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Additional Information

Chapel Hill Town Council-Staff Retreat

January 11-12, 2008

Outline - December 20, 2007

Goals and Outcomes

Followed Agenda as Outlined

1. Engage Council and staff members in a collaborative planning process to identify and discuss issues and challenges facing Chapel Hill today, and create a shared sense of direction and goals about tomorrow.
2. Discussion organized around key issue categories developed in the January 2007 Retreat and complement the Comprehensive Plan.  All priorities submitted by Council Members and Senior Management Team fall within one of the categories.
3. Create a living document that can help guide, plan, focus, organize, and communicate the work of the Town by documenting discussion and results. 
4. Strengthen sense of connection and shared responsibility among Council and staff members.
5. Identify Council interests in Strategic Planning process proposed by the Mayor.

Schedule and Focus on Town Priority Areas
Friday — January 11 5:30 pm — 9:30 pm	Saturday — January 12 8:00 am — 5:00 pm	Sunday — January 13 1:00 pm — 5:00 pm
Steward Organizational Culture Change	Champion Downtown Continue Focus on Land Use, Transit, and Development Maintain and Improve Community Facilities and Services Improve Town’s Fiscal Condition	Plan Ahead for Carolina North

Friday, January 11, 5:30 pm — 9:30 pm

• Social Hour
• Dinner
• Celebrate successes and introduce new Council/staff (since last year)
• Slideshow of people, places, events, things
• Overview of Saturday session

Saturday, January 12, 8:00 am — 5:00 pm

8:00   Continental Breakfast

8:30   Expectations/Overview of Process and Tasks

8:45     Priority Area Issues and Challenges: 10-15 minute staff overview of key issues and challenges during the next 2-3 years, followed by 15 minute discussion with questions — goal is to explore issues and challenges (not resolve them) and enhance shared understanding among Council and staff.

Key Issue Categories:

• Champion Downtown
• Continue Focus on Land Use, Transit, and Development

9:45     Break

10:00   Priority Issues and Challenges: 10-15 minute staff overview of key issues and challenges during the next 2-3 years, followed by 15 minute discussion with questions — goal is to explore issues and challenges (not resolve them) and enhance shared understanding among Council and staff.

            Key Issue Categories:

• Maintain and Improve Community Facilities and Services
• Improve the Town’s Fiscal Condition

11:00   Work Group Discussions of Council-Staff Priority Actions

• Joint Council-staff work groups (4) review integrated Council-staff priority action categories and amend as warranted based on discussion of key issues and challenges — goal is to ensure that all essential priority actions have been identified and are understood by all work group members.

12:00   Lunch with Work Groups

12:45   Work Group Recommendations for Town Priority Areas

• Organize priority actions into themes and reframe as affirmative goal statements (3-5 goals, 25 words or less, defining expected outcome or end state)
• Consider Town priority categories as equal and parallel, but goals within categories in priority order — assign appropriate priority actions to each goal
• List goals in priority order and prepare to present your recommendations to the whole group

2:00     Break

2:15     Work Group Reports and Discussion

• Summarize overall work group discussion — identify any adjustments made to list of priority actions
• Describe recommended goals and rationale for priority ordering
• Solicit and incorporate feedback from Council and staff members regarding organization, framing of goals, and recommended priorities

3:15     Break

3:30     Work Group Reports and Discussion (continued)

4:30     Reflection and Next Steps

• What have you accomplished today?
• Where should you go from here?
• Strategic Planning and Navigation

5:00     Adjourn

Background Reading in Preparation for the Council Retreat.(8 MB PDF)