Colleagues,

Summer greetings from your Alliance for Regional Stewardship (ARS)!  In this e-newsletter is a quick update on activities and programs to increase your capacity to change the way your communities are dealing with challenges and opportunities.

The day prior to the Greater Washington Forum on Regional Stewardship in May, the Gardner Academy staff ran a day-long session on creating and establishing collaborative regional initiatives.  Teams from six regions participated in the interactive session that included ARS Chair George Vradenburg; ARS Board member Nancy Douzinas, President of the Rauch Foundation and initiator of the Long Island Index; and Ann Florie, head of Leadership Birmingham and Region 2020.  Participants were able to take the challenges they are facing in their own regions and develop new ways of  framing the issues, recruiting partners, and implementing collaborative, multi-sector initiatives.  Quotes from some of the participants:

"It was an excellent opportunity to learn and think together with others who are committed to embarking on large-scale social change."

"Learning from other practitioners - lessons learned, methods and organization. Great resources! Thank you!!"

"I loved the chance to share peer-to-peer and learning how other regions approach problems."

We will be holding the Boot Camp again at the November Forum in Louisville, Kentucky.  Read about the details in this and up coming e-newsletters.

Speaking of the Louisville Forum, the emphasis will be on state and local government and new approaches that are being used to change or work across jurisdictional boundaries.  See the announcement in this e-newsletter.

If you haven?t tried it, go to www.regionlink.org, our new interactive website for practitioners of regional stewardship.  Every day there is new media coverage of regional initiatives and issues.  You can also conduct key word searches to find old articles, e-newsletters and search the ARS database of case studies and publications.

Finally, let me recommend a thought-provoking speech by Bruce Katz, Director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.  In April he delivered a keynote speech to the Regional Plan Association (RPA) in New York City (RPA is headed by ARS Board member Bob Yaro).  He challenged leaders in that three-state metropolitan area, but it is useful for all of us, to think about a different approach to the many ?divides? that seem to abound in our country.  Bruce calls for us to ?define a new map of regions that speak to the reality of demographic and market change.?  He says we need to ?build rich and robust networks across regions of leaders from all the critical sectors.?  He goes on to urge that metropolitan areas begin to communicate and relate to each other arguing that if we did ?what would emerge would be a clear understanding that what unites these areas in their competitive struggle--growth immigration, congestion, outsourcing--is far greater than what divides them.?  I urge you to read the speech at www.brookings.edu/metro/speeches/20050429_rpa.htm.

Don?t hesitate to contact us at ARS if we can help you connect with others, find best practices or useful publications.

Have a great summer.

John