It’s that time of year again! Hull No Place for Hate is honored to once again host a Feast of Conversations. This special event will take place on March 23, from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Nantasket Beach Resort’s Surf Ballroom. This year’s theme is “Peace on the Peninsula: Building Bridges of Understanding.”

This event is free, with light refreshments provided, and a game of bingo like you’ve never played before. Bring friends and family or just yourself – we’ll have plenty to discover and talk about.

We all know Hull is a special town, in terms of its geography and its people. Hullonians share a deep sense of place and are genuinely proud of their community. That’s why many of us choose to live and stay here.  

Our town is also like many other communities across our country in which people struggle to get to know and understand each other, or to communicate with each other, especially when we don’t agree or when we don’t think we have much in common.

Some of us express ourselves in ways that hurt others. Some of us are afraid to engage with people we don’t know or hardly know at all, leaving us feeling isolated, fearful and misunderstood. When we let our emotions get the better of us and we lash out, neither side feels good about it afterward, and nothing positive comes from it. 

But something important is often lost in those heated moments: the discovery that we have more in common than we would have ever thought, which we strongly believe is the critical tool needed to building a bridge to greater understanding and to strengthening our community.

Indeed, NPFH believes that healthy communication is vital to keeping our community strong and vibrant, and keeping Hull a fantastic place in which to live. We understand, however, that effective communication is like a muscle that needs to be exercised and developed. It also requires a genuine desire to truly listen to, and show respect for, one other. That’s what the Feast of Conversations creates a space for.

The Feast provides a time to connect with the people we may drive and walk past each day, and never get to know.

This year’s program’s focuses on exploring our own sense of identity, as well as shared characteristics and includes two parts: a light-hearted bingo game, followed up with deeper discussion on several topics that will allow us to explore and share our own personal experiences. How varied, or not so different are we, after all?
At this year’s event, we will proudly be presenting The Dignity Index, which was first introduced to us by Town Manager Jennifer Constable at a recent select board meeting, and which the board boldly adopted. The Dignity Index was developed by a nonprofit organization, UNITE, in 2018. Co-creator and Chairman of the Special Olympics Tim Shriver identified the need this way:
“Our disagreements aren’t causing the divisions in our country; it’s what we do when we disagree. Do we treat the other side with dignity, or do we treat them with contempt? The first brings us together; the second drives us apart.”

That select board meeting was doubly special, because just before members of the committee were treated to a short educational video introducing The Dignity Index, the select board reaffirmed the No Place for Hate Pledge.

As Chair Irwin Nesoff stated, Hull “can be proud it’s an active NPFH community, which speaks volumes about what we are as a town.”  We could not agree more and we are extremely thankful for the select board’s and town manager’s commitment to keeping Hull a No Place for Hate community, and for leadership in adopting The Dignity Index, which offers, we believe, a more effective way for us to communicate with each other, especially in these challenging and unsettled times.

We are proud to live in a community such as ours that deeply cares about how we treat and care for each other. 

We hope that you are as excited as we are about this year’s Feast of Conversations and that you will join us on March 23 for what promises to be an extraordinary event.

As we are a town committee, all our meetings are open to the public, with notice including the agenda posted at least 48 hours in advance. Agendas for our meetings, as well as all other town boards and committees, are in the calendar section of www.town.hull.ma.us.

Like what you’re reading? Stay informed and support our work with a Hull Times subscription by clicking here.

Do you have an opinion to share? Click here to write a Letter to the Editor.