Communication For Survival Report

By the Rural Newfoundland Cultural Survival Project

May 11, 1997

Submitted to:
Human Resources Development Canada
Ramea Economic Development Corporation
Port au Port Community Education Initiative
Association Regionale De La Cote Ouest
Burgeo CFS Steering Committee
Lourdes and Area CFS Community Steering Committee

PREFACE

The Communication for Survival (CFS) initiative operated with Human Resource Development Canada (HRDC) funding from June 1995 to March 1997. Although this report generally examines CFS in the past tense, it is important to note that the CFS initiative has not ended with the cessation of HRDC funding. Numerous CFS activities have continued since the termination of funding on March 31, 1997, a meeting of the CFS Overall Steering Committee (OSC) has been scheduled for Stephenville (September 25-26, 1997), and plans exist to expand the partnership to include other interested communities and partners from Zone #9 and beyond--see Section 10.8).
Community communication programming continues on the cable television channels in Ramea, Burgeo, Lourdes and La Grand'Terre. The Long Range RED Board, the Ramea Economic Development Corporation, the Association Régionale de la Côte Ouest, the Port au Port Economic Development Association and numerous other groups in Zone #9, have pledged to continue to make use of local community television in their community development work. Sustainability of this programming is likely as the community television in Lourdes, started during the CFS process, is self-funding through TV bingo, and as the systems in Burgeo and Ramea are community owned. The channel in La Grand' Terre will continue to be supported by ARCO.
The resource people have agreed to "be on call" by computer communications to all partners. An example of this support was with the Burgeo solidarity rally of April 24. At the request of the Burgeo CFS partner, the resource people created a news page of the event on the World Wide Web. Information about the page was distributed across the country on three listserves.
Resource people are also working with the Western Regional Telecentre to help publicize the potential loss of a rural information technology service to the CFS partners. A new WEB page has been created for CFS (off the Enterprise Network - www.web.net/~ryakuga/CFS.html). The new CFS site will also include information about the endangered telecentres.
New proposals have also been advanced which could utilize and enhance the extant communication processes of CFS. One such proposal, advanced by the Appalachia School Board and co-developed by CFS, advocates the initiation of a school internship program whereby students can learn communication skills in the school and use them to benefit their communities.
Westviking College has proposed a collaborative project with Vista University in South Africa which would see South Africans visiting and learning about the grassroots communications activities of CFS community partners.
Agencies such as the Newfoundland-Labrador Association for Adult Education have pledged their support for the initiative and in fact awarded it the first ever Don Snowden Community Development Achievement Award in November 1996.
Finally, contact people in each community of the CFS initiative have committed themselves to continue the process.

1/TABLE OF CONTENTS:

2/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY;
The Communication for Survival (CFS) initiative, is an informal partnership of communities, agencies, groups and individuals from the west and southwest coasts of Newfoundland who are working together to promote the survival of rural communities through the sharing of ideas and information with the long term goal of solving community and regional problems of common concern. It was formed in June 1995, although planning for the initiative began in the fall of 1994. The key partner communities for the HRDC funded period of the initiative (June 1995-March 1997) were Burgeo, Ramea, Lourdes and Area, and Mainland and Area.
The sponsoring partners for the CFS initiative were the Port au Port Community Education Initiative (PAPCEI), the Ramea Economic Development Corporation (REDC), and the Association Régionale de la Côte Ouest (ARCO). The initiating partner was the Rural Newfoundland Cultural Survival Project (RNCSP), who also provided the resource people (Bruce Gilbert of Bruce Gilbert & Associates and Fred Campbell of Ryakuga Inc.--see Appendix A).
Although the funding partner for CFS was HRDC, sponsoring, initiating, and community partners also contributed to the initiative through in-kind donations.

Communication for Survival was initiated to assist rural people, organizations and communities to help themselves to respond effectively to the current crises facing rural Newfoundland. As the title suggests, communication was the underlying principle of CFS. Partners believed that in order for communities struggling with survival issues to analyse their situations effectively and to mobilize themselves to action, they needed the ability to communicate more effectively with one another and with external agents that impact upon them. The CFS approach to communications assisted people to take control of the media process, facilitated communications within the community, and developed confidence and self-esteem among participants.
CFS partners used non-technical community-based tools and techniques to bring people together and keep people informed about important issues (ie: flyers, posters, newsletters, issue-based drama, round tables, meetings, workshops). CFS also worked with groups to promote and develop local capacity to use simple and available technical tools (ie: video, community television, radio, computer communications (listserves and web pages), useful in pulling people together to work on common problems. All tools and methods were customized to meet community needs.
The CFS aim was to strengthen and reinforce the efforts of groups working to improve their communities. Through local steering committees, activities were designed to be relevant and specific to the important themes and issues of the day. Local committees determined what and how they were to share with other communities in the partnership. It was hoped that in the later Phases of the initiative (ie: Phase #8) other communities from around the province would be brought into the partnership so that the seeds for a province-wide coalition of communities could be sown.
Simply put, the motto of the initiative was "individually, our communities are vulnerable--together, we are strong".

3/ PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT:
This final CFS report fulfills the HRDC requirement described as Phase #10 in the CFS Ten Phase Work-Plan (see Appendix B). The primary purpose for this report is to provide the reader with

i) a description of the actual CFS initiative accomplishments in the context of the planned goals, objectives, activities and content themes; ii) some analysis on selected aspects of the overall project; iii) a list of lessons-learned as a result of the initiative; and iv) a list of recommendations to HRDC, sponsoring partners, community partners and others interested in participatory communications work, regarding the effectiveness and appropriateness of participatory communications for rural communities in crisis.
Although this report is authored by the initiating partners/resource people, it attempts to reflect the opinions and ideas of all CFS partners. In specifics, much of the information included in this report emanates from discussions held with partners during the internal CFS evaluation and assessment process (Note# this included community and Community Steering Committee (CSC) surveys, community communications round tables, final TV programmes in all communities, and the final Overall Steering Committee (OSC) meeting held March 20-21, 1997 in Burgeo). Wherever possible, ideas, suggestions and/or recommendations offered in this report, will be noted by their community of origin. Please note that some quotes contained in this report are from hand written notes of meetings and may not be recorded exactly as spoken.

4/ BACKGROUND ON CFS:
* the broad background
* how it started as RNCSP
* how it began out of a concern for rural communities
* how it began in the fall of 1994
* link to BAY TV conference planned in 1991
* link to Fogo/NF history (see flyer)

5/ CFS INITIATIVE PARTNER CONTACTS:

The CFS community partners/Community Steering Committee (CSC) contacts are:
* Burgeo (contact Dave Cooper 886-2935);
* Ramea (contact Elaine Keeping 625-2221);
* Mainland and Area (contact Bob Cormier 642-5254; 642-5164-fax);
* Lourdes and Area (contact Valerie Young 642-5958; 642-4977-fax)
The CFS sponsoring partners are:
* Port au Port Community Education Initiative (contact Beverley Kirby 648 9266; 648-2786-fax);
* Ramea Economic Development Corporation (contact Jim Marsden 625-2235; 625-2282-fax)
* Association Régionale de la Côte Ouest (contact Bob Cormier 642-5771; 642 5164-fax)
* Rural Newfoundland Cultural Survival Project (Fred Campbell 643-9796 (fax); or ryakuga@web.net and/or Bruce Gilbert 576-2194 (2144 fax) or bgilbert@seascape.com).
The CFS funding partner was:
* Human Resources Development Canada (Larry Peckford 772-4711);

6/ WHAT WE SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH - THE PLAN:

6.1./ THE OVERALL CFS GOALS:
The CFS goals, although initially developed by the initiating partners, were reviewed and adjusted during Phase #1 in June 1995 at the first Overall Steering Committee meeting held in Stephenville.
The goals were meant to be consistent for the life of CFS and remained unchanged for the entire HRDC funding period (Note # They will be reviewed and refined if necessary during the next OSC meeting planned for September 1997 in Stephenville).
The goals were:
i) improve community dialogue and information sharing within and between partner communities;
ii) develop and enhance the skill and confidence of participants directly involved in the process;
iii) develop and enhance the skill and confidence of participants indirectly involved in the process (the broader community);
iv) strengthen and reinforce the existing efforts of community groups/agencies working to improve their communities;

v) highlight culture as a key to stimulating pride of place, for encouraging respect for the rural way of life, and for strengthening local resolve that partner communities will survive;
vi) facilitate discussion on how to create local employment (including how to develop and market cultural aspects of the rural Newfoundland way of life);
vii) promote community organizing, planning, and follow-up actions related to the survival of rural Newfoundland culture and communities;

6.2/ THE PROPOSED COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES, ACTIVITIES AND CONTENT THEMES

The community objectives, activities, and content themes were first developed during Phase #1 in June 1995, and were reviewed during the Re-Start Period in November 1995, and after each of two interim CFS Status Reports were presented to the OSC for discussion (May and November of 1996). They were meant to be the starting point for community CFS committees and were to be refined and prioritized over time by community partners.
Some objectives were deemed early on to be unrealistic, and were thus discarded. Occasionally, new unplanned objectives or activities emerged and were added to the work plan which reflected the basic approach of flexibility and responsiveness to committee and community needs and circumstances. See Appendix D for an updated list of the community objectives, activities and content themes.

6.3/ INTERVENTION APPROACH:
The intervention approach for CFS was one of repeated resource person contacts in each partner community, over an extended period of time. During each phase of the process, the resource people would spend 1-2 weeks in a partner community, and would then move on to the next community for a visit of equal length. When the resource people had visited all communities, there was a one week interval/time-off period (later changed to two weeks) after which they would begin the next cycle or phase. This approach ensured that there was ample time between community visits (ie: 5-8 weeks before resource people would return to a community) for community initiated activities to occur. See Appendix C for the CFS Time-Line.
In the early planning stages of CFS the OSC felt this approach to be critical to the success of the project as it would allow community partners, local steering committees and participants to retain ownership over the overall process by ensuring that project activities did not become dependent upon resource people. In essence, the purpose for using this approach was to encourage continued activity and sustainability of the goals of the project.
It is important to point out that in the initial RNCSP design (Note# this is the proposal that preceded the HRDC funding and later became CFS), a project of two partner communities was proposed. With such a project, the time between community contacts would have been considerably less than what actually occurred. When the OSC decided to bring in the additional partners of Burgeo and Mainland (which turned out in reality to be Mainland, Cape St. Georges and Black Duck Brook), the period between visits in each community grew proportionately. See Section 7.5 for further discussion and analysis of this approach.

6.4/ COMMUNITY STEERING COMMITTEES:
The community partners were to determine and define their own roles and levels of participation in the CFS initiative. The process of forming Community Steering Committees (CSCs) began in Phase #1. In fact, due to constant turnover of CSC members, the process of forming and re-forming these committees was ongoing (see Section 7.6 for more discussion of this). It was generally agreed in Phase #1 that CSCs would attempt to involve community leaders (formal and informal), women, men, youth, seniors, fishers, business persons, the employed and the unemployed.
The formation of all CSCs was to be facilitated by the sponsoring partners closest to the community partner organization. In keeping with the grassroots, community-controlled philosophy of the CFS initiative, all CSCs were encouraged to structure themselves in a manner which best suited the community. Thus all CSCs evolved differently in each partner area.

6.5/ SPONSORING PARTNERS:
Sponsoring partner organizations were to facilitate the establishment of the community-based CSCs, and were to provide logistical, administrative and resource support whenever possible.
Early in Phase #2, sponsoring partners, community partners and resource persons worked together to determine the terms of reference, responsibilities, expectations, community objectives, activities and content themes for the initiative in each community. As noted above, due to constant turnover of CSC members in all communities (Burgeo to a lesser extent), and due to turnover within the sponsoring partner organizations themselves, this was an ongoing process.

6.6/ OVERALL STEERING COMMITTEE:
In order to ensure that all partners developed strong communications between one another, and in order to monitor the overall progress of the initiative towards its goals, the Overall Steering Committee (OSC) was formed in June 1995.
It is was agreed that the OSC would attempt to meet every 3-4 months in a rotation between the four partner areas. Six meetings were held during the life of the funding (Stephenville (June 95), Burgeo (June 95), Mainland (Nov. 95), Ramea (March 96), Lourdes (November 96), Burgeo (March 97)).
Efforts were made to have three representatives per CSC, three representatives from each sponsoring partner, two representatives from the initiating partner, and two reps from the funding partner, to attend each OSC gathering. Youth and musicians were always invited to these events.
To ensure that a wide range of community views, interests and sectors were represented on the OSC, the hosting community was always encouraged to invite as many community people to the gathering as they saw fit (all meetings were advertised as "open to the public").

6.7/ FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION:
In the original funding proposal to HRDC there was funding for overall project administration, such that the sponsoring partner undertaking all financial management and administration (REDC) would be fairly compensated for time spent on management of the project.
Although the first funding period (June 1995-Phase #1) was administered through the PAPCEI and the Port au Port Economic Development Association, sponsoring partners agreed that the longer-term project management tasks would rest with Tom Hutchings, Economic Development Officer for Town of Ramea and overall spokesperson for CFS.
The resource people agreed to submit monthly activity reports to coincide with regular expense claims submitted to HRDC.

7/ WHAT WE ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED AND WHY THINGS TURNED OUT THIS WAY - THE REALITY

7.1/ THE OVERALL CFS GOALS
As described above, the CFS goals remained unchanged for the duration of the process. Generally speaking, most CSC and OSC members felt that the goals for the initiative had been met as of March 1997, although several felt that it was difficult to determine the degree to which they were attained.
most were achieved, although the degree to which they were achieved is debatable -Ramea
overall, goals were achieved - Ramea
all goals were met to some extent (some for sure--some to a lesser extent) - Burgeo
from my perspective, CFS has been very successful - Mainland and Area
in the beginning the CFS initiative was abstract and I was sceptical--now I see it as concrete and tangible - Mainland and Area
I feel that a good job was done on many of the goals and objectives--I think we accomplished a great deal. Awareness was created and I feel we will see results years down the road - Ramea
the programme has made the community closer--my friends and cousins even come to my house to play bingo - Lourdes
we achieved some goals--better communications, making BBS user friendly, more informal round tables - Burgeo

The primary measuring stick for goal attainment seemed to be whether or not the specific community objectives had been met--basically, it was felt that if community objectives were met, than the overall goals had been met (see Section 7.2 for discussion of objectives).
It is important to note, that although not specifically stated as a goal for the project, building community capacity building was described frequently as a long-term goal or vision for the CFS initiative. Efforts were made early on in the process to find indicators that would tell the OSC whether or not the initiative had indeed built community capacity (see Section 8 for a discussion of community capacity and Appendix I (Documentation) for more information).

7.2/THE COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES:
Although most community objectives for each partner community were met to some extent (see Appendix D for more detail), certain objectives were not met. This was due to their overall low priority, the fact that they were unrealistic in the first place and/or because of the fact that community or CSC circumstances changed. Some objectives took more time, energy and resources than initially expected. Some objectives expanded in scope and size as the process unfolded. See below for examples of each.
7.2.1/ Low Priority:

* Lourdes- to develop a newsletter and sustainable newsletter group for the Lourdes area; (although this was discussed, all energies went into the establishment of the community channel; upon reflection this was low priority for the CSC in Lourdes);

* Mainland and Area -to assist local agencies to better communicate during meetings; (this objective (added by ARCO reps at the last minute after Burgeo raised it as an issue for their community) was never followed-up on due to lack of community interest);

7.2.2/ Unrealistic:

* Ramea/Burgeo - to ensure that Grey River and Francois are not left out of the CFS process; (attempts to visit these communities were stymied by weather and scheduling conflicts (although both were contacted live on-air during CFS Week shows in Burgeo and Ramea); upon reflection, this objective was unrealistic considering the amount of time required to visit these communities (visits to Ramea and Burgeo would have been shortened considerably);
7.2.3/ Things Changed At Community Level:

* Lourdes - to create awareness of computer communications and its usefulness as a tool for encouraging discussion between communities; (although initially thought to be attainable, the library board was not open to local people using the "community access centre"; at the Lourdes OSC meeting it was decided that the PAPCEI should investigate this);

* Ramea - to assist REDC to improve their current newsletter production and product;
(several attempts to improve the newsletter occurred; REDC then changed its mind about building more community participation into the newsletter production process (shortly after this the newsletter ceased regular production); at the CFS communications round table, this issue was discussed at length (attendees felt that REDC needed to act soon in order to get the newsletter produced again);

* Burgeo - to explore the possibility of developing a community newsletter and a sustainable newsletter group for Burgeo; (considerable discussion of this occurred in early phases; interest was significant but plans were put on hold until it could be determined if one committee members' plans to develop a community newsletter as a private business would become a reality; this member eventually received funding so the original idea of a volunteer community newsletter was cancelled; instead the CFS committee provided the Sou' West Times with photos and articles; CFS was featured in numerous issues and supported the Sou'West Times whenever possible);

* Mainland and Area - to develop a newsletter and sustainable newsletter group for the Mainland (and overall Francophone) area; (there was uncertainty on how to proceed with this re: whether this would conflict with Le Gaboteur's local efforts (they had expressed interest in cooperating with ARCO on how to better use Le Gaboteur for community uses); in the meantime, ARCO forged ahead with a staff-run economic development newsletter for distribution in the three communities which may meet the initial need for a community newsletter);

*Burgeo - assist in the training of a cross section of community volunteers (adults and youth) in community television tools, techniques, approaches and technologies; (although it was BBS who came up with this objective, it turned out that BBS was comfortable doing its own training and there was no real role for CFS with regards to this);
7.2.4/ More Time Consuming Than Originally Thought:

* Lourdes - to establish a community channel and sustainable community television group in Lourdes; (this took far more energy than initially planned for as the CSC membership changed on many occasions; the amount of energy expended on this objective perhaps prevented certain other objectives from being met (ie: there was interest in photography but there was never time to pursue it); upon reflection this worked out very well as the community TV objective was very high priority for Lourdes;

* Mainland and Area - to improve community dialogue and information sharing between the three Francophone communities; (initially it was discussed that CFS would work primarily in Mainland, but this was impossible as one of ARCO's key goals is to bring the three french communities closer together--this required extra effort and perhaps even a "spreading of effort" too thinly in the Francophone communities);

7.2.5 Expanded Objectives:

* All - to encourage sharing between the area and other community partners; (one of the key activities for this objective was the Phase #8 Conference/Sharing Event; although it was expected that this would require considerable energy, preparing for this zone-wide event took more energy than expected; upon reflection it was worth the effort as it was rated by participants as being extremely valuable);

* All - explore ways of creating two-way communication between the new zone boards and the people of all partner communities; (this objective seemed to be going no where in the early stages of the CFS process; however, once the zone board was up and running and into its strategic planning process, CFS worked very closely with the Economic Development Officer on the public participation component of the strategic plan; numerous TV shows were developed in conjunction with the zone board, as well as previously unplanned video trigger tapes and a two day interactive TV event in Stephenville; upon reflection, this was an extremely important collaboration for CFS to have been involved with even though it required that resource people spend some time outside of the original CFS partner communities;

* Burgeo/Ramea - train interested volunteers in the use of black and white photography; (interest in photography surpassed all expectations in Burgeo and Ramea; a photo club was established in Burgeo and efforts are being made to re-establish the darkroom in the new Ramea school; because of this interest, more time and resources was spent on photography in these communities than initially planned for);

7.3/ THE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES:
The following is a list of actual activities undertaken and accomplished during the CFS process. For additional information on community activities see Appendix I.
7.3.1/Ramea Activities:

* with Ramea Broadcasting Company (RBC) produced community television phone in programmes (ie: Our Island Home; The Future of Work in Rural Newfoundland; Community Education/Community Schools in Ramea etc);
* produced CFS Week TV shows on Zone #9 Awareness; local tourism awareness; REDC; youth issues; and a B&W photo display (theme- what we love about Ramea);
* worked with Ramea Broadcasting Company (RBC) to provide skills training for volunteers;
* worked with REDC to enhance their CED newsletter;
* provided ongoing training to those interested in b & w photography; worked with REDC to establish a darkroom;
* assisted groups with poster/flyer development (Rock Island Festival, Community Computer Fundraising Drive etc);
* developed video modules on lobster enhancement, kelp industry and other economic initiatives;
* conducted a Ramea community communications round table;
* made recommendations to REDC on how to proceed with public participation and communications activities in Ramea;
7.3.2/Burgeo Activities:

* with the Burgeo Broadcasting System (BBS), produced community TV programmes (Proposed Downgrading of Burgeo Hospital; Youth and Education Week; the Industrial Adjustment Service (IAS) SWAT Analysis Show etc);
* produced CFS Week (TV shows on Zone #9 Awareness; local tourism awareness; future of the fish plant and inshore fishery; youth issues; the Burgeo IAS; and a B&W photo display in the high school (theme-what we love about Burgeo);
* assisted in the formation of the new b & w photo group in Burgeo; provided ongoing training; worked with volunteers to establish a darkroom; assisted in equipment location and purchase;
* worked with the high school and the theatre arts class to develop a youth drama video-letter (skits on youth issues were developed and sent to Lourdes for feedback);
* worked with the high school french teacher in Burgeo, BBS, and the french school in Mainland, to develop a french language youth video exchange;
* conducted participatory workshops for volunteer committees on topics such as: communication in groups (Help Group; Sand n' Sea Committee); community economic development (IAS; Chamber of Commerce);
* assisted groups with poster/flyer development (Town of Burgeo, Sand & Sea; Help Group);
* assisted in the re-formation of the Burgeo Chamber of Commerce;
* assisted in the development of the Burgeo/Lourdes Youth Communications Internship proposal;
* conducted a Burgeo community communications round table;
* made recommendations to numerous community groups on how to proceed with public participation and communications activities in Burgeo;
7.3.3/Mainland and Area Activities:

* produced videos/simultaneous FM radio broadcasts on issues/culture of Francophone area;
* produced CFS Week (TV (transmitter) shows on Zone #9; water problems (Mainland); the future of the french centre (Black Duck Brook); problems/issues in the community council (Cape); and a b & w photo display that travelled to all three communities;
* with Mainland Family Resource Centre mothers, produced a "come to the fun centre" info/PR video for use in all three communities;
* worked with ARCO to re-establish permanent community TV in Mainland (including the first live TV programme (via cable TV) on the theme of community communications);
* worked with youth and provided resources to videotape numerous cultural events including a round table; festival; pageants, and skits;
* opened dialogue on the possibility of establishing community TV in Cape St. Georges;
*opened dialogue on the possibility of ARCO purchasing a TV transmitter for use in Black Duck Brook (including a permanent aerial on the roof of the French Centre);
* worked with ARCO to set-up the darkroom at the community school in Mainland, including training workshops for community people and equipment ordering/purchase;
* re-designed/organized ARCO editing suite; prepared easy-to-use editing instruction documents;
* made recommendations to ARCO on how to proceed with public participation and communications activities within french communities and with others in zone/province;
7.3.4/Lourdes and Area Activities:

* worked with Recreation Commission to establish permanent community TV in Lourdes area;
* produced at least ten live TV programmes since the channel was established; prior to hook-up, produced community videos on local issues, news, music (distributed via retail outlets);
* produced CFS Week shows on Zone #9; rural community cutbacks; youth issues; literacy; etc;
* conducted numerous training workshops (cameras; editing; planning videos; group organization) for both students and adults in the Lourdes area;
* assisted in the design of the proposed Lourdes/Burgeo high school Youth Community Communications Internship project including curriculum materials;
* assisted in the development of a constitution and policies and procedures manual for the Lourdes and Area Community TV Group;
* helped establish the Lourdes high school video club;
* with the support of RBC in Ramea, established the Lourdes Community Bulletin Board;
* worked with high school drama group to respond to the Burgeo video-letter;
* worked with Burgeo and Westviking College to get equipment (donated by BBS), operational;
* assisted in the design and equipping of community studio;
* conducted a Lourdes and Area Community Communications Round Table;
* made recommendations to Lourdes partners on how to proceed with public participation and communications activities within the area (and between Lourdes and Area and others in the zone);
7.3.5/General Activities:

* produced numerous video taped segments for use during programming (ie: Say No To Resettlement, Zone #9, Crevasse etc);
* established and maintained the Survival of Rural Communities Bulletin Board/Listserve on Enterprise Network (surv_rural@jig.entnet.nf.ca);
* established and updated the CFS Web Site (www.entnet.nf.ca/communication for-survival but now moved to (http://www.web.net/~ryakuga/CFS.html);
* coordinated the province-wide "Communications for Community Survival" conference held March 7-9, 1997 in Stephenville (co-sponsored by CFS, Westviking College (Community Studies and Journalism Departments) and the Long Range RED Board (Zone #9); over 100 participants attended including community people from Fogo, Cupids, Placentia, Lark Harbour, Corner Brook, Stephenville, St. Anthony, Griquet, Conche, Stephenville Crossing, Hazzard Kentucky (USA) etc as well as those from all CFS communities);
* worked closely with Zone #9 on their community consultation process including numerous communications activities in non-CFS partner communities (Stephenville, Bay St. George South);
* co-developed the Extension Methods Transfer proposal (proposing a micro technology and extension methods transfer project with CFS, Westviking and Vista University in South Africa);
* recipient of the 1996-1997 Newfoundland-Labrador Association for Adult Education "Don Snowden Community Development Achievement Award";

7.4/THE COMMUNITY CONTENT THEMES:

Although community content themes were flushed out to some extent in Phase #1, it was always the intention of the initiative to build community activities on the "current themes of the day". What follows is a community-by-community list of content themes actually pursued in each community (for a list of the initially proposed content themes see Appendix D).
7.4.1/Lourdes:
* apathy; burnout of volunteers; cutbacks; Zone #9; youth issues; out migration; literacy; fishery; local clinic; jobs; Stephenville hospital; regional health issues; development associations; tourism; local work ethic; new industries (Piccadilly Plastics); and many more;

7.4.2/Mainland and Area:
* self-governance of school system; out-migration; resettlement; the ground fishery; the lobster fishery; oil exploration; tourism; water problems; community council issues; future of the french centre; french festivals; the new Regional Economic Development Zones; development associations; and many more;

7.4.3/Ramea:
* realigned political boundaries; cuts to municipal funding (MOG); TAGS; UIC; resettlement; ferry service; tourism; Cabot 500/Flotilla; out-migration; future of youth/need for a youth centre; community policing; openness of the new school; community education; the fish plant; REDC; the new Zones/Zone #9; Penguin Area Development Association; apathy; and many more;
7.4.4/Burgeo:
* Burgeo IAS; Chamber of Commerce; tourism; Cabot 500; hospital/health care; fish plant future; sentinel fishery; future of the fishery; Zone #9; future of RDAs; youth issues/need for a youth centre; community policing; what we love about our community (photos); and many more;

7.5/ INTERVENTION APPROACH:
Generally speaking, partners were pleased with the intervention approach. In final internal evaluation sessions OSC members described the approach as being crucial to the success of the overall initiative. Partners seemed to believe that if the initiative had been structured such that resource people had stayed in each community for a concentrated period of time (ie: spent 12 consecutive weeks in Burgeo) as opposed to staggered interventions (7-8 visits to Burgeo of 1-2 weeks each), the project would not have succeeded.
The resource people did have some early concerns that the time span between actual on-site interventions may be too great. Upon reflection, it appears that in the early phases, when commitment to the initiative had not yet had a chance to grow, there was little community initiated activity happening during the interval periods (the time between resource person visits). However, as commitment to the initiative grew, and as trust between the community and the resource people was established, the time period between visits ceased to be a concern. In communities where the CSCs were motivated, activities were planned and implemented without resource person involvement. In the case of communities where lack of activity was due to multiple factors including capacity problems of sponsoring partners and the constant change-over of CSC members, there is no evidence to suggest that shorter interval periods would have made any difference. Overall however, it does appear that shorter interval periods in the early phases may have helped to get more community initiated activities happening earlier in the process.
It is worth noting that in the initial RNCSP proposal, when only two communities were proposed for the CFS initiative, the interval periods were to have been considerably shorter. However, this is not a recommendation for fewer partners in such initiatives. Partners at the final OSC meeting in Burgeo were quick to point out that one of the strong points of the CFS initiative was that there were enough communities involved to allow for multiple interactions and connections--they strongly felt that an initiative of only two communities may not have garnered enough interest and enthusiasm among community people, for it to have been successful.
Related to the above discussion on interval periods, is the issue of resource person time off (which occurred during interval periods). In the initial plan, the resource people were to take one week of unpaid leave, between each phase. After Phase #1 it was clear that one week off, after four weeks of on-site community work, was inadequate for the resource people, if they were to survive the longer-term process. The time-off period was therefore adjusted to two weeks of unpaid leave between phases. This contributed to longer interval periods between phases but from a resource person survival point of view, there was no other option.
There were also several changes to the actual dates for the proposed phases. This was expected and unavoidable, as a process that works with the community at its pace must be flexible. In most cases, changes were made to reflect a community's wish to start a phase earlier or later, in order to avoid an extremely busy community time (ie: Christmas concert season; summer in Burgeo when many are at their cabins; Easter holidays etc).
Finally, the focus of certain phases was adjusted to reflect the unfolding reality of the initiative. For instance, Phase #7, initially called Video Editing and Personal Development Plans, was changed to Video Editing and Group Development Plans. This change was required as in the initial plan, it was assumed that participants for the initiative would be specifically identified by HRDC (ie: TAGS clients). However, HRDC allowed the initiative greater flexibility than anticipated in terms of identifying CFS participants. Thus the initiative worked more with community groups and agencies, than with specifically identified clients. This necessitated the change from a phase that dealt with formalized individual development plans, to one that dealt with groups and agencies and their communications, participation and sustainability strategies.
Another change revolved around Phases #5 and #6. Initially these Phases intended to assist communities to do a limited community TV project (Phase #5-Preparation for Live Community TV Participatory Events; Phase #6-Live Community TV Participatory Events). By the time these phases were ready to be implemented it was clear to most involved, that community groups and sponsoring partner capacity was such that a bigger and broader event could be managed--thus the change to Phase #5-Preparation for CFS Week, and Phase #6- CFS Week (which involved much more than community TV ie: photo displays).
Phase #8 was initially planned as a regional meeting or gathering which would bring CFS people together (Project Community Sharing and Networking). In the end, most partners felt that it was time to broaden the scope of the initiative as it neared the end of its HRDC funded period. Thus the change to a province-wide sharing event (Phase #8-Communication for Community Survival Conference). See Appendix E for more information on the conference.
Finally, it is important to note that the CFS initiative did not always follow the linear plan of the phases. It was quite common for activities from several phases to be occurring at the same time in a given community ie: training and live community TV occurring during the same phase although planned for separate phases.
In summary, the CFS Ten Phase Approach and Ti me-Line (Appendices B and C), although a useful guide that helped partners find their way through a multifaceted programme of activities, was only a guide. From the beginning, partners were encouraged to be flexible and to avoid becoming a "slave to the plan".

7.6/ COMMUNITY STEERING COMMITTEES:
As noted above, the task of forming Community Steering Committees (CSCs) was ongoing.
Predictably, these committees evolved differently in each partner community. Of great interest however is how the strongest and most productive committees emerged in the communities with the least resources and organizational support (Burgeo and Lourdes).
For instance, Burgeo had the strongest committee and yet did not have a sponsoring partner to support it. They met regularly and always had a programme of activities prepared for the resource people when they arrived in the community. Even when key committee members lost their jobs (which had allowed them to participate in the CFS initiative) the committee did not fold. Contact people changed but overall the committee was solid until the end of the funded period. In fact the committee has decided to periodically re-form itself when the need arises for a perceived neutral committee that can facilitate positive communication on 'sticky or hot' community issues.
In Lourdes the CSC committee actually became the community TV/bingo committee early on in the process (the names were used interchangeably). This was understandable as the primary activity planned for the Lourdes and Area partner was the establishment of community TV. Although they had some support from their sponsoring partner (PAPCEI) this committee was generally on its own. The committee was small, with a high membership turnover (which may say more about this typical rural community than it does about CFS). In the end, highly motivated committee members were able to accomplish more than most people thought possible.
Ramea began the process clearly as the strongest partner. This can be partially attributed to the fact that key people at the sponsoring partner (REDC) had been involved in the process from the beginning. When the funding for Town of Ramea EDO position expired, when key volunteers got involved in other projects (educational endeavours) and when other volunteers got swamped with REDC and Town of Ramea survival issues, much of the initial energy and momentum was lost.
It appears that in the Ramea case, the CSC was never properly formed (ie: it never developed a community base). This can be partially explained by the fact that in the early phases of CFS no one in Ramea (nor the resource people) anticipated that circumstances would change so drastically in the community. All parties involved assumed that it would acceptable to have the REDC act as the CSC, as opposed to building a CSC "from scratch" in the community. When key people stepped back, the dependancy on REDC became apparent. Fortunately, the full extent of these changes occurred late enough in the overall process for CFS resource people to have already built considerable trust among numerous contacts in the community. This allowed them to proceed in Ramea without a formal CSC, with limited CFS activities.
In Mainland, several attempts were made to establish a committee that would reflet ARCO's need to involve all three french communities. In retrospect these were valuable in terms of public awareness of CFS and as a community consultation mechanism. In the end however, because ARCO had adequate resources to manage the CFS initiative (ie: numerous staff had it as part of their job responsibilities), commitment to establishing a local committee wanned. The resource people accepted that the ARCO CSC was actually a small committee of ARCO staff. This had both a positive and negative side. On a positive note, it was almost always possible to arrange meetings with ARCO staff for decisions on key activities. On a negative note, the broader community was never really brought into the overall planning side of the CFS initiative--they participated in the activities but generally did not participate in the design or planning for them. This not only affected the overall level of CFS awareness in the area, but also created problems for the CFS resource people when ARCO staff were too busy with other job responsibilities to take the lead with planned CFS activities. In such instances CFS resource people would have few local people to co-implement planned activities. Rather then go forward with them, CFS resource people would usually choose to wait until local people could participate--this constant re-scheduling often wasted what could have been, productive work time.
Broadly speaking, it appears that in the case of Ramea and Mainland, CFS became too dependant on the sponsoring partners. When they developed capacity problems, the CFS initiative had difficulty going forward. In the case of Burgeo and Lourdes the community base was broader. This allowed the resource people to develop better community activities more often. It also appears that in the case of Burgeo, because there was no agency to rely upon, the CSC developed a "we must do it ourselves" attitude.
In summary, having some type of guiding body in each partner community was critical to the success of the CFS initiative. Although they unfolded differently in each community, the CFS process would have been direction-less without them. Spending greater effort in the early phases to establish a CSC with a broad base would have helped the overall process in the long-term.

7.7/ SPONSORING PARTNERS
In the early RNCSP proposal there was a section that clearly described the responsibilities of the sponsoring partners. In the process of refining and re developing the project, this section was downplayed--in other words, the final proposal didn't clearly describe what the sponsoring partners were to do. For example, it didn't spell out how the resource people and sponsoring partners were to work together (ie: when it came to organizing a workshop in one community the sponsoring partner felt that the resource people should do the call-around, whereas the resource people felt that this was the responsibility of the community sponsoring body).
There were occasions when the resource people felt that the sponsoring partner was not living up to its agreed upon role, and there were likely occasions where the sponsoring partner felt that the resource people were relying too much on them. Overall, the resource people were cautious about building resource person dependancy at the community level. Yet at the same time, sponsoring partners were often having capacity problems. Exacerbating this situation was a high turnover rate on both CSCs and sponsoring partners. In the case of ARCO, staff were frequently changing jobs which affected their perceived role in the CFS process. In the case of Ramea, funding issues created significant turnover at REDC. In the case of the PAPCEI, a variety of programmes and responsibilities had the key contact person pulled in many directions at once.
In summary this situation could have been improved upon through a clearer description of sponsoring partner and resource person responsibilities in the early development stages of CFS.

7.8/ OVERALL STEERING COMMITTEE:
Although sometimes difficult to organize in terms of meeting the numerous schedules of the many partners involved, most CFS participants would agree that these gatherings were critical to the success of the overall initiative. These events allowed members to get together for reflection, planning and fun. They were so important that REDC felt the gap between the 3rd and 4th OSC meeting needed to be shortened (in effect creating an additional OSC meeting which impacted on the budget) so that momentum would not be lost.
The typical format for the OSC meetings was for participants to arrive in the host community on a Thursday afternoon for a short meeting and social, and then to go on live community TV as part of a host partners' TV event. Musicians and youth were always encouraged to come as part of the visiting community delegations. The following day, the OSC would meet in a public venue for the discussion and planning component of the gathering. Community people were always encouraged to "drop by".
The OSC meetings encouraged partners to discuss and celebrate the CFS initiative in their home community, and contributed to the building of both CFS and zonal identities. By gathering ordinary people together from all over the zone to discuss problems and to share strategies for solving them, a sense of "we are in this together" was developed.
many communities have the same concerns, and when they pull together as one large body they have the power to make things happen - Burgeo
its always good to hear what other communities are doing. We can learn from each others mistakes and use others' ideas to help solve some of our own problems- Ramea
we are interested in community communications; we want to speak and share with other communities--for example, the Cape recently brought us a tape of their adult pageant (for us to play on Lourdes TV) - Lourdes

This face-to-face contact cannot be overestimated. At the final OSC meeting in Burgeo it was a unanimous recommendation that any future communications projects of this nature need to allow time and resources for human contact and sharing between rural communities.

7.9/ FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION:
Although most finance and administrative aspects of the initiative were problem free, there were a few problems experienced.
When the overall CFS budget was finalized, the amount initially allotted for overall project administration had been removed. The resource people were concerned with this as they felt that the sponsoring partner agreeing to manage the finances and administration for the project (REDC) would not be fairly compensated for the extra work that they were undertaking. This fear was proven justified later on in the process, as REDC incurred financial difficulties and was unfairly required to continue to manage the project at a loss to the REDC (ie: no compensation for staff time spent on financial management).
Another problem encountered revolved around a change in the staff doing the CFS accounting. When the person originally in charge of the books left Ramea and turned the books over to someone new, the change-over had the effect of confusing all involved as to "how much money is remaining in the budget". When the resource people expressed concern that the project was running over budget in certain categories, they were told that things were fine even though there was little evidence to suggest that things were indeed under control. In the end the resource persons' concerns were justified as the project did indeed go over budget in certain categories. This resulted in the resource persons' April 1997 expense and fees invoices being left unpaid.

8/ FOCUS ON COMMUNITY CAPACITY BUILDING:
The OSC agreed to examine the following "elements of community capacity" during the internal evaluation process (Note# several of these elements were actually overall CFS goals).

8.1/ BUILDING CONFIDENCE AMONG PARTICIPANTS:
In the Phase #9 communications round tables, there was considerable discussion regarding how CFS made an impact on the confidence of those involved in the process. Numerous examples were given such as: people appearing on TV/video for the first time (over 100 people appeared on TV for the first time during the CFS process); people appearing on TV more than once (at least 20 community people made regular appearances on community TV/video); youth appearing on phone-in panels and "holding their own" (at least four shows); community agencies planning their own community TV programmes for the first time (at least 12 organizations) etc.
CFS did very good with this--there were lots of new faces on community TV - Ramea
it allowed participants to have a voice - Burgeo
CFS built confidence in youth--it helped start the Brights Sites youth committee - Burgeo
CFS pushed us to take a risk--it gave us a 'power of the people' feeling - Burgeo
students and adults alike showed much more confidence at the end than they did at the beginning--you could see it in the last (TV) show - Ramea
youth in our area were very excited with the process and learned a lot - Cape St. George
we never thought we'd be on live TV twice a week - Lourdes
the process gave people a chance to speak from home, and everyone (in the community) heard them, not just people around the table - Cape St. George
the water panel in Mainland was scared to death at first but the action focus of the discussion gave them confidence--it led them to believe that they were not alone - Mainland
from now on when someone from the community goes out with a camera, people will talk to them - Mainland
the shows motivated people--look at Mark for instance--at first he was shy and then you couldn't get him off (the air) - Cape St. George
in terms of being in front of the camera, I was more comfortable at the end as opposed to the first weeks or months - Ramea
there were lots of new faces on TV that you'd never have thought you'd see - Ramea
I was so amazed when I saw this person on TV in front of the public - Ramea
it improved confidence for people directly involved, but not for those indirectly involved - Burgeo
it affected confidence in a positive way ie: in the beginning people thought they would be attacked but then realized that the community was looking for action - Mainland

8.2/ IMPROVING COMMUNITY DIALOGUE AND INFORMATION SHARING:
Many comments were received during the internal evaluation process regarding the CFS initiative's success in improving community dialogue and information sharing. Based on these comments it is clear that this was one of the major strengths of the process.
it opened our eyes to what was going on in other places - Ramea
I learned about the french Newfoundland culture--we need to continue with this - Ramea
CFS did very good with this--especially sharing between communities - Ramea
yes this occurred during round tables and TV phone-ins - Burgeo
yes, this was good--a lot of people may have not phoned in during TV shows, but they were much more informed when they had their "slip talks" - Ramea
the TV/bulletin board is a good source of information; its a good opportunity to share and inform - Lourdes
we need to link up with other community TV groups - Lourdes
since the TV transmitter programm on the Community Council, there is much more interaction between the community and the council and much better information sharing - Cape St. George
we have established links that we never would have had before--we now know people in these communities that we will continue to stay in touch with--I am going down there (Burgeo/Ramea) this summer - Cape St. George
the shows encouraged sharing among youth from the three Francophone communities which was good - Black Duck Brook
at first the youth in the Cape felt left out but then they began to mingle with other youth--it brought them together more - Cape St. Georges
because of the involvement of other communities in the partnership, we got an excellent cross section of ideas and information - Ramea
communication curbs gossip and leads to a more informed and better educated group of citizens - Ramea
when a community communicates, it alleviates or possibly eliminates the possibility for misinformation to grow - Ramea
the process got people communicating with people from other towns- Ramea
the process of community TV was enhanced by CFS - Ramea
continuing to share ideas and focusing on the strengths and weaknesses that each community has, will conceivably help us through the hurdles - Ramea
perspectives from all sides were heard through the round tables - Ramea
after funding the sharing may drop back, but it will still continue - Ramea
friendships have been made--whether contacts are continued on a semi regular or regular basis will depend upon our economic prosperity (if we have the enthusiasm or time for continuing friendships and relationships) - Ramea
many people have great ideas that may be beneficial to the town, but if these people don't speak out, these ideas may be lost for ever - Burgeo
communication in this town has improved because of CFS - Burgeo
if we properly communicate what we are doing, people may be less harsh on us - Burgeo
CFS made people realize they aren't alone; it has likely lowered stress levels-Burgeo;
people are saturated with communication--its better than nothing, but without tangible results, nothing changes for ordinary people - Burgeo
the average person in Burgeo is more aware of issues facing them and the town - Burgeo
the approach used by CFS was excellent--there was a flow of info from other communities into our community - Burgeo
communication is essential for rural Newfoundland - Burgeo

8.3/ TRAINING PEOPLE IN COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS:
In the initial RNCSP plan, training was to build upon the needs of the identified HRDC clients. When HRDC gave the initiative freedom to choose its participants, the training plan was adjusted to be more informal and "open to the public". During the final OSC meeting in Burgeo (March 1997), it was noted that, although the informal approach used by CFS was the best approach for the actual workshops and sessions, the overall training plan could have been improved upon by having a more formal promotion and advertising strategy--in other words, promote the workshops more formally (advertised to the public; people register in advance; etc). These comments may suggests that some community people didn't take the offer of CFS training seriously because it didn't look as formal or as "course-like" as they may have been used to.
photography skills were developed and more people are using RBC equipment - Ramea
training occurred via b & w photography, the scanning workshop and the conference in Stephenville - Burgeo
not enough participants but an excellent job with the students - Burgeo
youth learned a lot and seem to be able to operate all of the equipment easily - Mainland
some of the training seminars/workshops will have lasting results, especially for the students and some of the adults who did the photography and camera work - Ramea
the other night I went up to the studio and set the entire thing up by myself--when Jim called to ask who had done it, I proudly said 'I did' - Lourdes
kids can now take a camera and go - Cape St. George
from a technical point of view, all students can use the equipment now - Mainland
we don't have equipment to edit so we just take a camera, film scenery (or whatever) and play it - Lourdes

8.4/ ASSISTING WITH THE BUILDING OF COMMUNITY COHESIVENESS:
Some comments regarding the building of community cohesiveness were received during the internal evaluation. Most people however were unable to clearly state whether or not the process made any real observable change to the community. Several commented that they thought that the results would be felt down the road. In the case of Lourdes, numerous comments were received regarding the community TV/bingo and ad channel creating a sense of community closeness.
yes this happened through meetings with various groups (where various groups were brought together) - Burgeo
did we add to the cohesiveness or were we cohesive before the CFS initiative?--I am not sure - Ramea
although community cohesiveness was good before the process , it has improved because of CFS - Ramea
the community TV and bingo are going really well--people without cable are getting together with their friends and neighbours to play bingo--its like its bringing the community together - Lourdes
the community TV has created a sense of closeness in the community - Lourdes
by virtue of having students and children involved, the parents were brought in to the process, at least to watch their children - Mainland
CFS encouraged more people to speak out on such issues as the fate of our fish plant and the state of our health care. In doing so it has helped pull our town together, but there is still a lot of work to be done - Burgeo
we need to band together as rural communities--this is our strength - Burgeo

8.5/ ENCOURAGING GREATER PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES:
This varied widely between community partners in the initiative. Although the actual numbers on the Lourdes CSC were small, there was a great deal of overall participation in the community TV/bingo/bulletin board process (panellists, musicians, youth crews, videographers, computer people (for the public announcements) behind the scenes helpers etc). Burgeo also had impressive participation in CFS activities such as photography, and CFS Week activities. Ramea had strong participation in the beginning but seemed to lose steam around the half-way point in the process (due primarily to CSC and sponsoring partner capacity problems described in detail in Sections 7.6 and 7.7 ). Mainland and Area participation seemed to rise and fall throughout the process--during CFS Week participation within the communities was good--when the resource people left the area participation was often non-existent (this can in part be attributed to the fact that the initiative did not have adequate time and resources to do justice to CFS activities in three Francophone communities at once. In other words, the effort required for the Mainland partner was multiplied by a factor of three when Cape St. George and Black Duck Brook were brought into the process. Another way of looking at this is that when Burgeo had a two week Phase to work with, the Mainland and Area partner had a two week period divided by three communities to work with).
yes this happened as the process was continually seeking new participants - Burgeo
yes as more people were getting involved in the hands-on preparing and producing of the (TV) shows. As for other community activities, the CFS initiative sparked interest and people took part in things without us knowing why - Ramea
the shows in the Cape created a desire to see more - Cape St. George
telling people 'that its your children doing it' convinced people to come forward - Cape St. George
a fair amount of participation from the community occurred--without CFS we would have had only one-way and ineffective communications - Ramea
youth were more involved than they normally would have been - Ramea
the process has shown how youth can be involved - Ramea
an increase in community volunteers was quite evident after the first TV show - Ramea
groups now know that they can approach RBC - Ramea
students (got involved) and parents came to watch their children--we got participation from everyone - Mainland
the channel is conditional on volunteers--they can be students or adults -both could do more - Lourdes
people need to know how they can get involved (job descriptions) - Lourdes

8.6/ STRENGTHENING/ASSISTING EXISTING GROUPS WITH THEIR ACTIVITIES:
CFS worked with many groups and agencies throughout the life of the initiative (at least 25). Sometimes the initiatives' assistance work was clearly defined and clear for all to see (helping groups with posters and flyers (five groups), helping groups with the preparation and implementation of TV programmes (at least 15 groups), or giving workshops on communications related topics (five groups). Sometimes the assistance was longer term and was less visible to the public (behind the scenes work to establish community TV in Lourdes; ongoing technical assistance to ARCO; ongoing photography assistance in three of four communities; working on the Youth Communications Internship Proposal etc).
Generally speaking, most OSC members stated that the overall CFS initiative did indeed provide assistance to numerous community groups. It is important to note, that although sponsoring partners never directly stated it, they were indeed taxed by the overall process (being a sponsoring partner may have been more work than the partners understood in the beginning of the initiative). Overall, community and sponsoring groups gained from the process, but the sponsoring groups may have also been required to use more resources and energy than they initially had planned for.
an example of this is CFS offering assistance for chairing activities (meetings) to various groups - Burgeo
CFS left behind a much stronger Ramea Broadcasting Group - Ramea
the TV show in Black Duck Brook, may have turned some faces towards our side (French Centre Executive) although it was good that the two opposing views were shared (on the issue of a liquor licence for the French Centre) - Black Duck Brook
it strengthened RBC and helped Zone 9 with its public consultation process - Ramea
CFS built a relationship between the school and BBS--it also seemed to make the school more accessible to the public - Burgeo
CFS helped with a new perspective for the Mainland Local Service Council--people will now get after them and the issue of water will be resolved - Mainland
the TV program on literacy was very important--it reached people who are illiterate and who are looking for help - Lourdes

8.7/ CREATING DISCUSSION ON EMPLOYMENT:
Most programming in one way or another, came around to the topic of the future of the community, which almost always brought in the topic of creating employment. At least ten TV/video programmes set out to deal with themes of a community economic development nature.

discussions were created, whether positive or negative I am not sure- however some of the feedback showed that there were discussions on employment taking place (in the community) - Ramea
excellent - Ramea
most discussions entered on the fishery and employment opportunities - Ramea
things have come out that would have not come out otherwise - Ramea
we could have done more here - Burgeo
we have an excellent work ethic in this province and we should be proud of it - Lourdes

8.8/ STIMULATING PRIDE OF PLACE/RESPECT FOR LOCAL CULTURE:
Many felt that this was a strength of CFS, although many also felt that more could have been done. The face-to-face musicians exchanges facilitated by CFS via OSC meetings and the conference, were a highlight for the initiative. Many felt that this needs to be continued if we are to understand one another and to build a zonal identity. Some felt that more could have been done with oral histories/heritage, but added that this could be done without resource people.
this is a slow process and the full effects are probably not as yet realized - Ramea
this is hard to measure but I feel the project helped in this area - Ramea
people seem to love TV programmes on Ramea--if the community is on the news or is part of an issue show on RBC, people will watch - Ramea
local news helps develop a sense of pride in the community - Lourdes
excellent job - Ramea
we need to do more story-telling and to discuss the way of life in the past; people like to know of themselves and of the way life used to be- things like Candlemas Day and mummering should be looked at; there are a lot of artistic people around - Lourdes

8.9/ DEVELOPING/IDENTIFYING NEW COMMUNITY LEADERS:
Several CSC members stated that new community leaders emerged as a result of the process (two were named in Burgeo and one in Ramea). Some stated that although doors were opened, it is too early to tell. Some stated that the process just gave more responsibilities (although enjoyable ones for the most part) to existing leaders. It is important to point out that during the first OSC meeting, several people stated that a sign of a successful project would be different people seated around the table at final OSC meetings. This happened to some extent--during the last three OSC meetings, many first time participants were in attendance.
Various circumstances throughout the process required that key people step back from CFS In most cases, new individuals stepped forward to take their place. Although new community leaders may not be evident at this time, it is clear that many representatives from many organizations are approaching the concept of community communication and public participation differently as a result of the CFS process.
CFS helped to develop at least one new leader and enhanced her confidence - Ramea
the process opened doors for people - Burgeo
some new people have come forward and are taking part in community activities--new faces on the church committee, new and more involved faces at RBC, new members in the Ramea Fire Department--something sparked their interest - Ramea
new leaders did not necessarily evolve but the potential has been created for some to surface - Ramea
yes, CFS has helped develop and identify two new community leaders - Burgeo

8.10/ PROMOTING COMMUNITY ORGANIZING, PLANNING AND ACTION:
There are numerous examples of where the CFS process appears to have made a direct contribution to a community issue in terms of organizing, planning and action. The Mainland water show has caused a defunct committee to re activate itself and to seek solutions to an annoying community problem. The Mainland Family Fun Centre women are working on a second video for use on the community channel in Mainland, as a result of the first Fun Centre video process conducted in 1996. RBC in Ramea, is certainly doing more community issues programming than ever before (the ferry issue programme was done without any resource person involvement whatsoever). The Burgeo photo group has formalized itself , has established a group darkroom, and is tackling community issues such as "eyesores of our community". The Burgeo hospital show seemed to mobilize Burgeo and surrounding communities to stick together on the hospital issue, and assisted in the formation of the Burgeo Community Health Committee. The CFS Week youth show in Burgeo seems to have sparked the formation of the Brights Sites Youth Committee. The Recreation Commission in Lourdes is completely behind the efforts of the Recreation Bingo and the Lourdes and Area Community TV group. A show in Cape St. George is being credited with getting further training for ambulance workers started.
yes, this happened through TV shows and meetings - Burgeo
the channel can be used for intercommunity communication (ie: with ARCO) - Lourdes
a new Local Service District committee has been formed as a result of the water show in Mainland--the first meeting was so positive--nothing negative was discussed - Mainland
now the community sees the water problem differently--they can't sit back and wait for someone to solve the problem - Mainland
CFS has kick started things in the community - Burgeo
more people need to come forward to express their views--we need to keep asking the public to do so and to assure them that we want to hear from them - Burgeo
we need to make it easy for people to participate - Burgeo
CFS showed everyone that you do not have to be shy about voicing your opinion -Burgeo
the real test is the next six months, in terms of what this thing (CFS) did for our communities - Cape St. George
not a lot of action in this respect - Ramea
the show in the Cape got a first aid and CPR course on the go - Cape St. George
this communication (TV) is one of the most important on the go, but there are others--the parish newsletter , hopefully internet by the end of June, a community newsletter could be really important too - Lourdes

9/ OVERALL LEARNINGS:
Many things were learned about community communications over the life of the CFS initiative that may be of value to both CFS partners (and their future community development work), and to other individuals or groups considering work of this nature for their own community or region. Some of these learnings are listed below (most were generated at the final OSC meeting).

1) it is critical to the process, that the outside resource people live in the community when conducting the fieldwork/interventions;
2) when conducting a process of this nature, it is important to have enough communities involved to give the process 'critical mass' (enough community involvement so that many things can happen at once); more communities increase the sharing and idea exchange; it is suggested that between four and six communities participate in a process of this nature; many felt that a process involving only two communities (as per the RNCSP proposal) would have been boring;
3) if a community is not formally brought in to the process then they will not likely participate very effectively (ie: Francois and Grey River were "added on" at the end--they were not full partners and therefore were not effectively involved);
4) when selecting community partners, ensure that there are both likenesses and differences between the communities (communities too alike may feel that they have nothing to learn from one another--communities too different may feel that they have nothing in common worth sharing);
5) some physical distance between the partners is important--communities too close may not be able to easily see that they should work together- communities further away may appear more intriguing to people (ie: Burgeo and Ramea seemed fairly disinterested in one another but both were quite interested in the Port au Port Peninsula communities);
6) a process whereby resource people make multiple community interventions over a long period of time (vs a one-time concentrated period) is very appropriate and cost-effective for this type of work; this is a model that could be explored by other groups in the province developing projects of a community development, community communications, or CED nature;
7) although the CFS process encouraged a variety of communications tools, technologies and approaches, it is critical that in any sharing process, face-to face human contact be encouraged (the quarterly OSC meetings of the CFS process aided greatly in both information sharing, and in building a sense of community and regional solidarity);
8) although a key goal of CFS was to involve and develop local resource person capacity, there is an important role for outside facilitation (facilitators often bring perceived neutrality to the process which can enable local people to manoeuvre through sometimes sticky topics/issues);
9) training opportunities may be perceived as "more worthwhile" if they are presented to the public more formally (ie: sign-up deadlines; limited enrollment; small fee etc) as opposed to completely flexible (ie: get in touch with the committee and we can develop some training for you); the scanning workshop in Burgeo, and the video workshop in Ramea were approached this way and worked well with good attendance--in Mainland because there were few formally planned training opportunities, few people stepped forward to be trained);
10) some form of participant recognition may be appropriate for some communities
(ie: certificates of training completion);
11) the actual approach within any training opportunity should remain flexible and informal;
12) never hinge the success of a long-term process on the continued involvement of any one individual or agency--expect considerable turnover and build this in to the project design from the beginning;

13) in a process that involves multiple communities, allow great flexibility so that each community partner can design the committee structure, approach and activities in a manner that best meet their needs;
14) encourage ongoing reflection and evaluation in a process such as this--learn as you go and use the learning to improve the process;

15) in the early days of such a process spend considerable time and energy reiterating to the public that the process is open to all--make it easy for people to participate, and stress that people can enter and exit the process at any time;
16) for such a process to be successful, there needs to be a few key people who are constant throughout the process in each community (at least one key contact person per community);
17) in the long-term, working with ordinary people brings the best results- working with community leaders is risky as they are often overworked and have a tendency to be pulled away into other projects;
18) in terms of tools and technologies, introducing new ideas and communications mediums are important, but communities should start their communication process by building on what they have available to them;
19) the funding partner in a process like this should be a full participant; they should participate in both the project development and implementation processes and should regularly attend steering committee/planning meetings (HRDC was a 'model' funding partner in this regard);

20) allot adequate front-end time and energy to the task of determining roles and responsibilities of all partners involved; skipping over this step may create difficulty later on when capacity issues arise (ie: if it is unclear as to whom is responsible for what);

21) those conducting communications initiatives of this nature need to find ways for people to easily participate in the process--simply saying that it is open to all is not enough--we must clearly identifying tasks and jobs for people to take on;

10/ RECOMMENDATIONS:
There were many recommendations made regarding the CFS process. What follows are the recommendations received as of April 16, 1997. They have been gleaned from the minutes of the final OSC meeting, from the minutes of the communication round tables (conducted in all communities except Mainland), and from completed internal evaluation surveys.

10.1/ TO LOURDES AND AREA PARTNERS:
* that the PAPCEI continue to support the Lourdes and Area Community TV Committee wherever possible;
* that the committee use the community channel for inter-community communication;
* that the committee approach ARCO regarding the sharing of equipment and programming (keeping in mind their specific "french culture" mandate);
* that the committee get the school and community more involved in the community channel--seek in-kind contributions from both the school and community;
* in conjunction with the school, get the students currently involved with school entrepreneurial activities more involved in the community channel;
* that the committee develop policies and procedures for equipment use;
* that additional training and orientation for the school community TV/video club be conducted;
* if the Youth Communications Internship proposal is successful, that the committee use this opportunity to build the Lourdes and Area Community TV group (help with volunteers, content);
* that the committee continue to develop programming on community health, literacy initiatives, youth, entrepreneurial spirit, local sports coverage, historical and cultural programming (interviews, traditions, music, story telling, local art etc);
* that the committee stay on top of changes to technology (ie: fibre optics) so that the community doesn't have such changes forced upon them to the detriment of the community channel;

10.2/ TO MAINLAND AND AREA PARTNERS:
* that ARCO monitor the Burgeo/Lourdes Youth Internship project--if appropriate get involved;
* that ARCO consider expanding upon the ARCO newsletter to form a community newsletter (for all three Francophone communities);
* that ARCO establish a communications committee that can keep on top of communications issues within and between the three communities;
* that ARCO seek funding for a full-time communications staff person to work within the ARCO structure; that this person be responsible for the editing suite, photography lab, radio station, community television station and newsletter; that this person act as communications liaison between all three French communities;

10.3 / TO BURGEO PARTNERS:
* that the Burgeo CSC come together (re-form) whenever a situation arises in the community requiring it do so; that the CSC take the lead in facilitating periodic general public meetings and activities to discuss both good news and problems within the community;
* that BBS continue to encourage more communication between the community and Seafreeze;
* that the Photo Club explore the possibility of assisting Francois to set up its unused darkroom;
* that those doing communications in Burgeo consider finding ways to bring parents and children closer together;
* that BBS continue to be accessible to the public (open to other groups doing programming etc);
* that BBS facilitate regular health care and youth reports;
* that efforts be made to ensure that the community continues to have easy access to the school;
* that the CSC consider finding ways to have more exchange between communities--have more communities visit Burgeo;

10.4/ TO RAMEA PARTNERS:
* that the RBC conduct more local programming/panel discussions on issues;
* that REDC consider the revival of its newsletter a priority;
* that REDC continue its round table process;
* that REDC conduct youth round tables;
* that RBC continue sharing tapes with other communities;
* that the french teachers at the school continue to make efforts to develop linkages with the french communities on the Port au Port;
* that RBC pull seniors and history into the communications process (ie: on TV);
* that all concerned about community communications support the new RBC community liaison person (Peg Sibley) wherever possible;
* that RBC contact Lloyd Whitehorn about the possibility of new RBC programming (literacy);
* that those interested in photography pursue the establishment of a darkroom at the new school;
* that REDC continue to pursue a community access centre for Ramea;

10.5/ TO OTHER COMMUNITIES INTERESTED IN COMMUNITY COMMUNICATIONS:
* see conclusions in Section 9;

10.6/ TO HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT CANADA:
* that if HRDC requires an external evaluation of the CFS initiative that those chosen to conduct the evaluation seek advice from, and consult with, the OSC regarding the overall evaluation approach and framework;
* that if an external evaluation is required, that a "participatory evaluation" be considered;
* that those conducting the evaluation, ensure that they consult with community individuals, community groups, sponsoring partners, and initiating partners as part of the evaluation process;
* that the evaluation be based on the goals, and proposed objectives, activities and content themes set out in Phase #1 of the process; that those conducting the evaluation recognize that the objectives, activities and content theme were re-priorized and revised overtime by community partners (described in Status Reports);
* that those contracted to undertake the evaluation be familiar with community development, community communications and community economic development;
* that any future HRDC funded projects like this retain a budget line for overall administration and project management;
* that HRDC continue to recognize community development and community communications as a necessary component of community economic development;
* that the involved approach, exemplified by management in the Stephenville HRDC office, be considered a model for all other projects of this nature;
* that HRDC continue to support initiatives of this type (from Burgeo);

10.7/ TO CFS RESOURCE PEOPLE:
* that the resource people continue to use an informal and people-centered approach;
* that the resource people be patient, but push a little at the same time (from Burgeo);

10.8/ TO THE OVERALL STEERING COMMITTEE:
* that the OSC reconvene in Stephenville (September 25th and 26th, 1997) for a sharing and planning meeting;
* that this gathering be open to any group or agency in Zone #9 interested in becoming apart of the CFS coalition;
* that agencies from outside the Zone (ie: groups that attended the Conference) be invited;
* that all existing and new partners, contribute the resources necessary in order for their agency to be represented at this gathering;
* that the primary purposes for the gathering be: 1) to continue sharing between current and new CFS organizations/partners (this will include a live community TV event in Stephenville) and 2) to plan for the future of CFS including main activities for the next year (this to include the 2nd Communication for Community Survival Conference);
* that all members of the OSC make efforts to maintain communication with one another (including the period leading up to the September gathering);

10.9/ TO THE LONG RANGE RED BOARD (ZONE #9):
* that there needs to be a strong statement of support for CFS (and for community communications in general) in the strategic plan;
* that the EDO send out a letter of invitation to all groups in Zone #9, and to all participants at the Conference regarding the CFS gathering to be held in Stephenville (September 25-26, 1997);
* that the Zone #9 RED Board contribute in-kind resources to enable this gathering to happen;
* see Appendix H for a complete list of recommendations made to the Zone #9 RED Board;

10.10/ GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS;
* that all those involved with CFS consider ways in which the process used can be legitimized at various levels (ie: community; funder; bureaucratic; political etc), such that more communications work of this nature is possible in the future;

15/ SUMMARY

The primary purpose for this report was to provide the reader with I) a description of the actual CFS initiative accomplishments in the context of the planned goals, objectives, activities and content themes; ii) some analysis on selected aspects of the overall project; iii) a list of lessons learned as a result of the initiative; and iv) a list of recommendations to HRDC, sponsoring partners, community partners and others interested in participatory communications work, regarding the effectiveness and appropriateness of participatory communications for rural communities in crisis.
The report is authored by the initiating partners/resource people who attempted to reflect both the tone and spirit of the numerous comments, opinions, and ideas raised by partners and participants during the CFS internal evaluation process. However, much of the analysis included in this document is from a resource persons' perspective and should be viewed in that light. As well, at the time of writing of this report, few written evaluations have been returned to the OSC spokesperson or resource persons. This absence of written feedback means that much of the feedback collected was collected by the resource people at public gatherings. This suggests that there 'may' be feedback of a negative nature unreported in this report. If and when additional feedback is collected, a final report update, will be written and circulated to all partners.
Finally, readers interested in more information about CFS (including photos and video-clips of programming, as well as participant quotes on a variety of issues) should access the corresponding CFS Final Peoples' Report and the CFS Video Highlights tape both available through Tom Hutchings c/o Long Range RED Board (Zone #9) in Stephenville (709) 643-3318 (3421 fax).

APPENDIX A

Ryakuga Inc.
Ryakuga Inc. is a development support grassroots communications company founded in Newfoundland in 1992. Its primary tenet is "all the voices" and it facilitates community participatory communication through the utilization of innovative, micro-technology. Areas of focus include community television, video, community radio, photography, newsletters, posters and brochures, and computer communications. Additional tools used by Ryakuga are needs assessments, popular training programmes, and print resources. Ryakuga personnel have worked abroad on participatory communications projects in South-East Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. Currently providing technical and human resources for Communication for Survival/Communiquer pour Survivre in Western Newfoundland, Ryakuga has also supported communications training for Youth for Social Justice in Atlantic Canada. In 1995 Ryakuga and the National Youth Council of St. Vincent and the Grenadines facilitated the first youth community radio project in the Caribbean.

Bruce Gilbert & Associates
Bruce Gilbert & Associates is a private organizational development, adult education, and community economic development consulting firm based in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.
Since its founding in 1991, Bruce Gilbert & Associates has provided consulting services to numerous institutions, organizations, NGOs, and government departments in areas including: educational programme design, project implementation and management, evaluation, training, educational material development, and utilization of micro-communications technologies. Bruce Gilbert and Associates frequently calls upon other expertise to complement the knowledge, skills and resources of its founder, forming teams to undertake specific projects. This flexibility permits the company to tailor a work team for a particular project. Since November 1995, Bruce Gilbert and Associates has been working as an equal partner with Ryakuga Inc. in the development and implementation of the Communication for Survival initiative as part of the Rural Newfoundland Cultural Survival Project.

APPENDIX B

CFS TEN PHASE WORK-PLAN

INTRODUCTION:
Please note: This document describes one stage of a long process of community communication within and between a number of communities on the west and southwest coasts of Newfoundland. The activities of the ten phases occurred from June, 1995, and April, 1997. Obviously community
communication was happening before the initiative; it is a primary goal that our efforts to enhance communication activities will continue far beyond the ten phases.
The commitment of the resource people in each community occurred over an extended period of time with repeated contacts in the community during the period. This is critical to the success of the initiative as it encouraged the community partners and participants to take ownership over the overall process and not become dependent upon the resource people. By ensuring that the communities own this initiative, the likelihood of sustainability of communication activities is greatly increased. The commitment of the resource people is only one part of a continuing long-term dialogue within and between the communities.
Our community-based teaching methodology also depends on separate and progressive stages of contact with the participants. Again, the objective is continued activity or sustainability of the goals of the initiative.
Dialogue between participating communities is an important feature of the initiative. Therefore, more than one community at a time are involved in initiative activities.
This June, 1996 revision of the original ten phases proposed in April, 1995 was based on the transition from the original concept of the resource people working with an identified team of participants throughout their period of commitment, to the involvement of the community-at-large as co-ordinated by local Communication for Survival committees (with help from an overall steering committee).
Another difference was that the initiative became more regional. Instead of the initial two or three communities, there was involvement from more than nine communities (this number can be increased when one considers other communities involved in the Zone 9 consultation process and community representatives from across the province who attended the Phase 8 conference.) The Francophone communities were centred in La Grand' Terre but also included Cap St-Georges and L'Anse a Canards; Lourdes wanted to be considered an area committee with West Bay, Three Rock Cove and L'Anse a Canards, while Burgeo and Ramea were interested in participation from Grey River and Francois.

PHASE 1: COMMUNITY ASSESSMENT AND SPONSORING GROUP SELECTION AND/OR FORMATION
* follow-up on initial contacts made prior to funding proposal submission, by contacting key contacts in each potential community and arranging for first visits;
* conduct first visits and consultations in each potential community including meetings with potential sponsoring organization(s) and key formal and informal leaders of the community;
* assess resources available in community (strengths and limitations of community in relation to overall goals of project);
* form or select the sponsoring committee that will guide the project;
* develop and agree on project terms of reference with sponsoring body;
* tentative schedule/activity plan to be established with sponsoring group for upcoming activities;
* update with funders on communities chosen, sponsoring bodies selected and/or chosen, and plans made; get final approval for project implementation and budget;
* this Phase will take approximately one and one half weeks per community (actual time three weeks - completed July, 1995);
* Phase one was followed by a three week startup period when funding was actually found after a five month delay (completed December, 1995).

PHASE 2: FAMILIARIZATION WITH COMMUNITY COMMUNICATIONS
* conduct first extended visit to community;
* further orientation of sponsoring and community partners; agree on outstanding issues; establish regular weekly meeting time for the community steering committees;
* conduct first contact with potential participants and initial briefing;
* begin orientation/training period for participants including: orientation to overall Project; identifying skills, interests and needs of individual participants; begin "team building" process; begin goal and objective setting; conduct first exposure to participatory communications (community newsletters, video, radio, community TV, the role of communications in community development); focus on community communications (how does communication happen now in your community, what works/doesn't work, how does communication or lack of it affect participation in development);
* begin skills training for first participatory communications community interventions; (ie: basic camera use, interviewing skills, participatory research skills etc);
* conduct on-air training (participants exposed for the first time to use of community TV/video/radio);
* define communications projects to be undertaken by participants before resource people move on to different project community;
* this Phase will take approximately one week per community; (completed February, 1996);

PHASE 3: SKILL ACQUISITION AND PRACTICE
* assist participants to undertake a schedule of activities including individual skill development projects, small group projects and team projects;
* assist participants to work with the guidance of the resource people but emphasis is on familiarization with the communication process and the technology; the training methodology in this phase is based on popular education techniques;
* emphasis is placed on community reporting techniques;
* participants develop action plans to carry out before the next intervention by the facilitators;
* the resource people will be in constant contact with members of the Communication for Survival committee during this period;
*it should be noted that community television is only one communication activity; others might include black and white photography; newsletters; posters; computer communications; brochures; meeting management, and issue drama;
* this Phase will take approximately two weeks per community (completed May, 1996);

PHASE 4: ADVANCED COMMUNITY COMMUNICATIONS TRAINING
* upon the return of the resource people to the community, the team will reflect upon and evaluate all projects undertaken during Phase 3;
* training activities will be tailored on-site to meet the needs of the participants and community;
* more extensive training will be offered during this Phase; curriculum to include:-
advanced technical training (newsletter development, camera use, sound, lights, editing for beginners, publicity, E-Mail and other forms of communication technology; etc); -
individual/group communication (interpersonal communications skills, running effective meetings, facilitation, room set-up, group dynamics, motivation styles etc); -
community development skills and strategies (participatory research skills, interviewing skills, planning/organizing public education events;
* this Phase will take approximately two weeks per community (completed August 5, 1996);

PHASE 5: PREPARATION FOR CFS WEEK
* after training, rough editing will be done so that tape can be used during live CFS Week events;
( this will be a hands-on experience of community video editing as introduced in previous phase);
* participants will practise innovative techniques of publicity to ensure participation in the live community television events/forums;
* community groups will be encouraged to prepare and contribute to the live events;
* preparations will take place for community steering committee sustainability workshops;
* this Phase will take approximately one week per community (completed Sept. 28, 1996).

PHASE 6: CFS WEEK
* the events will be designed by the project partners and will combine live and taped activities;
* the duration of the events (hours and days) will depend on the amount of community interest generated throughout the earlier phases;
* efforts will be made to draw as many residents as possible into these events; it is important that it be perceived as a community process belonging to people of all ages;
* the television event is the legitimization of local experience; it will mirror the scenic beauty of the community, as well as the skills and talents of its inhabitants;
* participants who have learned communication and technical skills will be encouraged to share with other members of the community;
* on the days following the television events, partners and participants will meet to immediately assess what happened and make suggestions for even greater citizen participation (a viewer survey will be conducted);
* this Phase will take approximately one week per community (completed November 10, 1996);

PHASE 7: VIDEO EDITING & GROUP DEVELOPMENT PLANS
* after CFS Week all footage (both pre-recorded and live) will be edited into mini-summary tapes (to be used in Phases #8 and #9);
* participants will be encouraged to continue developing their skills;
* participants will be introduced to a variety of editing techniques, utilizing editing facilities in the community (if available) but also using consumer equipment, both to increase access and to ensure sustainability;
* participants will be encouraged to share their experiences with other communities;
* local groups and committees will be encouraged to examine the issue of community communications both for their group and community; a one day community communications sustainability workshop is planned for this phase;
* this Phase will take approximately two weeks per community (completed February 22, 1997);

PHASE 8: PROJECT COMMUNITY SHARING AND NETWORKING (COMMUNICATION FOR COMMUNITY SURVIVAL CONFERENCE)
* a conference of participants and committee members from the communities will be co-ordinated to promote information sharing and dialogue; all partners in the initiative will be encouraged to come together to share their experiences with the initiative, evaluate the initiative, and to plan
how such constructive communications work could continue to exist on community, regional and provincial levels beyond stage one of the Communication for Survival initiative;
* tapes prepared in one community will be made available to other communities participating in the initiative; clips will be shown on community TV discussion programs during the conference;
* participants will be introduced to the experience of other community TV groups operating in the province and will be given the opportunity to communicate with groups outside current project;
* efforts will be continued to develop an E-Mail/internet sharing strategy;
* similarly, the partners and participants will be invited to share in a province-wide community newsletter, encouraging and assisting citizen participation in community communications (entitled 'Community Mosaic' - copies available from Zone #9 RED Board);
* individuals and groups from across the province interested in community communications (including community TV, radio and newsletters) will be invited to take part in the conference;
* this Phase will take one week (actually it took more than two weeks with preparation - completed March 9, 1997);

PHASE 9: FOLLOW-UP SUPPORT & EVALUATION
* after the networking event all community participants will return to their communities to carry on with continued planned community communication activities;
* the resource people and local committees will report to the people with live, community television events focusing on the CFS process;
* the resource people will meet with local committees to evaluate the process and discuss sustainability; CFS's effectiveness in terms of content, process and community strengthening will be examined (based on the goals/objectives/activities set in Phase 1);
* if appropriate, in communities where no community communications groups exist, participants and the community partners will be encouraged to develop such a group for their community (ie: form a community television or community newsletter group);
* all such follow-up support activities will hopefully be guided and sponsored by the community partners involved from the beginning of the Project;
* additional funding may be sought at this point in time if the community partners, or other appropriate agencies, have developed activities requiring it;
* the resource people will facilitate a round table discussion with the community at large to discuss both the Communication for Survival process, and community communications in general;
* the resource people will attend the final CFS OSC meeting during this period;
* this Phase will take approximately 3 days per community (actually it took one week - completed March 21, 1997);

PHASE 10: EVALUATION AND REPORT WRITING
* the resource people will prepare reports (written and video) and community communication assessments for each community;
* the resource people will maintain contact with the communities by electronic mail;
* groups will continue with plans worked out in Phase 7;
* this phase will take 4 weeks (completed April 30, 1997);

PLEASE NOTE:
This information was prepared for a specific project on the west and south west coasts of Newfoundland. All projects of this nature need to designed for and by the community. This proposal stressed communication within and between communities which is a priority of our work with the RNCSP. In this work you will find that emphasis is placed on the communication tools of video and community television. In other communities it may make more sense to emphasize other tools such as drama; participatory radio; newsletter/photography/poster; computer communications, or song-writing. Our training methodology focuses on learning from experience in a no-stress environment. An important goal of our work is to ensure that the benefits of the project in question, will be sustainable well into the future.

APPENDIX C - CFS TIME-LINE:

Overall Time-Line for Phases 1 to Phase 10:
A. Phase 1 - Community Assessment & Group Selection/Formation (2 weeks)
B. Phase 2 to Phase 6 - 28 weeks of intervention and ten interval weeks ( 38 weeks).
C. Phase 7 to Phase 9 - 14 weeks of intervention and eight interval weeks (22 weeks).
D. Phase 10 - Report Writing (2 weeks)
Total project: 64 weeks
NOTES#
* Phase 2 to Phase 6 means seven weeks of intervention in each of four communities = 28 weeks.
* each community experiences 7 weeks of intervention and 21 weeks of structured development of control over its own communications activities.
* Phase 7 to Phase 9 means three weeks of intervention in each community plus two weeks in Stephenville preparing for and implementing the conference for 14 weeks of activity.
* Each community experiences 3 weeks of intervention, plus 1 week at the conference, and 10 weeks of structured development of control and sustainability.

Specific Time Line for Phases 2 to Phase 9:
Phase 2 - Familiarization with Community Communications
1. One week Ramea.
2. One week Burgeo.
3. One week Lourdes.
4. One week Mainland.
5. Two weeks interval.
Phase 3 - Skill Acquisition and Practice
1. Two weeks Ramea.
2. Two weeks Burgeo.
3. Two weeks interval.
4. Two weeks Lourdes.
5. Two weeks Mainland.
6. Two weeks interval.
Phase 4 - Advanced Community Communications Training
1. Two weeks Ramea.
2. Two weeks Burgeo.
3. Two weeks interval.
4. Two weeks Lourdes.
5. Two weeks Mainland.
6. Two weeks interval.
Phase 5 - Preparation for CFS Week
1. One week Ramea.
2. One week Burgeo.
3. One week Lourdes.
4. One week Mainland.
5. Two weeks interval.
Phase 6 - CFS Week
1. One week Ramea.
2. One week Burgeo.
3. One week Lourdes.
4. One week Mainland.
6. Two weeks interval.

Phase 7: Video Editing and Sustainability Plans
1. Two weeks Ramea.
2. Two weeks Burgeo.
3. Two weeks interval.
4. Two weeks Lourdes.
5. Two weeks Mainland.
6. Two weeks interval.
Phase 8: Project Community Sharing and Networking (Communication for Community Survival Conference)
1. Two weeks Stephenville.
2. Two weeks interval.
Phase 9: Follow-up Support and Internal Evaluation
1. One week Ramea.
2. One week Burgeo.
3. One week Lourdes.
4. One week Mainland.
5. Two weeks interval.
Phase 10: Report Writing
1) Off Site (March-April 1997)

APPENDIX D

3RD AND FINAL STATUS REPORT ON PROPOSED COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES, ACTIVITIES, AND CONTENT THEMES OF THE COMMUNICATION FOR SURVIVAL INITIATIVE - REVISED APRIL 14, 1997

The following is the 3rd and final status report on the overall goals, community objectives, activities, and content themes for the Communication for Survival initiative (the first Status report was developed and sent to all partners in May 1996--the second in November 1996).

NOTE# RESOURCE PERSON COMMENTS WILL BE MADE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE DESCRIPTION OF EACH OBJECTIVE, ACTIVITY AND CONTENT THEME AND WILL BE MADE IN BOLD ITALICS !!

LOURDES:

PROPOSED OBJECTIVES/ACTIVITIES:
a) to establish a community channel and sustainable community television group in Lourdes;
* the channel was established in mid-June, 1996; the Lourdes Recreation Committee agreed to take the lead with community TV bingo and the CFS Committee is looking after the community programming component of the channel; currently, Lourdes TV is on air every Monday and Wednesday nights; the group also has a community bulletin board on air 24 hours per day;

- work with the school board, the Knights of Columbus and the local cable television company to establish community television in the Lourdes area; attempts were made to pull all community groups together with no success; in the end the Recreation Committee took the lead to get things up and running; numerous groups were pulled together during the Phase #9 Round Table where they discussed how they can support the channel;

- train a cross section of community volunteers (adults and youth) in community television tools, techniques, approaches and technologies; numerous youth/adults have received training (cameras, on-air, interviews) via the community TV/video productions done to date (at least 12); three CSC members have received training in editing (two at the Stephenville conference); all other CSC members participated in the planning and implementation of the live/taped community TV productions; there are at least 2 key leaders and 5 Lourdes community TV volunteers;

- model how participatory and interactive community television can be used to address a variety of content themes of relevance to the community; the future of youth in the Lourdes area, voluntarism, cutbacks, health care, the new Zone #9, literacy and numerous other topics have been discussed;

- assist in the development of a sustainable structure for a community television or community communications group for the area; numerous meetings and discussions about the best way to proceed have been held; Placentia's BAY TV sent the Lourdes group their Policies and Procedures documents and resource people have discussed the applicability of this structure to Lourdes; a draft Lourdes Community TV group constitution has been developed (on disk) and is being refined by group members;

- customize and translate existing Ryakuga community television volunteer training materials for use in volunteer training; ongoing;

- ensure that TV bingo is running smoothly; the TV bingo is operating smoothly and is making a decent profit;

b) to develop a newsletter and sustainable newsletter group for the Lourdes area;

* this was discussed, but all energies went into the establishment of the community channel; a community newsletter was a low priority for the CSC in Lourdes;

- train a cross section of community volunteers (adults and youth) in newsletter production; see above;

- train interested volunteers in the use of black and white photography; see above;

- assist in the development of a sustainable structure for any community newsletter or community communications group for the area; see above;

c) to create awareness of computer communications and its usefulness as a tool for encouraging discussion between communities;
* see below;

- work with community access site coordinators to train community people in the use of computer communications; the library board was unable to determine how and when local people could access the "access centre"; at the Lourdes OSC meeting it was decided that the PAPCEI would investigate this so that the Lourdes Community TV group could participate in the CFS Web Page and listserve in the future;

- work to develop computer communications as a tool to communicate with other partners and to gather info when needed; see above;

- encourage all participants to use the electronic bulletin board on the "survival of rural communities"; see above;

d) to increase community participation in existing volunteer groups and activities;
* see below;

- profile committed volunteers and local volunteer groups to increase awareness of the importance of voluntarism to the community; numerous community TV/video programmes in Lourdes discussed problems and issues of volunteers and volunteer groups in Lourdes;

- use a variety of communication mediums to recruit volunteers for community groups;
see above;

- assist local volunteer groups to develop/improve their grassroots publicity programmes; this occurred as various groups have been able to discuss their group's activities and mandates on community TV (Recreation Commission, Fun Centre etc);
- involve as many community people in the overall CFS process as possible; ongoing; due to strong interest among youth, CFS and the Lourdes community TV group met with reps of the Lourdes High School to discuss the establishment of a Lourdes High School community TV/video club (in progress);

e) to improve coordination among existing volunteer groups in the area;
* there has been discussion between and among groups re: getting involved with TV bingo/the channel but it is difficult to know if this has improved communication between them; pulling together different interests for panel discussions has likely helped; efforts to set up a sustainable Lourdes Community TV group are ongoing;

- create discussion on the importance of agency coordination on community television and through the newsletter; see above;

- involve as many community organizations in the overall CFS process as possible;
the CSC worked towards this with both TV programming and bingo; ongoing;

f) to assist youth to have a stronger voice in the community and to encourage them to become more involved in community activities;
* youth have been very involved to date; they have attended the OSC meeting in Ramea and have assisted with all community TV/video productions; they have also participated in the youth drama video-newsletter (see Burgeo) and produced the October 31st 1996 Youth Show; a high school community TV/video club is in its early formation stages;

-to ensure that youth that are involved in the planning and implementation of the CFS process; they did not attend CSC meetings, but participated in the planning/design of most community TV/video programmes; the PAPCEI also hired a summer student who ensured that Monday night TV in Lourdes was a reality for the summer of 1996; the proposed Youth Internship Programme currently being developed by Burgeo and Lourdes, will (if successful) get many youth directly involved in community communications;
- to ensure that youth are adequately represented on the CFS Community Steering Committees; no youth on this committee;

- to train youth in community communications skills; this has happened with most of the community TV/video productions to date;

- to work with youth to develop dialogue on issues of particular concern to them and to assist them to share with youth in other partner communities; through the video-letter described above, issues including friends moving away, vandalism, boredom, shoplifting and alcohol abuse were discussed; youth issues were the key theme of the Oct. 31st Youth Show;

- explore the possibility of developing issue related drama among youth and adults;
see above;

g) explore economic alternatives for the area with a focus on creating jobs, tourism and co-ops;
* numerous economic themes/issues have been addressed via CFS Week programmes (Cutbacks and Zone #9) including quality of the local workforce, new industries (Piccadilly Plastics), oil, training, role of zone/development associations, keeping money local etc;
- profile existing successful/unsuccessful economic ventures in the area; see above;

- profile individuals who are attempting to start new enterprises; see above;

- profile alternative economic enterprises that are working in the area and in other areas of the province with a focus on co-ops; see above;

- create discussion/debate on the importance and relevance of tourism in the area;
see above;

- provide local residents with information on current economic development agencies, trends, and structures (new economic development boards/zones); see above;

h) to support the efforts of existing groups working towards improved community education and learning for the area;
* resource people facilitated a workshop for Port au Port Community Education Initiative Round Table (theme was developing participation in development); worked with Family Resource Centre women in Mainland to produce a video promoting the Centre; worked with PAPCEI to develop the Youth Internship Programme proposal; held numerous discussion with Lourdes High School re: how to integrate the Lourdes high school into the community TV process; members of the PAPCEI and ARCO visited Ramea for a CFS/RBC community TV show on community education/community schools;

- discuss with Westviking the possibility of establishing ABE instruction on the community channel; Cyril Organ discussed this with the community when he sat on the literacy panel during the literacy show in December 1996;

- use the newsletter to profile the importance of literacy; no newsletter; connected Lourdes TV with the Literacy in NF-LAB - Travelling Exhibit project, by developing a literacy show on Lourdes TV which was then copied and placed in the exhibit (in Mainland) as a local multi-media component (videotape) dealing with media literacy;

- use the community channel to profile existing and new community education initiatives in the area and in other partner areas; Family Resource/Fun Centres, Parents as Teaching Partners and other initiatives have been discussed;

- create a greater awareness in the community of the Port au Port Community Education Initiative and its current programmes (with a focus on Family Literacy); see above;

i) to encourage sharing between the area and other community partners;
* youth from Lourdes High School (Black Duck Brook) attended OSC meeting in Ramea; tapes have been exchanged; November OSC meeting held in Lourdes; video scenes/music from Lourdes shown in all partner communities (and vice versa); RBC (Ramea) assisted with Commodore 64 computer programme; BBS in Burgeo donated equipment to Lourdes group and came to Lourdes to assist in its set-up; Lourdes reps attended the Stephenville conference and final OSC meeting in Burgeo;

- exchange video tapes and newsletters with other partner communities; see above;

- perform any drama developed in other communities; youth responded to video-letter scenes from Burgeo youth;
- communicate with other partners through computer communications; no progress here due to inaccessibility of Community Access Centre;

- contribute to the OSC newsletter; no OSC newsletter;

- participate in OSC meetings and events; key people from Lourdes were unable to attend Ramea OSC meeting but hosted Nov. 96 meeting and attended final OSC meeting in Burgeo ;

j) to build pride in the local area;
* see below;

- record/document oral history, stories, folklore and music as part of newsletter and community television activities; scenes from the past, crafts, music, local events, sports etc have been profiled in TV/video productions thus far;

- encourage the use of such documentation in schools; nothing to report;
- integrate performing culture into issue related activities and events; musicians came to Ramea for OSC meeting; taped local music was a significant part of all Lourdes productions; live music has occurred on Lourdes TV;

PROPOSED CONTENT THEMES:
* worry, fear, anxiety regarding the future;
* diminishing services (water-systems; ambulance; community pasture; roads; health care; wharfs; snow clearing etc);
* out-migration (adults and youth);
* apathy within community and burnout of volunteers;
* jobs, income generation and the need to explore economic alternatives;
* the fishery of the future and what it will/should look like;
* tourism and its relevance and importance to the area;
* the new zones and how they will impact on local development;
* oil development in the area;

* apathy, burnout of volunteers, cutbacks, Zone #9, youth issues, literacy, fishery, local clinic, jobs, development associations, tourism, local work ethic, new industries and numerous other topics/issues have been discussed;

MAINLAND/FRANCOPHONE COMMUNITY:
PROPOSED OBJECTIVES/ACTIVITIES:
a) to assist in re-establishing a community channel and sustainable community television group in Mainland;
* Regional Cable finally connected the cable head-end to the community school in Mainland in early March 1997; this allowed one live-to-the-community TV programme in Phase #9 (where resource people were present); Mainland now has excellent potential to move forward with the re-establishment of a community TV group; how best to structure such an entity is now in the hands of ARCO reps--various strategies and recommendations regarding moving forward with this were made at the last CSC meeting in Mainland (ARCO development officers were in attendance); interest in local programming continues to be high, likely due to the community's past community TV experience; direct action on the water problem in Mainland has resulted from the "Water Show" held during CFS Week;

- assist in the training of a cross section of community volunteers (adults and youth) in community television tools, techniques, approaches and technologies; training has occurred in the context of numerous live/taped video/FM radio programmes (Mainland, Black Duck Brook and the Cape) and through the Family Fun Centre video tape; additional training has occurred in prep for CFS Week and during the Stephenville Conference (in TV, radio and photography);

- model how participatory and interactive community television can be used to address a variety of content themes of relevance to the community; all of the above have contributed to this (ie: the future of the ground fishery; the state of the lobster fishery; school governance; oil; tourism; water problems; the future of the french centre and culture; out-migration; and many other topics have been discussed);

- assist in the development of a sustainable structure for any community television or community communications group in the area; ARCO already has a communications plan which is integrated into ARCO staff job responsibilities; CFS has proposed that ARCO establish a communications committee to lead post-resource person activities and that they consider creating a staff position which would be solely responsible for communications within and between the three french communities; other recommendations were also made during the final CFS/ARCO meeting in Feb. 1997;

- bring attention to the possibility of developing a community-owned cable company in the area by promoting communication with BBS in Burgeo and RBC in Ramea; CFS has facilitated discussion on this; local people have met and discussed the concept with both Burgeo and Ramea;

- work with the community TV committee to customize and translate existing Ryakuga community television volunteer training materials for use in volunteer training; no committee; resources will be left behind and translation is possible in the future;

b) to develop a newsletter and sustainable newsletter group for the Mainland (and overall Francophone) area;
* there appears to be uncertainty on how to proceed with this re: whether this would conflict with Le Gaboteur's local efforts (Le Gaboteur has expressed interest in cooperating with ARCO on how to better use Le Gaboteur for community uses); in the meantime, ARCO has forged ahead with a staff run economic development newsletter for distribution in the three communities which may meet the initial need for a community newsletter;

- train a cross section of community volunteers (adults and youth) in newsletter production; no community newsletter training but numerous people have developed posters using scanned photos (these skills are transferable to newsletter production);

- train interested volunteers in the use of black and white photography; temporary darkroom was set up at the school in Mainland on numerous occasions; film was distributed; workshops were given in Cape St. George and Mainland; CFS assisted in the ordering of equipment/materials and set up of permanent darkroom in Mainland; a photo display was developed for CFS Week;

- assist in the development of a sustainable structure for any community newsletter or community communications group in the area; discussions were held in terms of the re-establishment of the Mainland community television group

Communication For Survival Report

By the Rural Newfoundland Cultural Survival Project

May 11, 1997

Submitted to: Human Resources Development Canada Ramea Economic Development Corporation Port au Port Community Education Initiative Association Regionale De La Cote Ouest Burgeo CFS Steering Committee Lourdes and Area CFS Community Steering Committee

PREFACE

1/TABLE OF CONTENTS:

2/ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY;

3/ PURPOSE OF THIS REPORT:

4/ BACKGROUND ON CFS:

5/ CFS INITIATIVE PARTNER CONTACTS:

6/ WHAT WE SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH - THE PLAN:

6.1./ THE OVERALL CFS GOALS:

6.2/ THE PROPOSED COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES, ACTIVITIES AND CONTENT THEMES

6.3/ INTERVENTION APPROACH:

6.4/ COMMUNITY STEERING COMMITTEES:

6.5/ SPONSORING PARTNERS:

6.6/ OVERALL STEERING COMMITTEE:

6.7/ FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION:

7/ WHAT WE ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHED AND WHY THINGS TURNED OUT THIS WAY - THE REALITY

7.1/ THE OVERALL CFS GOALS

7.2/THE COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES:

7.3/ THE COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES:

7.4/THE COMMUNITY CONTENT THEMES:

7.5/ INTERVENTION APPROACH:

7.6/ COMMUNITY STEERING COMMITTEES:

7.7/ SPONSORING PARTNERS

7.9/ FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION:

8.2/ IMPROVING COMMUNITY DIALOGUE AND INFORMATION SHARING:

8.3/ TRAINING PEOPLE IN COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS:

8.4/ ASSISTING WITH THE BUILDING OF COMMUNITY COHESIVENESS:

8.5/ ENCOURAGING GREATER PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES:

8.6/ STRENGTHENING/ASSISTING EXISTING GROUPS WITH THEIR ACTIVITIES:

8.7/ CREATING DISCUSSION ON EMPLOYMENT:

8.8/ STIMULATING PRIDE OF PLACE/RESPECT FOR LOCAL CULTURE:

8.9/ DEVELOPING/IDENTIFYING NEW COMMUNITY LEADERS:

8.10/ PROMOTING COMMUNITY ORGANIZING, PLANNING AND ACTION:

9/ OVERALL LEARNINGS:

10/ RECOMMENDATIONS:

15/ SUMMARY

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

CFS TEN PHASE WORK-PLAN

INTRODUCTION:

PLEASE NOTE:

APPENDIX C - CFS TIME-LINE:

APPENDIX D

3RD AND FINAL STATUS REPORT ON PROPOSED COMMUNITY OBJECTIVES, ACTIVITIES, AND CONTENT THEMES OF THE COMMUNICATION FOR SURVIVAL INITIATIVE - REVISED APRIL 14, 1997

The following is the 3rd and final status report on the overall goals, community objectives, activities, and content themes for the Communication for Survival initiative (the first Status report was developed and sent to all partners in May 1996--the second in November 1996).

NOTE# RESOURCE PERSON COMMENTS WILL BE MADE IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THE DESCRIPTION OF EACH OBJECTIVE, ACTIVITY AND CONTENT THEME AND WILL BE MADE IN BOLD ITALICS !!

MAINLAND/FRANCOPHONE COMMUNITY:

Submitted to:
Human Resources Development Canada
Ramea Economic Development Corporation
Port au Port Community Education Initiative
Association Regionale De La Cote Ouest
Burgeo CFS Steering Committee
Lourdes and Area CFS Community Steering Committee