Goal is to support recommendations of town’s plan of development

By Ruth Melville

In 2019, the town of Norfolk adopted a new Plan of Conservation and Development (POCD). After
soliciting suggestions from a range of residents, the plan determined that the two greatest challenges
facing Norfolk were to attract more young people and families and to enhance the vitality the town
center. The Economic Development Committee (EDC) is currently embarking on a new initiative, called
Norfolk Looking Forward, to work toward meeting those challenges.

The process started last June, when the EDC held a forum for business owners in town to discuss what
changes they would like to see in town and ways in which the EDC could help.

Attending that forum was Cheryl Heller, a Norfolk resident and a business strategist, designer and
educator. Heller appreciated the range of ideas that were suggested at the meeting, but felt that the
EDC could benefit from a process that would help it make the transition from ideas to accomplishments.
Her career has had many facets, but primarily she’s hired by organizations to help people work together
to get things done. She contacted the EDC co-chairs, Libby Borden and Michael Selleck, to offer her
professional skills, and they accepted her offer.

In a presentation at the January 2024 meeting of the EDC, Heller talked about the importance of the
process in getting a group of individuals to come together to achieve a goal. The two priorities outlined
in the POCD are worthy aims, but they are vague and not easy to accomplish, she said. Heller
encouraged the EDC members to be clear about their vision: to define what they want to achieve and
what the markers of success would be along the way.

Equally important, she said, was getting people to buy into an idea. “Will people use or accept it? . . .
Will it help the people it’s supposed to help?”

The first step, Heller advised, was to gather as many ideas from the community as possible, work that
the EDC had already started on with last year’s business forum. In early February, the EDC sent out new
letters asking for suggestions, and the request was included in the Norfolk Hub email blasts and the
town newsletter.

A working session to discuss the ideas was held at the Hub on Feb. 19. All the suggestions that had come
in were posted on sticky tags on a whiteboard. In a group exercise facilitated by Heller, attendees were
given five colored dots to mark their favorites. The ideas with the most dots were placed on a grid
divided by axes for cost of implementation and effectiveness, from high to low.

In the end, four areas of focus stood out: housing, programming, food and Infinity Hall.

Working teams, comprising EDC members and town residents, have now been set up to tackle each of
these four areas.

At the end of March, each working team held a preliminary meeting with Heller to lay out the process
going forward, starting with electing a team leader. Future meetings will work through the next stages
of articulating goals, setting out milestones and determining measures of success.

On April 24 all the teams will get together at an EDC meeting to present their progress so far.
Thereafter, team leaders will report back to the EDC every two months. Anyone who wants to join a
working team is encouraged to contact Libby Borden or Michael Selleck.