Community Futures Pacific Northwest put on two Future Forums in the beginning of March to gauge what Rupertites see as priorities for the future.
"We needed to start a conversation. We're going through a lot of changes right now," Jasper Nolos, CED projects coordinator, said.
The aim of the forum was to start a conversation with the community about coming changes, and what people see as priorities to accommodate them.
"We're hoping to be able to find some of those key projects we can look at and see who we can partner with to see if it's viable to bring it forward," he said.
Three major themes brought up at the forum was the need for more focus and fostering of entrepreneurship and leadership amongst community members, a gap in opportunities in terms of training, and creating a more attractive Prince Rupert to retain people and draw more people in.
The following week, Community Futures held World Café in Kiara Hart's Grade 9 Humanities class at Charles Hays Secondary School, with Prince Rupert mentors Zeno Krekic, Doug Kydd, Rob Eby, Kelsy Hejjas, Nancy Smith, Wendy Prystay, and Hondo Arendt coming into the class to have discussions with students.
"The goal was to get a feel for where the students were at, and their understanding of community economic development topics and to bring awareness that they do have a role to play and their voices will get heard," Nolos said.
Mentors said in the age group there wasn't a lot of awareness of job availability, however students did notice a potential for tourism assets in Prince Rupert, many of which were based on the outdoors, and placed importance on relationships they are building in the community.
Nolos is compiling the notes and will write a report on information to create a baseline identifying what Community Futures should do next to accommodate changes.
Community Futures has held forums similar to this in the past, and have implemented programs, task forces and projects after holding forums.