During the Rotary Club talk about Selling Hartsville on Tuesday afternoon, one person, who had been involved in the community conversations and other aspects, questioned "Why is taking so long?"
The question hung in the air for awhile. It is a question that I find myself asking all the time. Why do things that make so much sense to me take so long to get up and running, off the ground and producing results.
Part of the answer ---
** It obviously takes some time to build support for an initiative that might not be as critical as some of us may think.
*** Why is that?
****When you look at some of the discussions on the concept of change you find that very often it is nearly impossible to get change to happen until there is a crisis that precipates that change. Without being too political, think about the crisis the past eight years have brought on and you begin to see what it takes for people to adopt the word change -- both candidates are running as agents of change.
****I know it is written in other places on this blog but as Jeannie Robertson said, "Change doesn't happen until the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same."
***Okay, you say what is this need for change you are talking about in the Hartsville community?
1 -- Have you looked at the direction the population census has been taking?
2 -- Do you notice that very nice houses up for sale stay up for sale month after month after month after month
3 -- Do you hear the rhetoric from local government about the lack of a tax base adequate to pay for a community that needs the services our community needs?
4 -- Have you had a son, daughter or other try to find a good job in the area over recent times?
5 -- Have you heard the stories of people coming to work at companies and other institutions in Hartsvlle who are choosing to commute from Florence, or Camden or Columbia or even Charlotte.
6 -- Do you know people who want to open a business but don't because so many of their friends are always saying, I go to Florence to get that...
WHY
We need a WILL to change
We need a VISION of what that change will bring us
We need a responsible, authentic, authoritative, accountable group to move the agenda
We need authentic, authority-laden, accountable individual leaders to move the agenda
We need an understanding that just because things are "fine" or "Ok" today they are not going to be either fine or okay tomorrow without a lot of work today
We need a positive energy to ignite the population
We need to figure out how to initiate the change prior to the crisis because as I have been quoting (adapting from Walt Whitman) Change comes to the prepared community.
The plea is for anyone reading this to take what you read and then initiate some conversations about what it means, first -- HARTSVILLE - THE ART OF GOOD LIVING. It almost always makes sense to start the discussion from a positive position. Second, engage others in the discussion that revolves around why more people aren't understanding the need for active selling of our Greater Hartsville community. One of our major copy headlines in the initiative is "Expect Pleasant Surprises." For me, it will be a pleasant and welcome surprise for people to continue this discussion using the comment button, so we can see what others think.
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Thanks for this.
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