It’s time to get on the train, or get off the tracks!

It has been less than two years since we dusted off the BetterWay Initiative from the chamber’s shelves and embarked on its journey of making our great community an even better place to live, visit and work. With the hard work of a committed few, we launched the BetterWay plan and the goals set forth in Phase One of the Initiative. The trees are growing and the benches, Victorian street signs, decorative planters, sidewalk museums and historical photograph displays are a reality.
But this is just the beginning. We are just getting started, and it is now time to get on board the progress train or get out of its way.
At the next BetterWay meeting the dreams of the Initiative’s Phase Two projects will be discussed and it is imperative for the success of the project to have all interested parties in attendance. If you live in Seminole County and wish to make this community an even better place to live, work and visit, then you are an interested party.
The next BetterWay planning meeting is Thursday, January 30 at 4 p.m. It is scheduled to be held in the chamber’s board room; however, if the crowd is too large for the room, we can move to larger accommodations.
As I have said many times before, BetterWay is not a chamber, city or county project. It is a community project, and achieving its success is going to take the active involvement of the entire community working together for a better way.
It’s time for us to stop waiting on someone else to make our community better. It is time for each individual group or community organization to put aside personal differences, to join in the efforts to work together and make it happen.
If you have an opinion or an idea, we want to hear it. If you disagree with a suggestion made or projects planned, we want to hear it. This is a community project and the ultimate goal is to work together to make our community an even better place to live. If  you don’t agree with the direction of BetterWay’s plans or proposals and you do not attend a meeting to voice that opposition, I don’t want to hear about it. If you can’t take the time to support the process of progress then, in my opinion, you do not need to be wasting any of your time, or mine, complaining about it.
The committed few attending the meetings and who have become BetterWay Patrons, believe in the vision of the initiative – that we can make our home even better by coming together, making a plan, working the plan and just doing it. The fruits of our labor can already been seen growing all over town and this is just the beginning.
We are limited only by the size of our dreams. And as a spokesperson for the BetterWay Initiative’s committee, I will continue to shout from the roof tops, and now the tree tops,  that our dreams are huge, our expectations are grand and we will stop at nothing short of achievement of each and every goal we set. Dream it, believe in it, work to make it happen and then sit back and expect it – that’s the BetterWay plan.
It is now time for action on everyone’s part.
It’s time for each of us to make a decision . . . to get on the progress train or to get off the tracks and get out of its way.
See you at the meeting on the 30th!

Comments and impressions are welcomed and requested at david@donalsonvillenews.com