"A town hall meeting is an informal public meeting derived from the traditional town meetings of New England. Similarly to those meetings, everybody in a community is invited to attend, voice their opinions, and hear the responses from public figures and elected officials, although attendees rarely vote on an issue. In today's heterogeneous communities with large populations, more often, town hall meetings are held so that people can influence elected officials in their decision making or to give them a chance to feel that their voices are being heard." From Wikipedia - "Town Hall Meeting"
A town hall meeting took place at FCC on Thursday, April 16th from 6-8PM. The purpose of the meeting was to question EQCA about statewide strategies prior to the election, voice opinions, and discuss the future.
The format, which according to promotional materials was to be one hour of speaking and then one hour of Q&A, was changed at the last second to a few minutes of each speaker, some Q&A, and so on. Rather than just EQCA officials, Geoff Kors - Executive Director, and Marc Solomon - Marriage Director, at the head of the room, there were an additional 8 speakers, all local, who were given speech time during the two hour window. Since the focus was to be on EQCA, with questions posed to them from the audience, the additional speakers cut heavily into audience time and hampered what could have been a livelier, more in depth conversation about statewide strategies. Questions were also limited among individuals, with most of us getting to ask only one.
