Sault Ste. Marie Learning Circle
April 16th, 2009 Notes
Eight of us gathered today from the area encompassing bawating/SSM, the North Shore, and Soo Tribe in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. We identified several areas that we wanted to attend to in our two hours together. We spent some time learning about projects or trends that have occurred historically, future events, and present projects. We engaged in a brainstorming activity to generate ideas about possible projects we might like to work on in a focused action-oriented manner which included conducting an environmental scan which would address several of our questions and/or illuminating alternative or Aboriginal economic strategies and processes (i.e. bartering, gift, sharing economies). We identified existing projects that we might link into which included an on-going cross-border partnership in the area of tourism and a regional conference on Aboriginal economic development that is being held in bawating in August 2009. There is interest in this group from people who have heard about it and a process towards including interested people naturally emerged. One of the participants has extended an invitation to meet and have lunch at their place of work for the next circle which has been scheduled for May 14, 2009. In the meantime, we have agreed to reflect on the present discussion and notes generated from it with the intention of meeting to further articulate the project we want to create and bring to fruition. It seems we are continuing in a way that addresses the key question that emerged from the first Learning Circle which is “How do we share space and engage in urban Aboriginal economic development?”