Category: New Hampshire Listens

In this report, author Carrie Portrie summarizes A Community of Action for Lead Safety, a year-long effort to build cross-sector, municipal coalitions to leverage New Hampshire’s new lead laws.

On November 14th, 2013, a consortium of organizations and interests sponsored All Walks of Life: A Statewide Conversation on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. Over 300 New Hampshire residents met in six different locations across the state to talk about their priorities, concerns, and ideas regarding mental health and substance abuse in New Hampshire. At the outset, the goals of this conversation were related both nationally and statewide.

Participants at the conversation on the future of safety services for Deerfield expressed a range of perspectives, all of which were recorded by facilitators. Over about two hours, seven small groups―each with a trained facilitator―identified the most important issues. The summary below and the small group notes reveal strong overall themes as well as a rich collection of specific ideas. Included in the conversation were some of the ways residents of Deerfield enjoy the rural, historic, small-town character of their town where one can know the names of police officers and neighbors, and get involved in community service and decision making. The primary themes that stood out across groups and conversations included a realization that the status quo is not an option, a desire for a “Yankee solution,” and the need for ongoing engagement and information sharing.

In this report, authors Mikayla Townsend, Steve Brown, and Carrie Portrie summarize the workshops held with community members to discuss how to make Jaffery, New Hampshire's downtown more welcoming, provide needed resources, and afford economic opportunities.

During the winter and spring of 2015, the Keene College/City Commission worked with NH Listens to design a community conversation that would focus on one of the four priorities identified by the Commission in 2014— citizenship. As stated in its working charge, the Commission was established with, “the goal of improving the quality of life for residents, students, employers, and visitors while recognizing the diverse needs of varied demographic groups, the unique characteristics of our City, and the opportunities that exist for collaboration across organizational boundaries.” In the near future, the College/City Commission will also be addressing the other priorities contained in its charge—housing and neighborhoods, infrastructure and parking, and property/tax base issues.

The New Hampshire Governor’s Commission on Innovation, Efficiency, and Transparency in State Government was established by Governor Hassan in 2013. In June of 2014, the Commission contracted with NH Listens to host conversations around the state with citizens, state employees, and vendors to gather information about ways to improve state government functions, with a particular focus on the executive branch agencies that carry out legislative mandates. The focus of each conversation was different based on attendees. At the public conversations, any interested New Hampshire resident was welcome to attend and share his or her view. These conversations were held on June 3rd in Conway, Manchester, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Warner, and Whitefield. At the state employee conversations, both held in Concord on June 24th and 26th, employees from a variety of state agencies attended. Finally, the vendor conversation held in Concord on June 23rd was attended by a range of business and nonprofit representatives from New Hampshire and elsewhere

On December 16th, 2014, all Nute students and staff participated in small group conversations focused on giving input to the school and town about what it is like to live, learn, work, and play in Milton. The students learned that in the October conversation with parents, teachers, and community members, many of the adults talked about: Needing to communicate better among the town, schools, and parents , Providing more opportunities for kids to get involved including and beyond sports and Making sure that anyone struggling knows where to go for help.

In July of 2016, over seventy-five people attended the NH Beverage Alcohol Summit at the Mt. Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Commercial stakeholders initiated the summit, but attendees included stakeholders across the industry including members of the NH State Legislature, the NH Liquor Commission, the NH Department of Resources and Economic Development, the prevention and treatment community, NH beer distributors, retailers, and manufacturers of beer, wine, and liquor. The purpose was three-fold to discuss priorities for the industry across a variety of viewpoints, identify actions for mutual benefit among industry players, and set the stage for future decisions and growth for positive impact in the NH beverage industry.

The goal of these community conversations was to create an opportunity for citizens to share their thoughts on the challenges, opportunities, issues, and needs relating to local and state outdoor recreation. Special emphasis was placed on hearing citizen’s views about unmet needs and innovative approaches to meeting those needs. While the community conversations were open to all, additional outreach was focused on those with limited use of outdoor recreation resources for reasons of access, age, income, or knowledge