There are some exciting developments happening in the Rural ABCD Community of Practice! Below are some of the developments happening for the group in the new year.

1. In the January meeting, the group will be revisiting its group covenant together to make any necessary adjustments for the new year.
    
2. A new Rural group is under development to make the community more accessible to those in times zones that make participation difficult. If participation is a challenge due to your time zone but you would like to engage with the community, please email Wendy McCaig at wendy@embracecommunities.org, and she can forward you the appropriate information and contacts.
    
3. The structure of the group discussions will rotate between the topic of community engagement and tough questions facing rural practitioners. New deep dive topics will be selected from those questions that are of greatest interest to the group. The group will use an open-source format to address any questions participants want to pose to the group. Based on the questions that emerge, everyone will pick the discussion they are most interested in participating in. 

Based on the December meeting and participant contributions, the group's January and February discussion agenda will be as follows:

1. January: Community Engagement Series – the questions below will frame our conversation.
    
   • What does successful engagement look like for you in your context?   
      
   • Why don’t people engage in your context? (Or, if they do, why do they engage?)   
      
   • What resources (capacity) do you need for the level of engagement you desire?
      
2. February: Tough Questions Series – open-source structure

Are you a Rural ABCD practitioner who is new to this conversation? Consider joining the Rural ABCD Community of Practice group sponsored and co-facilitated by the ABCD Institute, Embrace Communities, and the Tamarack Institute. 

Who is the Rural ABCD CoP? A group of individuals who have a working knowledge of ABCD and who are practicing ABCD in a rural environment.

What are the group's core values? As an ABCD Community of Practice, the group strives to embody the shared principles defined by the international ABCD community, which can be found here. 

What is the purpose of the group? To gather rural practitioners of ABCD together to share stories, experiences, tools and ways of building on the assets in our rural communities, addressing shared or recurring challenges and how we turn them into opportunities.

What are the member benefits and responsibilities? The group is: 

• Participatory: ABCD doesn't happen if you're doing work for someone or to someone; authentic community building occurs when we do our work with one another. This CoP will strive to create a space for mutual exchange. There are no “experts”, only peers. This is not a webinar series.    
   
• Co-created: Participants will co-create the content by sharing their knowledge, skills, ideas, tools, techniques, resources and provide feedback and suggestions to other participants.   
    
• A networking opportunity: Facilitators will provide networking opportunities with the opportunity to make connections and build deeper relationships outside the group if so desired.    
   
• An on-going Learning Opportunity: Focused on ongoing dialogue and learning rather than the production of an end product

What does a membership cost? There is no cost for membership.

When does the group meet? This community of practice meets on the 4th Thursday of the month at 10am EST. 

How does one join? If you are interested in the Rural ABCD Community of Practice, please email Heather Keam of the Tamarack Institute at heather@tamarackcommunity.ca or email Wendy McCaig of Embrace Communities at Wendy@EmbraceCommunities.org with the subject line: "Add me to the rural ABCD cop."