he's great. he was riding his bike bite block party he's an hoola hoop guy. he's on his guy with 30 hoola hoops riding his bike and said, hi, can i join. he had all the kids. he had a microphone and he was a

spontaneous celebration. he sdoont live in our neighborhood but we invite him back. have an event. [inaudible]. >> yeah. well, music, music brings in people. young professionals, young people like music and love free food. >> if i may comment. not only the young professionals but also people we live in a multili multilingual city make sure you involve every segment of the community in our organization. we try to do that. we are looking for bilingual

services it's difficult to find because it's costly. we try to be inclusive. we are not exclusive. again, we have members who pay 15 dollars a year to join our association but that is not who that's not who come to our meeting. anybody in the community. we have people who own homes who live outside of san francisco who come to our community meetings. it's important to include everybody and try to get as broad range of individuals in your at your meetings. i think that's part of the success. how you go about doing that we can go around the room and i'm sure everyone has suggestions and ideas. the key is being inclusive. [inaudible] [laughter]

>> the question is how dou break through the wall. how do you break through the wall of associations that have built up around issues that don't reach out to the whole

community they serve? >> well, not just issues but it's a culture of personality i believe she was speaking to. 2 of the main things that you can use are look at the by laws of the organization. are there term limits? what are the by laws state? and secondly, the actual meeting itself. assuming there are regular meetings, what kind of structures? parliamentary procedures or roberts rules of order. there are coalition of san francisco neighborhood in the audience has robert's rules in brief. a few copies she would be glad to sell you. >> for a very low price i believe 7 dollars. they are invaluable.

robert's rules are some of the most interesting things i've read not intimidating what so ever. and if you would like a copy they are right here at the slim volume but it works. i think that those 2 tools the by laws and the robert's rules parliamentary procedure would be -- going at it legally without going and saying, pointing if anythingers at people which is something you really don't want to do. >> can i say as somebody for 10 years worked in the community and didn't is a plug in any neighborhood association or organization. especially in an area where we have a lot of low income housing where they don't organize neighborhood associations and their voices are not heard in

the agendas that are being shaped for that neighborhood or that community. the key for me was really just engaging with the community and not really needing the by in of the city. or of the neighborhood associations. and being happy with saying, you know what this is an issue here and this is how we as this group plan to move about it and move on it. and working with the people that wanted to work with us. i think now at this point i'm into the formal names and having the organizations and the associations mainly because i have to be. but as a resident and as a parent and as a person that was living in the neighborhood, initially it became let's do this with this group of people. as you begin to do that it forces the neighborhood associations and the city to really begin to take notice of what you are doing. if you are saying that this is an issue and the people that are not a part of that group are

saying it's not that this is the other issue now and you build that momentum and do that work it forces them to say, we have to acknowledge this group or these people and invite them to come in. i guess you have to figure out what that issue is that's not being worked on or looked at our being acknowledges in that group and organize outside of it. >> just briefly, i agree with judy said about the by laws when created metma we set term limits. no one can hold an office for more than 2 consecutive 2 year terms. the reason is you don't want an organization to be with an individual or ideaiology. we have elections every other year. nominations in august and november meeting we have the

election. every even year. except for the treasurer we want to keep the treasurer, other than that every officer must leave after 4 years. that, i think is the key poinlt much the other thing is make individual contacts with those individuals who you think have a hidden agenda or something else not aligned with what you are doing. talk to them individually outside of the setting and invite them to attend to be positive. i think the key is again, communication and to be positive. i think if you can do that and get them along the lines of what your organization is doing you will be ahead of the game. >> i think we have time for one more question.

>> excellent. you have to repeat the question. >> the question raised is how does neighborhood association or neighborhood group come together to support the seniors as they are aging and take care of them.

>> we actually have a couple senior citizen homes in our neighborhood. and we have the same exact problem. and through neighborhood watch, on a block by block, you got to get to the block by block level. this is where safe plays a huge role. i understand how vital it could be for us. you basically find a block captain, somebody willing to organize people and get a meeting together at their home or a place that's close where 5-10 people could meet. you talk about the particular issues you have on that block. you know in your case it may be the seniors living on that block. or you know in other cases it may be people want to do garage sale. a block garage sale another great community building tool.

or block party or something like thachlt neighborhood watch is a great tool to organize at a block by block level to address the specific concerns and the seniors is it's a big concern. we are doing that on a we have a particular a couple of blocks where we identified seniors. we identified homes with pets. so in the case of an emergency there are other people on the block that know that are assigned to go check so you do the phone tree. and safe has a great process for helping you get that start. >> saw a bunch of questions. we can go a little later. you had your hand up.

>> the question is how to bring people together from different organizations to organize. >> good ahead.

>> on your specific geographical location, northwest alliance is the most active organizations and they have an incredible out reach to merchants and neighbors and all sorts of entities. personally i would first go to them. second, coalition for san francisco neighborhoods are the mother. i can't get in touch with you unless you sign in to the clip board that should be going around. please, sign it and put your name and address and phone number or not address by neighborhood in there. >> i do want to stress that the city, through the department of children youth and families funded for every big population

of neighborhoods the new convener grant where they pay someone who is holding convening meetings where tla bring city departments and neighborhood associations and residents and tenant associations together. that's a resource that people need to tap into. it's not for a set population it's for a neighborhood. that money as of july first, is out there and people are being paid to do that. this is your opportunity to may be hold them accountable for that. >> i just have to agree with cheryl, there are 2 programs one is focus on public safety issues. i would highly recommend that people tap into the safety organizationer in your neighborhood they have relationships with