First, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone once again for showing your support for the work Andrew, Mark and myself do on ScaeDown Radio every week, as well as your continued support for the countless volunteer-hours expended on making CJAM the community jewel it is. Your support has earned our little radio program the distinction of being voted CJAM’s “Best New Show“for 2009, and coming within 4 votes of taking the “Best Spoken Word Program” award.

Apparently, I can’t thank you enough!

Today, Andrew and I wade into the community-action waters by speaking with a few groups that are taking a leadership role in working to cure what ails our community.

Despite herculean attempts (on both sides) to conduct an interview, we were left empty handed for on-air time with the good folks behind Citizes for Jobs, NOW!, a citizen-led coalition with two importat guiding principles:

Mission Statement Established: To create jobs and secure the economic growth of Windsor Essex County by holding all levels of government to account for immediate action on infrastructure projects, corridor and border issues.

Coalition to be non-partisan. This means that the people and organizations coming together will cover the spectrum of political “party” opinion but the group itself is committed to the mission statement. Regardless of party affiliation: where political leaders take action in support of this mission, CJN supports their efforts; where political leaders impede this mission, CJN will speak out.

If you’re on Facebook and would like to be kept in he loop when it comes to this organization, be sure to cick here. That way, you can join the impressive list of influential community leaders in giving this group the influence it needs to bring its mission statement to life.

But they’re not the only ones working at making our city a better place to live, work and play, despite the perceived innaction from our local elected representatives. We were joined via telephone by Justin Langlois, from Broken City Lab, to talk about the huge array of projects this group of mostly-students are taking on. BCL describes itself as;

“an interdisciplinary creative research group that tactically disrupts and engages the city, its communities, and its infrastructures to reimagine the potential for action in a collapsing post-industrial city.”

They believe the city of Windsor is broken, and both Andrew and I firmly believe that if Windsor can somehow manage to retain these engaged and energetic activists, we will somehow manage to buck the trends and emerge a better place than we were before.

Also joining us via telehone is the ever-present Tom Lucier, who filled us in on the group he works with called Big Table. According to Tom, Big Table is a group of resource-laden citizens who bad together to bring worthwhile projects to fruition. Whereas they may not initiate many projects (they have though, like the media-darling Big Walk, and Big Pamphlet which is meant to advertise our local independant community-friendly businesses), they definitely work hard at getting projects from the planning stages to implemetation.

It is our hope that listeners will come away from his episode of the show with a sense of hope, as well as a burgeoning desire to get involved more.  There’s lots of people who are working hard here in the trenches and we want them to be as successful as humanly possible.  If you happen to know of other community groups working at reversing the trends in this city, please let us know about them.  Many hands make light work, my grandfather used to say, and we wat to pitch in as much as we can.

Why?  Because they are Windsor’s best hope in turning our fortunes around.

Music:

Enjoy!

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ScaleDown Radio is broadcast live every Monday from noon until 1:00 on CJAM 91.5 FM, redefining radio in Windsor and Detroit.