For many organisations, the annual general meeting is a chore rather than the high point of the year.

But AGMs can also serve as a symbolic launch pad for new initiative or campaign, a chance to for all members to rally round a shared objective.
This was the case for the Kenilworth Society when we met at the Almanack in Abbey End last Wednesday for our AGM and to launch an exciting new project to positively shape the future of our town.

As the late communications guru Marshall McLuhan once observed, the medium is the message. In other words how and where you communicate is as important as what you say.

So our choice of the Almanack's fish-bowl like meeting room, amidst the diners and chatting drinkers and in full view of passers by, was no accident.

We wanted to show that we welcome the real community benefits that have accompanied many of the recent investments in Kenilworth town centre, but there is a clear need for a community-led plan for the future.

In so far as there is any real plan for Kenilworth, it is driven by real estate – what different parcels of land and buildings can be used for.

But it is in the hearts, memories and hopes of people that a place resides and not its inanimate buildings. Moreover, now that the national greed and short-termism of past years has finally brought all plans to an abrupt halt, now seems to be an ideal time to ask where we really want to go.

So having thanked our outgoing chairman Rebecca Probert, who is off to concentrate on steering the Soroptimists to great things, and welcomed Queens Road resident Margi Levy into the hot seat, serious discussion of the year ahead commenced.

Rather than simply ask individuals what they need or would like to see in Kenilworth, the society plans to work with the community to develop scenarios of how things might be in 2020.

Scenario planning, or scenario thinking, is a well established tool used to make flexible long-term plans. As Margi Levy explained to the assembled membership, "scenarios provide alternative views of the future. They identify some significant events, main actors and their motivations, and they help us understand different perspectives on how the world functions. Building and using scenarios can help us explore how we might face the future."

The society has secured the help of Warwick Business School to help organise and develop this project.On the advice of the academic experts, the scenario planning project will also include a comparative or benchmarking exercise looking at Ludlow, the Shropshire town which also has a medieval castle and offers a range of top quality restaurants to its visitors.

Ludlow was once described by the poet John Betjeman as "the most perfect town in England". Imagine another poet laureate saying something similar about Kenilworth some day.

The discussion at the meeting gave some hint of the huge reservoir of imagination and sheer common sense that the exercise will be drawing upon from the town's population.

One person wondered how Abbey Fields might be developed so as to properly join Warwick Road with the castle. Another wants to see the young people involved with the planning of the town.

"What can be done about the fomer Budgens store? It's becoming an eyesore with its boarded up windows," wondered one person.

"How about seeing if the owners, Sainsbury, could be persuaded to reopen it as an outlet for their clothing and household ranges".

"Good idea," sparked a third. "But lets see if we can't combine this with a small cinema and a community meeting room".

Its early days but already, as the jazz singer, Fats Waller used to sing, "the joint is jumping"