Sustainability plan to host third slideshow input evening

Jasperites haven’t seen the last of the presentation style with the wacky name.

Pecha Kucha, the Japanese word for chatter that also refers to a presentation style of 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each, has been used twice now to collect input for the Jasper Community Sustainability Plan (JCSP) and will surface again in response to interest.

Vice chair of the Working Group Chris Garnham said though he was pleased with the last event’s (on Nov. 20) high turnout, it was the people who expressed interest in creating a Pecha Kucha presentation who got the ball rolling for the third sequel.

“I thought (the turnout) was really positive and a wonderful thing, it does show good understanding and acceptance by the public,” he said. “But I turned it over to the room, I said, ‘In the next month if you guys tell me you’re going to make another presentation, we’ll do one more’.”

Within a week, Garnham had heard from three residents who were eager to compile their 20 slides, so he set to work planning Pecha Kucha III for mid-January of next year.

Aside from the JCSP website, public input is on hiatus until January, while the Working Group prepares relevant background information for participants in response to requests from residents who have attended previous input sessions.

Those who want to prepare slideshows may want to get started now, Garnham said, as creating one can be time-consuming. And new presenters can learn from past ones. ”It’s really quite hard to speak in that confined format, so what I’ve learned is limit it to two or three sentences per slide,” he said.

Jasper resident Marta Rode played her slideshow at the last event. “Because I tried to fit so much in there, I found I was doing a little bit of a setup so by the time I got to my points the 20 seconds would be up, so I never actually got to my points,” she said.

After putting in “a lot” of time to create the show and then missing out on some of her explanations, Rode said she may present again in January for a second chance to share her ideas. “There’s a couple things I might tweak to make them easier to digest,” she said.

Coming up with the ideas was no trouble for Rode.  “I’ve always had ideas of what I think the perfect Jasper should be,” she said.

“Because it was difficult for me to grab them all together and make them into a coherent picture, I looked up a benchmark for a sustainable community and I used that as my skeleton, and then my concept was that you’re looking at this presentation in the future and Jasper has just won a global sustainable community award, and I just pressed everything into that skeleton.”

Garnham said the process is resulting in some really good feedback. “This is really really helping to find where our community wants to go, we’re getting some commonalities and common threads,” he said. “Pecha Kucha is really good at outlining goals of the community.”

As using the Pecha Kucha was Garnham’s idea, he said he feels privileged to have been able to introduce the method. “I’m still humbled by the inventiveness and commitment that our presenters are showing,” he said. “There’s various levels of skill being applied but through that comes my favourite stuff, passion. Our community is passionate, and it’s a wonderful way to see that in action.”

Details about Pecha Kucha III will be announced closer to the date. For more information on the JCSP, visit http://jasperplan.wordpress.com.