Lincoln Renaissance

On March 29th over 55 people came together to begin the process to create a collective vision for the Lincoln LGBT and Ally community. The day began with a resource fair prior to the visioning process that included local interest groups, organizations, and visual and vocal artists.

The visioning process began with a popular video of an excerpt from one of Harvey Milk’s speeches. In the excerpt he talks about the options to move to San Francisco or stay in your community and fight.

An important part when you choose to stay and fight is having a vision of what you want your community to look like. We move towards what we focus on. Therefore, by focusing on what we want, we solve the problems along the way.

Most of the day was spent talking about what we want Lincoln to look like in 20 years. Conversations in the small groups of four people focused on sharing hopes and dreams as well as making connections and insights.

After several rounds of conversations with different people, everyone was invited to display their best ideas to make Lincoln a better place to live and work on a vision wall. The ideas were then grouped into themes by everyone.

Some of the themes that emerged were creating a community center, communication (website, Touche, directories, etc.), political action, film festival, community events (sports league, bowling, social events, LGBT night out, etc.), GLBT neighborhood and business, and parenting. Other themes are listed below.

Groups formed to talk about making specific themes reality. Each group decided on action steps to take in the next few months. The community center group created an advisory council and are looking for interested members. The communication group talked about creating a central website, updating directories for businesses and services and the positive impact a magazine like Touche can have in the community. The parenting group discussed how to better support LGBT parents in the community. The film festival group discussed restarting a film festival in Lincoln in the next year. The community events group decided on some social events they can organize in the next few months.

Here are some of the comments people made about the day. The most rewarding part of the day was “meeting people I hadn’t met and finding things we have in common”, “gaining hope for the future of Lincoln”, and “dreaming collectively.” Another person wrote, “The casual organic nature of the event made it the most enjoyable way I’ve spent a weekend in a while.” One person summed up the feeling of many, “Don’t let the energy die. Keep the momentum going!”

This is not a exhaustive vision, but rather a start. If you would like to help out with a theme or would like to start a new theme contact us at lincolnrenaissance@gmail.com or create a group on this site.