Right, so I am going to knuckle the meeting to order since I have no gavel.

Appreciate all the work that's gone into this.

And I will turn it over to Elena Keegan from the Central Pines Regional Council, who is our facilitator for the next two days.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Good morning, everyone.

It's really great to be here with you all.

The mayor just mentioned a lot of work went into this weekend, and I will say I do not want to take any credit for that.

I have been meeting with staff, and they've put a lot of thought into the content that they are gonna be sharing with you for you to talk with yourselves about and decide, you know, how you want to move forward as a council in the year ahead.

So I did want to make sure we recognize your staff because they've done a fabulous job preparing for this weekend.

So with that, I want to start the next two days with you all by doing a little bit of some ground rules.

If any of you have been a part of a retreat before, you've probably experienced this.

I know some of you experienced this last year.

Um these are a combination of some things that I personally am recommending as ground rules for this conversation, but also things that came out from my conversations with all of you.

So you all are aware that each of you individually had a conversation with me about what you're hoping to get out of this retreat, what you're hoping to get out of the year ahead.

Um, and there's some common themes that are reflected in the ground rules and then in some other materials that I'll be sharing with you throughout this weekend.

So what I'm gonna do is run through this list of ground rules.

Um, if there's questions about what specifically a ground rule means, or if there's an addition that anyone would like to make to this list, I would love to hear it from you all now.

So the first one is respect the clock.

Um, also respect, as we can say respect is in there as well, but respect the clock is most important because as you all know, we have a packed agenda.

Um, we are starting relatively on time, but I know that there's gonna be a lot of time for discussion between you all, and so we really want to make sure that you can get through all the items that you've selected to be talked about.

Um, and that'll be my job.

Um, but would love to have us all collectively be aware of um the agenda that we have in front of us and the work that staff did to bring it to you this weekend.

The next is be present.

Um, this is a hard one.

Um, please try and keep phones, computers down or off as much as you can.

I know some folks might have school closures closures or delays or other things that are going on, um, but it's really important that we all are in the space together, and so I ask um as much as possible to stay off your phones and your computers.

Um, and I will be reminding everyone of that throughout the next couple days.

Um, the next one is see consensus.

So you all are aware that the power that you have as a collective council is when you find agreement with one another.

Um, consensus means everyone's on the same page, and that's really what you would like to strive for because when you all agree, you can actually make change, right?

So we're gonna be seeking to find places where you all agree on the different topics that you are discussing the next couple days.

The next one is explain reasoning and intent.

And this one might feel a little bit confusing, so I'm gonna explain it.

So that your peers can understand maybe where they agree with the process you took to get to that decision, or disagree, and then we can have a little bit more conversation about that context.

Because I think sometimes if you just have a statement, there's not a lot of context there.

So please I encourage you to share your intent behind statements.

And then focus on outcomes.

And this one was universal from all eight of you.

You really want to come out of this weekend having made decisions and giving staff direction.

Um, and so I really encourage you to focus on strategic outcomes that you can request from your staff.

Um, you are not going to need to answer all the hows, but that's what your staff is here for.

And so as you're having these conversations about the different topics, thinking about the outcome you hope to see in the year ahead from your staff will be really important.

So those are the five ground rules I've got.

Is there are there any questions about those or additions to the list?

Perfect.

All right, so these are gonna stay um up here.

And I'm gonna keep this here.

So what we're gonna do, um, I know I heard uh some strong no icebreakers.

We're not doing an icebreaker.

This doesn't count as an icebreaker.

But I want to thank the mayor for um recommending and the inspiration for this activity.

So, mayor, it's gonna look a little bit different than what you experienced.

Um but uh it is based on something that the mayor participated in during uh a Bloomberg workshop.

Um, and I think what is most notable about it is that um you all have limited time, right?

I I know um I think it was at last retreat, which I was able to join you all at.

There was a lot of discussion about how much is on your plates.

You many of you have other jobs, you have families, you have um large groups of constituencies, and so time is really, really valuable and finite.

Um, and so what we're gonna be doing is individually and then collectively, reflecting on how you use your time and what you want to see from the result of that.

So we are going to do this in two phases.

And if anyone can't see this, let me know.