Chatham County’s retreat concluded with detailed advice on community engagement and a facilitated visioning exercise that produced priority themes and immediate next steps.

Shuji Gupta, who led community‑engagement work on a regional climate planning project, said the team dedicated a large share of grant funds to community outreach — about $281,000 of a $1 million, four‑year grant — to hire and support community‑based organizations (CBOs), provide small grants, translate materials and fund childcare and travel so participation is accessible. "Trust, listen, and respond," Gupta said, summarizing the engagement approach and the importance of simplifying application processes for small organizations and funding food/childcare to enable attendance.

After presentations, participants ran a facilitated workshop that generated long‑term vision themes for 2045: food and soil (regenerative agriculture), natural and working lands preservation, scaled solar and batteries, net‑zero buildings and retrofits, zero‑waste approaches, clean multimodal transportation, expanded tree canopy, water protection and cross‑cutting equity and education. Participants used dot‑voting to indicate near‑term opportunities; red/green votes showed consensus that food & soil, strategic land‑use and trees are areas where the county can make meaningful near‑term progress while transportation and some building measures were seen as longer‑term investments.

Staff and commissioners closed the retreat with concrete near‑term commitments: staff will compile retreat inputs, gather example consultant RFPs and budgets from peer communities, and return with a scoping summary; the advisory committee will meet on Nov. 20 to refine sector categories and staff will present a draft synthesis to the Board in December (board meeting Dec. 15 was identified as a target).