CALEB Issues convention and next steps

Sarah Berestecky and Allen Shropshire lead a workshop on evaluating issues at the convention

Building Power Together

Thanks to everyone who took part in CALEB's Issues Convention on Saturday,! It was a great success! Representatives from thirteen member organizations as well as a large number of individual community members came out to plan for action around our city's pressing needs.

Pastor Charlotte Williams opened up the morning with a celebration of our successes so far: $70,000 raised for the Hamilton County Community Bail Fund, ten participants bailed out over the past two months...three of whose charges have already been dismissed. Sarah Berestecky and Allen Shropshire provided a workshop overview of criteria for what makes a good, actionable issue. We had break-outs for one-to-one conversations with members of different organizations. Then our member organizations caucused to discuss which issues they wanted to highlight based on what they felt were shared values among our partners. Space was open for nonmembers to recommend potential issues and actions. After facilitated group discussion Pastor Josh Woodrow led the group through a voting process on five possible issue categories. With remarkable support, our chosen issues are:

• Economic Mobility
• Education
• Criminal Justice

Campaign development and action steps will be organized by task forces for each issue, and participants were invited to sign up for involvement with their preferred task force.

---

What Comes Now?

CALEB's next organizational meeting is Thursday, June 13th from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm at First Centenary United Methodist Church. We'll be breaking out into Task Force groups, performing a power mapping exercise around our issues, and beginning the work of identifying campaign goals. We will also be finalizing participants going to 7-day National Leadership Training with the Gamaliel Foundation at the end of the month.

We look forward to seeing you there, and building the actions together that will make real change in Chattanooga and Hamilton County.

---

More from the Convention:

---