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Softball team wins
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Girl Scouts are honored
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Cougars win playoff game
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DECEMBER 2021
VOL. 06 NO. 04
CEII promotes uniting community By EmilyAnn Jackman Staff Writer The Cranford Equity and Inclusivity Initiative, comprising the Cranford Township Committee, the Cranford Police Department, the Cranford Board of Education, the local branch of the NAACP, the Cranford Clergy Council and additional citizens, recently sought feedback from the community regarding its mission, values, vision and goal statements. As the majority of community members who responded supported the mission, values, vision and goal statements, the CEII has set up action planning meetings for the final step in the building of the CEII strategic plan, which is to create specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bounded, or S.M.A.R.T., objectives for each goal. At CEII’s meeting, which took place on Monday, Nov. 1, and was aired on Thursday, Nov. 4, on Cranford’s TV35, CEII member Sherri Williams, along with fellow members Cranford Superintendent Scott Rubin, Cranford Mayor Kathleen Miller Prunty, Cranford Police Chief Ryan Greco, business owner Arthur Hearns, NAACP representative Chris Chapman and the Rev. Alfred Brown, provided an update and discussed their progress to date. “We, with the usage of social media, broadcast ‘The Talk’ — the sharing of vulnerable, personable experiences — afforded a glimpse into the implicit bias felt by some Afro-Americans/black members within the community,” Williams said during the meeting. She said the positive and negative feedback was an indication of where Cranford was, with regard to accepting others. She also thanked everyone who completed the survey and participated in the Zoom sessions during this COVID-19 lockdown period. Rubin said that the strategic plan provides the structure for interested participants from the community to work
Above, from left, are Cranford Superintendent of Schools Scott Rubin and Cranford resident Sherri Williams, two members of the Cranford Equity and Inclusivity Initiative who met on Monday, Nov. 1, for a program that aired on Thursday, Nov. 4. At this meeting, the CEII members discussed feedback from the community regarding its mission, values, vision and goal statements. together in planning for the future. Through various collaborative activities, the group assesses where it is now, where it would like to be and how to bridge the two. More specifically, he said, the strategic planning allows CEII to create a mission, identify community values and beliefs, determine how to bring those values to life, and then define a vision. “How we accomplish this vision once we have these foundational elements is by goal setting,” Rubin said. “Over the past year or so, we have worked in partnership with community members to create these draft products — mission, vision, values and goals — and the individuals here have served as the Strategic Planning Steering Committee, which helps with the logistics and helps to move the initiative forward. “We then worked with the Strategic Planning Core Team — all of those indi-
viduals who volunteered to assist in proposing the aforementioned components of the strategic plan,” he continued. “These results have been shared with the community, and we sent them out around June, along with a survey for feedback, and the results indicated that the majority of the community support the draft statement. The Action Planning Committee is the final stage of the creation of the strategic plan, where interested participants will then help us create S.M.A.R.T. objectives. Then, we as a community can work together to achieve them.” The group’s mission statement — to create a community that nurtures diversity, empathy, respect and equitable opportunities for all — is outlined in its values statements, vision statements and goal statements. See GROUP, Page 10
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