Cleveland Young Professional Senate

Thank you to the Cleveland Young Professional Senate, the Cleveland Foundation, and The City Club of Cleveland for the Greater Cleveland Caucus events that took place in 2016. I think this type of activity is very important to our community as a starting point for making positive change and plans for the future.

After attending the final Greater Cleveland Caucus event for 2016, I decided to write this blog post to:

• Thank the organizers
• Capture some of the information shared about this final event
• Encourage people to learn about the Greater Cleveland Caucus by reading my past blog posts and related materials

On Saturday, May 14, 2016, the Cleveland Young Professional Senate held their fourth annual YPCLE: Young Professional Civic Leadership and Empowerment Conference at The City Club of Cleveland. This year, it was entitled YPCLE: The Millennial Caucus, and was part of the Greater Cleveland Caucus Series. This series is the result of a partnership between the Cleveland Young Professional Senate, the Cleveland Foundation, The City Club of Cleveland, and others.

I am so glad that I was able to attend this event, and pleased that some college students who I invited also attended. I look forward to learning how the ideas developed at the caucus will be become an action plan for our community.

My goal for this blog post is:

• to give those who did not attend information on what occurred

• to create a public repository for some of the information I gathered in relation to the event

• to remind us of the work yet to be done

The Saturday, March 12, 2016, inaugural Greater Cleveland Caucus: A Town Hall Meeting on Community Solutions engaged over 400 attendees from throughout Greater Cleveland to spend their Saturday morning in serious dialogue about key community issues. In addition, representatives from more than 70 nonprofit organizations staffed informational booths before the caucus started, and then joined the attendees in brainstorming priorities within eight “caucus areas.”

I want to start by thanking the Greater Cleveland Caucus Series partners for this 2016 initiative. I hope that the Caucus Series, and their related events (such as debate watch parties), provides structure for positive outcomes for Cleveland's future, and acts as a catalyst to involve more Greater Cleveland citizens in that future. 

UPDATE -- MAY 9, 2016: Videos of the Fred Talks speeches from the March 12 Greater Cleveland Caucus Town Hall have now been added to this blog post!