Testimonial - Mary McQueen

It just goes to show where a couple of glasses of wine with good friends can lead. The genesis of BoldFuture more than two years ago was just that simple — a back-porch brainstorming session with friends, wine, and, yes, a little whining.

Our topic? How do we help our community move forward? So much time and energy was being wasted in a swirl of negative emotion, controversy over … well, just about everything …, and the accompanying inaction that comes from turf wars and the “you didn’t consult me first so I’m gonna deep six your project” syndrome.

Thought: if we could just get all that energy and effort moving in a positive direction, what could we as a community accomplish?

Conclusion: Just about anything.

So that was how BoldFuture was born and grew into the two-year visioning and action plan development process. By getting a broad swath of the community involved in crafting a shared vision for our future, we helped create a voice. And that voice came from us, the people … you, me, the neighbor down the street, anyone who wanted a say in the direction our community would take. From the voice came goals that can be embraced because they are our shared goals. Hum … Shared vision, shared voice, shared goals – maybe now we can hone our efforts towards the positive. Maybe now we can make our efforts count.

I served on the Well Planned Region Action Committee; this was one of six committees charged with taking a portion of the initial 146 vision elements identified through the year-long process and crafting action items to support their implementation. Job one of our committee was to research what was already happening around the community. Since the original concept of BoldFuture was to help the area move forward, we wanted to make sure anything the final action plan suggested built on what was already underway. No point in duplicating efforts. To our surprise, we found a wealth of wonderful projects already researched, planned, and drafted -- some were even in the implementation stage. Yet these were projects that the thousand of community participants had identified as major priorities. Talk about validation of efforts!

I have heard it said that nothing comes of visioning projects. I would like to point to the Texas State Aquarium, certainly one of the major success stories of our community. Here we have the Official Aquarium for the State of Texas in our back yard. It is not-for-profit receiving no state, city or county funding for its operations, yet it is a successful education and entertainment venue that has a $40 million annual impact on our economy. It took a dedicated group of volunteers to VISION this facility and then work decades to make it happen. And the work continues to make it better every year. This is what community visioning is all about. I cannot tell you that the Aquarium was ever an action item on a previous vision project – I just don’t know. What I can tell you is that the positive, forward-thinking, empowering energy that community visioning processes engender result in projects like the Aquarium.

Success of just one project can provide the impetus to move to the next … and the next ... and the next. Keep it going, and we will have turned the tide on that negative swirl with a positive, decisive, invigorating forward movement for our community.

And to think, it all started with a glass of wine.