EXETER — Trying to recruit townspeople of all types to envision Exeter’s future, members of the Borderlands Innovation Pilot Advisory Team learned quickly that the project needed a better name.

Larry Bonoff, who retired to Exeter after closing the Warwick Musical Theatre, said sharing a state line with Connecticut didn’t matter much to people in central Exeter. He and Pati de Wardener, who owns Yawgoo Valley Ski Area, are trying to contact 40 seniors for their focus group. De Wardener said she got a lot of: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sweetheart.”

Marnie Lacouture of Summit Road, who is working with Tom Sawicky of Old Voluntown Road to build a group to focus on concerns of west Exeter, said people seemed suspicious of the whole vague concept.

Ideas flowed at last night’s meeting at the Exeter Library: Exeter Vision Quest. Exploring a Community Vision for Exeter. In Search of Exeter’s Future.

“The future’s going to happen whether you’re there or not,” said Bill Stamp, a farmer and longtime president of the Rhode Island Farm Bureau.

He and his neighbor/competitor Richard Schartner are teaming to get the viewpoints of farmers and loggers. Their focus group is Saturday from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Exeter Grange.

As the 13 members of the pilot team exchanged concerns and suggestions, and Planning Board member Frank DiGregorio of Hallville Road observed they could spend the rest of the meeting trying to find a name.

Consultant Kate Harvey of the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, Mass., unwittingly gave a demonstration of how consensus building works.

She was really there to describe the project’s first stage, which will bring:

• Focus groups meeting at the Exeter Grange this Saturday and next Friday and Saturday, with the Friday session giving residents a chance to record oral history on video.

• A Web survey from about May 12 to Memorial Day. Residents will be able to click on the Exeter town site or the Borderlands site to get into the survey. The Zoomerang program tallies the responses and generates a report.

• A visioning session June 12 at the Exeter-West Greenwich Junior-Senior High School cafeteria that will include keypad polling, in which residents can register their preferences by clicking on a hand-held device, and the results are tabulated and displayed almost instantly.

• An Web-based almanac on the Borderlands Web site in which residents can “fly” over a map, click on a site, and write a memory or add a photo or video clip.

All of the consultant teams are hired by the Orton Foundation as part of the Borderlands Project to help the chosen pilot towns, Exeter and Killingly, Conn., define the the town, preserve its most important features and direct development where it can generate income without costing the town its essence.

Harvey’s methods seemed invisible. Within minutes, the project had a name:

A Vision for Exeter: Developing a game plan for our town. Part of the Borderlands Project.

For more information, visit www.borderlandsproject.org or contact Susan Westa at (860) 774-9600 or write to susan.westa@uconn.edu.

dnaylor@projo.com