Government Online Community of Practice: Telephone Town Hall Meetings

We are excited to announce this month's Government Community of Practice guests: Ian Cerveny of Telephone Town Hall Meeting (TTHM) and Erin Fosdick of the City of Longmont, Colorado!

Join us as we talk about what TTHM has to offer as an engagement tool, learn about how the City of Longmont utilized TTHM, and how you can utilize this tool in your area!

You must be a government member, or work for a government entity to take part in this community of practice. 

Questions? Please email info@iap2usa.org. 

Meet your speakers!

IAP2 USA Government Community of Practice

Erin Fosdick is a Principal Planner for the City of Longmont. Erin earned her Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado Denver in 2007. Erin has 15 years of local and regional planning experience and has been with the City of Longmont’s Planning Division for 12 years. In her work with the City, she specializes in long range planning and focuses on implementing the Envision Longmont Multimodal & Comprehensive Plan, which is the City’s guiding policy document. She is also an active member of the City’s Community Involvement Steering Committee, which is a cross departmental team that provides support in planning, facilitating and achieving success in processes that involve the community.

Ian Cerveny is the Operations Director at TTHM. Ian coordinates with clients in advance of their teletownhalls to make sure that all of their outreach goals are identified and met during their (typically) hour-long event(s). Ian coordinates teletownhalls for municipal and advocacy clients nationwide, often producing events for a live audience while simultaneously broadcasting to phone, web and Spanish-speaking audiences.

Imagine if you could connect with local government colleagues from all over the country, discussing various aspects and ideas around public participation? What if you could do it with no additional travel or training costs, as a benefit to you from IAP2 USA? Welcome to the IAP2 USA Government Online Community of Practice!

If you are a Government member and you want to learn from your colleagues, this group is for you! We will "meet" quarterly via webinar and will use the wisdom "in the room" to discuss and share information about public participation, the techniques that work, and ways to think through complex problems and how to reach hard-to-reach audiences.

Hosted by Sandra Seader, Assistant City Manager of Longmont, Colorado, and along with Ryan Henderson, Assistant to the City Manager in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the Government Community of Practice will "meet" quarterly via webinar and will use the wisdom "in the room" to discuss and share information about public participation, the techniques that work, and ways to think through complex problems and how to reach hard-to-reach audiences.

Do you have ideas for future topics? Suggest them now!

Future meetings will be determined by the desires of the group, with a goal of connecting each other the same way we work to connect residents to their local government.

Please note: There is a two-stage process for signing up. The registration confirmation email you will receive contains a link to another web page. Please follow that link and fill in the form to receive your login information.

From "A Guide to Communities of Practice," Olivier Serrat, Principal Knowledge Management Specialist at Asian Development Bank, July 2014.