Last Thursday was the Watershed Management Planning Meeting Event. Everything came together: the volunteers, the speakers, and the attendees. The presentations were solid, the questions asked and answers given were great and informative, and I think I did a good job of mediating the meeting. Once the meeting started, I knew it was going to go well, but I was nervous about representing all views on this issue. Water issues can get pretty heated and I didn't want to push anyone away from this conversation by saying something wrong. I tried to make my questions very general in order to prevent this from happening and not show an agreeing viewpoint while asking questions because I wanted to be neutral. The panel questions turned out to be really great and even stirred up conversation from the audience. Overall, it was a success!
I know it may seem like I'm going way out of my way in order to stay neutral, but in our current political climate I think this is so important. Instead of letting my generation become as polarized as generations before us have become, I want to spread this idea of coming at an issue as neutral. This doesn't mean that you can't take a side on an issue; taking sides are how discussion and conversations are successful because there are differing viewpoints to keep the conversation going. In order to have a productive future when it comes to the effects of climate change or the future of our watershed, we need to have an open mind when going after solving it.
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