A question asked at the Wellness Summit Wednesday

 

Community leaders, organizations and local residents gathered at Mosaic Place Wednesday for a Community Wellness Summit that focused on how we can better facilitate an active lifestyle.

Guest Speaker Bob Chartier's goal was to motivate those in attendance to brainstorm ideas on how we can better combat things like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. According to Chartier, presentation is everything.

"People don't vote any more, they don't go to school board meetings. Why would you go to a school boar meeting?  You don't get to talk. You sit there and listen to some one making a presentation." explained Chartier. "Until we change how we do meetings and committees and all that type of work, we're not going to engage people."

The goal was to generate ideas that can now be taken to places like City Council and other governing bodies for both funding and general support. The idea is to get user groups active in the process of making cities healthier instead over governments telling us what we need.

During his visit to Moose Jaw, Chartier was impressed by what our community has done so far. He pointed to Mosaic Place, the host venue for the summit, as a perfect example. "This is a city that is obviously very engaged already. This Mosaic centre is unbelievable. You don't get things like this with citizens who are sitting on their hands."