June 20, 2013 at 3:32 PM

The planning committee of City2City has been meeting and engaging with past City2City participants since the December 2012 visit to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to determine future direction for the initiative. The initiative’s organizational support is transitioning from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, C2C’s partner in the trips to resurgent cities, to the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission. This will allow for a more regional focus and additional input and participation from communities within the Pioneer Valley.

Thanks to the work of Kent Faerber, former President of the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, and organizer of the Bethlehem/Allentown trip, a prospectus (below) has been developed outlining C2C’s future direction.

C2C will host a meeting in the fall to review the prospectus, inform participants about fall plans and encourage input about future visits to resurgent cities.

PROSPECTUS

• MISSION/PURPOSE
  The purposes of the City2City - Pioneer Valley Program are
  To educate the leadership of the Pioneer Valley about the way in which other cities have successfully confronted the same problems of urban decay and redevelopment as the Pioneer Valley;
• To develop relationships among Pioneer Valley leaders, particularly those who do not regularly collaborate or associate with one another; and
• To foster new collaborative initiatives.
• 
  

PROGRAM
The City2City - Pioneer Valley Program will consist of:

• One trip per year (30-40 participants) to a city selected for its success as a ‘resurgent city’, using the same format as the City2City Springfield program. That is, participants will depart on a Wednesday and return on a Friday, including two dinners, and a full program of presentations by presenters chosen for their knowledge of or participation in model initiatives about which the City2City visitors should be educated. While the schedule should be tightly organized, it should provide ample time for participants to build relationships among themselves. Participants will pay their own travel costs and their share of common costs (bus, banquets, gifts, etc.)
• Three local events per year
• At least one of these sessions will be dedicated to de-briefing about the most recent trip.
  o The others will be half-day (or shorter) sessions, consisting of presentations by persons from other cities selected for their knowledge of or participation in model initiatives in those other cities. These sessions will also provide ample opportunity for participants to network/share ideas.
• The programs for all trips and other events will be organized on an apolitical and research-based basis.
• Attendance/participation in City2City Pioneer Valley programs will be by invitation only to Valley leaders, but, as noted below, invitees will be continuously and vigorously recruited and replenished from throughout the Pioneer Valley, and, in part, self-identified.
• Intellectual/Urban Planning support for the programs (selection of cities to visit, subjects to be investigated) will be provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (to the extent it is still willing to do so), the host organization, and local university faculty and staff recruited for that purpose.
• Communication among and with participants will be regular and continuous:
• Blog
• Newsletters
• Info about projects initiated by or participated in by past registrants as a result of their participation.
• New potential leaders who should be invited to go on the trips and be included in other events will be continuously and proactively identified and recruited;
  o In particular, more governmental/regional organizational individuals should be included.

GOVERNANCE

• The program will be overseen by a Steering Committee consisting of 12 persons representative of the various constituencies that participate in the program.
• The Steering Committee will determine the cities to visit and local programs to be organized.
• The Steering Committee will be self-perpetuating.
• A host organization will provide all other support except those expressly assigned elsewhere in this prospectus.

FINANCES

• The trips and other events will be self-supporting (i.e. fees from each participant will cover the direct costs of his or her participation in each trip and each event).
• Grant support will be sought to supplement fees as needed to cover additional trip and event expenses such as:
• Host organization’s personnel and overhead costs
• Host organization’s advance trip and trip costs
• Other miscellaneous costs

• Expected total annual budget - $25,000