Clearly civic engagement has arrived as a major issue. 700 people convened in Worcester last November for the Mass. Civic Engagement Summit and now 400 spent their Saturday at yesterday's Boston Civic Summit. Co-chaired by City Councilor Maureen Feeney and James Rooney of the Mass. Convention Center, yesterday's event united civic activitists from across Boston's neighborhoods.

I was only able to attend part of the day due to other commitments. Ron Bell, Governor Patrick's Director for Community Affairs, got the lunch crowd energized with his remarks. Tom Sander, Executive Director of the Saguaro Seminar on Civic Engagement in America, effectively related concepts of social capital to the concerns of the neighborhood activists in the room.

Interactive technolog used by America Speaks to facilitate the afternoon session allowed participants quickly get a sense of who was in the room and their common ideas and concerns. I had to leave early but am looking forward to hearing more about the final results of that "21st century town meeting".

It was also encouraging to see that the event was covered in today's Boston Globe, though Universal Hub published first, live from the Summit.

We at SCI look forward to working with others there to follow-up on the energy and ideas from the event. One idea is that the the MassCivicAction website we set up for the state summit could be a resource for follow-up to the Boston summit. Congratulations to the organizers on a successful event!

Sorry for the delay--but here are the notes from Social Capital, Diverse Neighborhoods and Networks Summit track. Reviewing the notes one month after the summit, I was struck again by the interesting conversations we had...and that we could use more time to talk more! In particular, it would be great to have a chance to sift through the many ideas that were brainstormed to identify those which might be most promising for individual and collective action. Perhaps we could start that conversation here on this site? Though another in-person gathering at some point in 2008 would seem to be in order!

Thanks to all who attended the Social Capital, Diverse Neighborhoods and Networks track. We had some provocative discussion in the morning and a lot of ideas generated in the afternoon.

I'll soon post more about the session, including a place for you to comment on the questions that were posed. Meanwhile, I wanted to mention the resource 150 Things You Can Do To Build Social Capital, created by the Saguaro Seminar for Civic Engagement in America. This resource is a list of simple, practical things that can be done to increase social capital, which seems in keeping with the spirit of much of the discussion we had in this track.

About This Site
This site is a tool for posting examples of innovative and successful civic engagement activities online before and after the Summit. Please let us know what you've done in your community in the areas of Volunteerism, Neighborhoods & Diverse Networks, Civic Education, Electoral Politics & Policy or other areas of civic life. All users must register before posting content. Click here to register for the site. Once you're registered, you can click here to post your project. Registration is not required to view and search other users' projects.