YOUR TOWN ALABAMA NEEDS YOU!!! We're looking for examples of excellent gateways to Alabama communities. Does your community have an outstanding example of a gateway? Or, maybe you've seen a bad example. Send us either good or bad examples! 
What People Are Saying.
Steve Ostaseski on his recent Your Town experience:
Simple Is Better.
My recent "Your Town" experience revived some long gone skills. I have spent a number of years expanding my computer skills to enhance my planning tool box. But as so often happens I had forgotten how "Keeping It Simple" can be quite helpful. In a world of GIS overlays, 3D animation and all the rest of the tricks available to those of us who need to communicate new and evolving ideas to the client, the role of "trash" paper has slipped aside.
This one point was worth the trip. This one tool as a connection to the community participants. This one tool that can communicate in a short period of time the concepts that might take hours to build in the computer enhanced world.
Thank you to "Your Town" for allowing me to participate in the experience. Simple Is Better.
Comments from recent Your Town grads:
Dear Mr. Roden;
Just wanted to say thanks for reccomending the workshop, it was a huge success! I haven't been able to stop talking about it... I enjoyed it thoroughly and I learned alot!
Dear Your Town friends;
I wanted to thank each of you for helping to make the "Your Town" expierence so valuable and enjoyable. Our little town here in south Alabama (LA Lower Alabama) has a great opportunity to grow and prosper under the guidance and leadership that we have working. My wife and I learned a lot in the time spent with you all and now have a much better understanding of what we can contribute toward the success that has already begun.
I enjoyed meeting all of you and working with you on the presentation. If group 2 was any indication of how the others were going to go, we had the best presentation. In part because our presentation, our defense of the decisions we made but mostly because we turned down a new school and by-pass in order to maintain the heritage that was a vital part of our vision and goals.
We were very fortunate to have had great leadership in Kay Argo. She provided a lot of direction and feedback when we needed it and as we got more into the way we wanted to go, she didn't interfere but offered suggestions where they would do the most good. In the end, the product that was presented was ours but Kay made it possible. Thank you Kay.
