What is LocalFiber – Part 3

In my previous blog post Identifying Needs in the Local Fiber Community, I talked about how the LocalFiber community worked together to identify the collective needs of our regional fiber producing community. Now I will share with you the next step, working with these needs to come up with community-driven solutions.

We have needs, what now?

Once the needs were identified it was time for the LocalFiber community to devise possible solutions. To get the discussion started I distributed a list of the 5 highest-ranked needs, when applicable, from each theme (education, marketing, and processing) along with the note “At our next quarterly meeting we will start brainstorming solutions for these needs, please think of ideas and be ready to share. If you won’t be making it to the next meeting it is possible to contribute your ideas by emailing them to localfiber.ny@gmail.com”

Brainstorming solutions

At the next quarterly meeting, the needs were presented again both in the presentation slides and in a set of handouts. The handouts were created so that each group (yup we broke into groups) would have a copy of the needs they would be discussing. The room had been set-up prior with separate tables and 5-6 chairs(people) per table.

When the time came to break out and do group work each table was assigned a theme (education, processing or marketing). I chose to assign themes, opposed to giving the option to choose themes, in hopes to encourage out-of-the-box thinking. When given a choice we often chose what we are most familiar with therefore accessing out-of-the-box thinking often requires us to work in unfamiliar territory.

Each group was given 20 minutes to brainstorm and come up with solutions that might address the needs they were presented with (a single person from each group was tasked with recording the ideas that were posed). After the 20 minutes were over each group had 5 minutes to share their ideas with others in the room. I then collected the notes and lists that had been created (which I later transcribed from handwritten to digital format).

Getting all the input

Once copied to digital notes (using google docs) the proposed solutions were shared with the larger LocalFiber community. I sent out an email using the LocalFiber listserv and encouraged anyone interested to add to the solution brainstorm lists and gave a window of ~2 weeks to do so. (Note, during this time only one additional idea was submitted).

Stay tuned to hear how we chose the final solution(s).

What we’d do differently

This is a learning process, and we are learning so, as with most new experiences, there are a few things that we’ll do differently next time around.

1. Surprisingly (not) 20 minutes is hardly enough time to brainstorm and, in the future, I will make more space for brainstorming and discussion.
2. Figure out ways to encourage those who cannot make the meeting to contribute electronically.

Are you a fiber producer in the Finger Lakes or CNY and want to get involved with LocalFiber? Contact us, we’d love to hear from you!

Do you love using locally produced natural animal fibers and want to do more to support this community? Contact us, we’d love to hear from you too!