Home-turf venues for Planning Board volunteers to connect and collaborate
Southwest Region Planning Commission and the Monadnock Resource Alliance are hosting quarterly Citizen Planner Peer-to-Peer Roundtables in rural municipalities across the Monadnock Region. These roundtables open a space for cross-town communication to connect local volunteers with useful resources and build a supportive peer network. Each unique Monadnock Region community has a wealth of knowledge that could benefit neighboring towns: ideas on how to address technical land use issues; tactics for effective communication with the wider public; and strategies for proactively helping communities plan for challenges and opportunities that may arise in the future. These roundtables also serve as listening sessions for SWRPC and other groups to hear how we can best serve our member municipalities.
Strong attendance, positive feedback, and meaningful discussion indicate that Monadnock Region citizen planners value opportunities to problem-solve in real time. Each roundtable is hosted in a different town in an effort to make these events accessible to municipalities throughout the Monadnock Region. Meeting in municipalities all across the region not only underscores the intended audience of these roundtables but also emphasizes the value that our rural towns bring to the region. In a region that can be very urban-centric, going the extra mile to meet in our member municipalities’ communities paves the way for honest and robust conversations about issues facing our rural neighbors today.
Statewide impact
These roundtables also influence the work of state-wide planning professionals and inform the services they provide. For example, discussions at the Temple Roundtable directly resulted in the Development on Class VI Roads monthly PLAN webinar put out by the Office of Planning and Development at the NH Department of Business and Economic Affairs. Additional discussion in Temple provided concrete evidence of demand for trust-building workshops and facilitation skills trainings like UNH Extension’s webinar, Building Trust in Communities: The Elephant in Your Town Square.
Goals
- To share successes, discuss difficulties, and brainstorm solutions to local and regional planning issues.
- To discuss planning-related ideas and strategies that have shown promise or yielded positive results in individual Monadnock Region communities and that could potentially benefit other towns.
- To gather input from planning board members and other citizen planners regarding what services and resources they would find valuable.
- To highlight resources and funding opportunities that are currently available.
- To participate in group education and professional development on topics that are important to Monadnock Region communities.
- To build a community of practice and regional support network for planning board members and other citizen planners.
Gilsum Roundtable Resources
September 11, 2024
Gilsum Public Library
Topic: Pilot event; sharing current successes, opportunities, and challenges related to municipal planning
Gilsum Agenda
Gilsum Blog PostTemple Roundtable Resources
December 5, 2024
Temple Town Hall
Topic: Brainstorming potential topics for future roundtables; UNH Extension and NH Dept. of Business and Economic Affairs (BEA) Office of Planning and Development (OPD) joined to listen in-person
Harrisville Roundtable Resources
March 20, 2025
Community Church of Harrisville and Chesham
Topic: Town Meeting debrief; recruiting and retaining volunteer planners (facilitated by UNH Extension in-person)
