1. Call to order.
2. Set the dates of the campaign.
3. Present planning models.
   1. Standard Planning Circle.
   2. Where the Action Is.
   3. PEARL Test.
4. Community activities.
5. Activities by sector.
   1. Health care.
   2. Business.
   3. General community.
   4. Education.
   5. Law enforcement.
   6. Faith.
6. Materials procurement and distribution.
7. Next meeting.

This meeting will take between 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours, depending on the level of preparation by individual Community Partner Team members. Descriptions of meeting activities by agenda item are listed below.

Partners Planning Process The planning model employed by the Partners for Rural Traffic Safety process is fairly simple. The problem you are trying to resolve encompasses improvements in traffic safety. You have: Conducted both qualitative (Community Visioning Meeting) and quantitative (data sets from meeting No. 4) assessments and presented them to the Community Partner Team, and Generated a list of potential resources or alternatives to address both perceived and real traffic safety problems. Now each Community Partner Team member selects the activities and alternatives he or she believes will address community traffic safety problems. Those activities become the plan for the 30-day campaign. The campaign is implemented, and the results are evaluated. Where the Action Is The upper left circle represents the data and information you have collected and presented. Moving to the right side of the diagram, that circle represents whether people believe the data and accept it as a realistic reflection of the community. Just because a piece of data or opinion is expressed does not mean that people will embrace it. The last circle in the bottom middle represents the Community Partner Team member’s perception of his or her ability to address the problem. When data and information are present, and people believe that the data is real and they sense they can do something about it, then there will be action. PEARL Test Finally, the PEARL Test evaluation model is presented. Within the bottom center circle “perception of ability to solve,” each member is evaluating the alternatives based on a decision tool called the PEARL Test. PEARL is an acronym and is detailed on the right. This is an easy way to for people to determine the appropriateness, feasibility and plausibility of their selected intervention.

The demonstration and replication sites involved in the pilot community portion of the Partners for Rural Traffic Safety program revealed that holding a kick-off event at the beginning of the campaign increased the campaign’s success. Activities such as county fairs, health fairs, homecoming events, parades, auto shows and school sports programs worked well as kick-off events for the campaign. At these events, booths were set up that included informational materials, giveaways and prize drawings; appearances by Vince and Larry© (the NHTSA crash test dummies); and use of the Convincer (a sled that simulates the impact of a five-mile-per-hour crash). It is best to try and dovetail your traffic safety activities with events that are already scheduled and that will attract a crowd. Consult your community calendar to learn about events already scheduled for 30 to 45 days from the date of the fifth meeting. It takes about that long to get all the materials ordered and to schedule the use of Vince and Larry© costumes and the Convincer.

Use either the PowerPoint presentation No. 2 on the disk or camera-ready overhead slides 13-16 provided in Appendix E to help explain the process that is unfolding. These items are described at the beginning of this chapter. This presentation should take no longer than 10 minutes. It is important that people understand how the process works and that some of the campaign alternatives may not fit your community; it okay to say, “No, that won’t work here.”

Discuss and assign responsibilities that involve all Community Partner Team members. This will be based on those events that are defined in Agenda Item 2. Break down every task that must be accomplished, and make certain a team sector member is assigned to each task.

First, make certain you have copies available of the results of your Community Visioning Meeting for everyone present. You should try to incorporate as many of the community-generated ideas into your plan as possible. Review the list and assign suggestions that received the greatest number of sticker dots to a particular sector. Then, have each Community Partner Team member describe those activities that he or she will be responsible for within his or her sector. Team members should have determined which activities they were capable of handling between the last meeting and this meeting.

The Community Partner Team leader should gather the lists of resources each Community Partner Team member is requesting and place a single order to the appropriate federal or state agency along with a short description of your project activity and the date these materials are needed. Decide how the materials will be distributed to each Community Partner Team member once the order is received.

Determine whether you need to hold additional meetings before the campaign begins. Remember, not all Community Partner Team members may be needed at these additional meetings; also, a promise was made to not waste people’s time.

Writing the plan is a simple matter of making certain that every activity is assigned to a responsible party. The Community Partner Team leader should type up the plan and mail it to all participants as soon after the fifth meeting as possible. A sample plan is included in the Tools section of this chapter. Note that this plan does not need to be sophisticated; it is, however, critical that the plan be documented. The plan does not need to describe how a Community Partner Team member will accomplish the activity, just what activity he or she is assigned to do. Each member is responsible for figuring out the logistics within his or her sector.