The New Solutions Community Impact Council had our most recent monthly meeting last week and it was a very productive, informative and interactive meeting!  After welcoming everyone and doing our normal introductions, we went on to discuss our thoughts on the many new and different ways that our council can stay connected with our local community here in King County as well as how to obtain information from community members, leaders, stakeholders, etc.  This conversation was both exciting and inspiring as we brainstormed our ideas and had a most lively discussion!  At this month’s meeting we decided to approach our brainstorming in a new way….by using our imaginations to their fullest!  This stemmed from information that UWKC staff member NaKeesa Frazier received at a recent conference called the Washington State Imagination Conversation. 

This conference was held on Friday, October 16th at Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall and was moderated by Eric Liu and Scott Noppe-Brandon.  Eric Liu is a well known local Seattle author and strategist and Scott Noppe-Brandon is the Executive Director of the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Institute located in New York City.  Eric and Scott recently released a book that they co-authored called Imagination First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility.  The central theme of this book is that “When imagination becomes a habit, it can transform your work and your life”.  There was a panel of very impressive and diverse speakers from the arts, science, non-profit and medical fields that helped discuss how imperative it is for all of us to use imagination as a key strategy in creating change and new ways of doing business in our professional lives.  All of the panelists discussed how imagination helped them to achieve great measures of success in their professional and personal lives.  During the several exercises that the audience participated in at the conference we practiced “Renewing Your Narrative in other words re-writing our personal story” and we discussed how to push through personal or perceived narratives as a normal way of thinking not just when asked to in a conference or classroom setting.  We were of course reminded of how none of us needed to be prodded into using our imaginations when we were kids, it just came naturally and we didn’t have the societal norms, expectations or other people’s limits on our imaginations to stop us from being limitlessly creative. 

 The New Solutions council members, using some of the information that NaKeesa shared with them from the conference, came up with some fantastic ideas some of which we will be utilizing in moving our work forward in the community.  Soon, many King County residents, business owners and other stakeholders will be invited to communicate with our New Solutions council and staff members as we seek out your input in what social and human service issues are facing your community and what ideas you have to address these issues.  Stay tuned as we update you on how our work progresses with topics such as new and exciting programs we find out about, research we have conducted and what you can do to help inform us regarding issues in your local community or neighborhood!