Roundtable discussions are highly rated by participants! Plans are in motion to involve more people

Members of Hahajima's meeting have been regularly holding virtual roundtable discussions--dubbed "Hahajima Bukatsudo"--on a variety of topics.

In FY 2020, a total of four roundtable discussions were held by October. Each time, members gained more operational expertise on how to energize the discussions. Members who have been running the discussions also made a new suggestion: "We'd like to think about what we can do to keep the existing participants involved and increase the number of new participants."

Therefore, Hahajima Bukatsudo members decided to collect the impressions and opinions of participants of past roundtable discussions.

The results were highly positive. Of the 20 responses that were received, 70 percent said that they "had fun and were glad to have participated in the roundtable discussions." In addition, all respondents agreed that a space for free discussion like the Hahajima Bukatsudo was necessary. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has required that these roundtable discussions be held online--an unfamiliar format for many of the island residents--the initiative has reaffirmed that there is still a need for such a space where everyone can discuss things freely.

As for the respondents' desire to participate again in the future, 75% said that they "want to participate in discussions on topics they are interested in." These results reinforced to members that having attractive topics that make people want to participate is important for attracting new participants and expanding Hahajima Bukatsudo activities.

Listening to the participants' feedback, members returned to their original vision--creating the island's future with the input of everyone on the island--and decided to ask island residents who had not yet participated in the discussions for their opinions in order to plan a roundtable discussion focused on topics of high interest to them.

As part of these efforts, members decided to regularly publish the Hahajima Bukatsudo Newspaper, a paper that can be directly picked up and read by many people on the island, helping them to learn about and become involved in Hahajima Bukatsudo activities. The editing work has been underway, with the aim of publishing the first issue in March 2021.

In addition, members launched a website titled "Hahajimabukatsudo.com" on January 29, 2021, in the hope of communicating Hahajima Bukatsudo's initiatives in an easy-to-understand and thorough manner.
(https://hahajimabukatsudo.jimdofree.com/)
They will be adding more information to this website as it becomes available.