Melody Warnick and SaveYour.Town

Melody Warnick’s books have been refreshing reads for me in thinking about how people and place interact to create the culture in rural communities.

In This Is Where You Belong, Melody talks openly about her own struggle to feel connected when she moved to a new town. In If You Could Live Anywhere she shares the lives of people who have chosen to make a move to a new community or to stay where they are. Often these moves are made possible by the ability to work remotely.

I’ve been waiting a long time for remote work to make a significant difference in rural populations. Over the past five years we’ve seen that happen with effects that are both positive and negative. Today rural communities need to pay attention to what people want and need in a place and open up to creating it together.

This is why I’m so excited that Melody will join Deb Brown and me at SaveYour.Town for a webinar on the subject of people and place, called “Keeping and Attracting Talented People in Rural Places.”

Text says “Keeping and Attracting Talented People in Rural Places, rural people and place webinar, Melody Warnick, Becky McCray and Deb Brown” Headshots of Melody Warnick with light skin, blue eyes and shoulder length reddish-blond hair, Becky McCray with light ruddy-skin and longer dark brown hair, and Deb Brown with light skin wearing clear-framed glasses with short white hair wearing a colorful top.

It’s not just about attracting people from the outside. It’s about retaining the people you already have.

Melody will be sharing some fresh research from Virginia Tech students on what remote workers are looking for as they consider new communities. The good news is that rural areas can offer three out of the four qualities. She’ll also talk about behaviors that increase place attachment. In other words, how we can help people act in ways that make them feel more connected to our communities.

Deb will be sharing how you can tell your story so it reaches your potential people including some innovative mapping tricks. She also has some special stories about connecting with people in your community.

I will be sharing ways to find out what people really care about in your community and how to build connections across divisions. I’ll also share the story of a small town where we uncovered two separate groups of additional people that longtime locals tended to overlook in their community building.

There’s no charge for this webinar, and you can sign up here.