The Northern Berkshire Community Coalition forum brainstorms topics for the rest of the year.

Adam Hinds, the new executive director of the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition, leads his first monthly forum on Friday.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Every September, the Northern Berkshire Community Coalition meets to discuss what topics to focus on over the next nine months.

This year, a lot of conversation revolved around the process of the meetings in addition to the topics themselves.

In his first monthly forum as NBCC's executive director, Adam Hinds asked the room of more than 100 representatives of human and social services agencies, educational institutions and other nonprofits to offer suggestions for future meeting topics. He introduced Friday's meeting by offering his mind as open to all idea, taking the advice of former director Alan Bashevkin.

" 'Just go in with a big heart and open ears and everything will turn out fine,' " Hinds said Bashevkin told him.

Topics of interest that were tossed around included: economic development and all that entails, including job development and economic inequality; health care and all that entails, including access to a full-service hospital and sorely needed specialists in the area; mental illness awareness; substance-abuse treatment and prevention; health education for parents and students on things like the HPV vaccine, sex education and healthy living; transportation difficulties; child abuse prevention; re-creating a strong sense of community; and intergenerational issues arising from the changing demographics of the Berkshires.

But at one point, the conversation turned to the process, and several people spoke about the importance of making sure the forums themselves were effective.

Dan Randall, co-pastor of New Hope United Methodist Church in Williamstown, suggested looking at potentially restructuring the monthly forums so that people leave with a clear set of action points.

"Maybe we could reassess how the time is allotted," he said. "Maybe we can change and become more efficient."

One suggestion was that instead of coming up with a list of topics — some of which are repeated year after year — it might be more helpful to look at what accomplishments have been made since discussions in previous forums.

Resident Mark Rondeau pointed out that at a forum in 2010, the seed was planted to grow the Northern Berkshire Interfaith Action Council, which still meets monthly and now runs the Friendship Center Food Pantry on Eagle Street. Hinds said that tangible impact was nice to hear.

"It's impressive the impact it has had," he said.

Part of being able to have an impact, Randall said, is making sure the voice of the people is heard — and the right people hear it. Hinds agreed that the coalition should tackle that.

"It becomes our job to make sure the right people are in the room," he said.

Moving forward, Hinds said, the forum topic for October — health care — already has been set in order to get the ball rolling on the year. Hinds said he and his staff will cull the ideas tossed around on Friday into a list of clear topics and send an email to Friday's attendees to vote on which ones were most important to them.

The topics that received the most attention Friday — besides health care and all of the issues stemming from the closure of the North Adams Regional Hospital in 2014 — were substance abuse and economic development.

Wendy Penner, director of Prevention Programs, said she wanted to focus not just on recovery from addiction but also on educating the general public about the heroin addiction epidemic in the region.

"It's the community's job to support them," Penner said.

And it's everyone's job to take the problem seriously, said Corrine Case, who runs smoking cessation programs as well as adult basic education programs.

"If four people a day were dying from ebola, we would be talking about it," Case said. "Four people a day are dying of heroin overdoses in Massachusetts."

Case also advocated for the education as it relates to job training and economic development.

"It's time for new ways to thinking of how one generation passes information down to the next," she said, echoing the sentiments of North Adams City Councilor Kate Merrigan, who said economic development is a huge issue in the region.

"I think that comes up in election season," said Merrigan, who was at Friday's meeting with several students from the Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter Public School, where she works as college readiness coordinator. "I don't know what that will look like in a forum but I'd love to see it in a forum."

Toward the end of the forum, a note was sounded that the forums should also appreciate what is good about North County.

"What do we have here that's really great that we can build upon?" asked Annie Rodgers, who leads the coalition's Northern Berkshire Neighbors program. She was echoed by Rondeau, who spoke about the important of building community pride.

"I think it's important to emphasize what we have going for us," he said.

Adam Tobin, UNITY Program associate at the coalition, brought up the idea of "community asset mapping," which according to a Michigan State University "best practices" paper involves "start[ing] with what is present in the community, concentrat[ing[ on the agenda-building and problem-solving capacity of the residents, and stress[ing] local determination, investment, creativity, and control." That could help the region move forward despite the challenges it faces, Tobin said.

"Community can be an answer to a lot of our problems," he said.

Hinds wrapped up his first forum as executive director on a positive note and promised to further contemplate everything discussed Friday.

"This has been a great experience," he said.

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