Fantastic new, FREE Alberta Municipal Services Corp Citizen Engmt Toolkit

The Alberta Municipal Services Corporation has published a fantastic new Citizen Engagement Toolkit for use by municipalities in planning their public engagement. 

As the AMSC website notes, "In order to be effective, municipal governments require involvement from the community. Through engaging the public in the decision-making process, municipalities are able to develop policies, programs, and initiatives that are accepted by various stake-holders while building trust within the community. Unfortunately, recent trends have shown that citizen participation in local decision-making is declining. Therefore, it is important that local governments seek new and interesting ways to engage their citizens."

The tool guides you through the creation of a customized engagement plan and also provides information about several tools that support different engagement methods and other resources as well.  You can also create reports too, and best of all, the toolkit is free!

Watch the brief video that tells you more here (launches in Windows Media Viewer; you must have WMV to view).
Download the toolkit here (note that it's a large file, so it may take a few minutes to load).