In this Newsletter you’ll find…

Inspiring Communities and Core Learning Cluster News: Please complete our ten minute survey and help shape our next 18 months

Community-Led and Community Driven: NZSEF 2011 Change makers Masterclass: Social Entrepreneurs are everywhere; Porirua City Council’s Waitangirua Park Project judged NZ’s best for community engagement

Learning Links: Tips from What We Are Learning: Community Building; "Pecha Kucha” the ‘plain English’ story telling format –  say a little or a lot in 5 minutes; MA in Reflective Social Practice (Offered by The Proteus Initiative (South Africa)

News You Can Use: Wellington City Council supporting Neighbours Day Aotearoa concept with Community Preparedness Grants

Events: Auckland West’s Viva Waitakere gets the community together; Partnering for Results; Inspiring Stories’ Festival for the Future; Social Enterprise workshop and more

Kia ora tatou

Having been on board as Inspiring Communities National Manager now for six weeks, it’s pleasing to report I’m still smiling and still amazed at the depth and breadth of our work.  From learning more about our Core Learning Cluster communities and the fascinating insight and learnings they provide, to supporting community practitioners to integrate CLD approaches into their work, to working at a regional level with those who are developing new social and economic infrastructures such as Opotiki.

Add to this what we are seeing around Aotearoa – Porirua City Council’s award winning community engagement approach, Wellington City Council’s neighbourhood focus, and initiatives like the Festival for the Future creating a focus on community for the next generation...  this is a fascinating and exciting time to be joining with the inspiring communities and individuals working in this space of change and challenge.

Learning providers are also contributing real value and growth to this space - See below Linda Shaw’s (Gecko NZ Trust) reflections on her experience at the NZ Social Entrepreneurs Fellowship Change Makers Masterclass is and the NZSIER Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference in December.

Speaking of change, Inspiring Communities in the process of growing and we are keen to have the support and guidance of our network in planning our next phase.  To this end, it’s really important to us that you complete our brief online survey. This will help us with questions we are exploring such as: What activities we should do more or less of?  Where do we add most value? How can we make the website more useful?  Which modes of communication can best serve our network?

One question we have answered is where to set up an office: we now have a location in Henderson, Auckland in Community Waitakere’s Edsel St community office space.  This arrangement supports a social enterprise for Community Waitakere and provides a base for the National Manager and the team when they’re in Auckland.

Inspiring Communities Development Team member Barbara MacLennan and the other Kiwi Delegates who attended Tamarack’s Communities Collaborating Institute have arrived home from a “very full and useful programme of work”.  We’ll ask them to share some highlights in our next newsletter, which will be our final edition for 2011.

Meanwhile, please take our short online survey, then enjoy the other links below.

Ian Leader

Inspiring Communities National Manager

INSPIRING COMMUNITIES & CORE LEARNING CLUSTER NEWS

Please complete our online survey and help shape our next phase of work

We are in the process of gathering input from a range of people and groups to help shape how we can best contribute to growing the recognition, understanding and practice of community-led development in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Accordingly, we’d really appreciate you taking 10 minutes to complete our online survey - we’ve even kept this months’ newsletter tight to give you some extra time!

Click here to start the 10 minute survey.

COMMUNITY LED & COMMUNITY DRIVEN

NZSEF 2011 Change makers Masterclass: Social Entrepreneurs are everywhere

Are you a social entrepreneur?

If you put social good before personal interest, can see a social issue, feel compelled to change it and apply business thinking in a community setting, then the answer is probably yes.

The New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship held its first open Change makers Masterclass in September - a collaboration between the New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellowship and the ReGeneration Trust.  Gecko NZ Trust were there and have kindly shared some reflections.

Read the article...

Porirua City Council’s Waitangirua Park Project judged NZ’s best for community engagement

The International Association for Public Participation’s Core Values Awards recognise and encourage projects that are at the forefront of public participation. The awards were created to encourage excellence, quality and innovation in public participation in Australasia.

A winner is chosen for each state in Australia as well as one for New Zealand – and Porirua City Council has won for its Waitangirua Park project – “putting the heart back into the community”.  Waitangirua residents drove the development of the park and created a heart for the suburb out of underused land. Residents worked alongside Porirua City Council staff at every stage; from the concept to construction.

Read more details at the Porirua City  Council website and IAP2 website.

LEARNING LINKS

Tips from What We Are Learning:  Community Building

Community building is about empowering potential, possibility and local action. It’s about encouraging notions of ‘I can’ and ‘we can’ – locals taking action to strengthen and support their community and the future they seek.

For residents in communities to truly lead their own development; to be equal partners at both decision-making tables and when the action happens, the process of bringing people together and how this is done is incredibly important.

In most communities, there’s usually some work to be done to connect local people together, give voice to local possibilities, to draw out capacity, and to build capability so everyone can participate and act.

Key lessons:

• Identify and build from local strengths and assets.
• Proactively involve as many people as you can.
• Value and involve residents as community experts to actively build capacity.
• Local events are a key connecting mechanism.
• Understand and grow local ‘community’ capital.

Read more detail in What We Are Learning.

It may be of interest that we continue to receive some extremely positive comments on What We Are Learning from practitioners and experts in philanthropy, government and education both sides of the Tasman and from around the globe.

"Pecha Kucha” the ‘plain English’ story telling format – say a little or a lot in 5 minutes

Pecha Kucha is a fun, disciplined story telling style that can be used in any organisation or community setting to help people or groups share who they are and what is important to them.  With a strict 5 minute time limit (and a set format of 20 slides, shown for 20 seconds each) this fixed format can be a great “leveler” when bringing diverse presenters together.

Vibrant Communities Director Dan Meades presents a powerful example of what can be shared in 5 minutes, speaking in Alberta, Canada on the theme “Inspire” – Watch Dan’s Pecha Kucha presentation.

MA in Reflective Social Practice (Offered by The Proteus Initiative, Constantia, South Africa)

Members of the Proteus Initiative have taken up the understanding and methods developed by Goethe for working with organic phenomena and applied them to complex social and developmental processes.

If you are working in the social, ecological/environmental or development field and you are searching for a significantly different way of contributing in a global situation that has become increasingly intractable, fragile and unimaginative, this may be of interest to you.

Download the Brochure from our Learning Links section.

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Wellington City Council supporting strong neighbourhoods with Community Preparedness Grants

It’s been encouraging to see Wellington City Council’s support of Neighbours Day Aotearoa, for which planning is now underway towards the 2012 celebration on 24-25 March – put the date in your 2012 calendar!

On 4 October at the Town Hall, Wellington City Council launched its Community Preparedness Grants pool, which was agreed in the Annual Plan process in June 2010 and is worth $100,000.

Mayor Wade-Brown said the whole idea behind it is to build stronger communities and encourage neighbours to get to know each other, because in times of emergencies they're likely to be the ones who can help first.

Read more at the Wellington City Council website...

EVENTS

30 October: Viva Waitakere 2.0 (Auckland)

A day of “music AND action”, bringing together creativity, culture and food with the added opportunity for festival-goers to get their hands dirty for important environmental and community-building initiatives like Project Twin Streams 

More about Viva Waitakere 2.0 at Facebook.com/vivawaitakere

November Workshop: Partnering for Results (Auckland)

Join Thought Partners for an “opportunity to build knowledge and skills for successful partnering across organisations and sectors. This workshop, and tailored mentoring session, will provide you with inspiration, knowledge and tools to ensure your partnerships achieve results and move beyond good intentions. You will learn from New Zealand and international good practice”.

This workshop and mentoring session, is designed for those beginning, actively involved in, and those managing partnerships across public, private, community and philanthropic sectors. Come as a group of partners, or as an organisation planning your collaborations, and do real work together to accelerate your partnerships.

Dates: 2 and 3 November (plus mentoring opportunity following day)

For costs, full details and to register: See Thought Partners website

4 – 6 November Inspiring Stories Festival for the Future (Wellington)

Celebrating grassroots community action and young Kiwis making a difference – the Festival is designed to support young Kiwis to explore 21st century challenges, solutions, and the thinking and tools to create a more vibrant, sustainable Aotearoa New Zealand.  Also featuring the results of Inspiring Stories film competition.

For details check out the Festival for the Future website

Workshop: The Social Enterprise Journey: balancing social mission with making money (Wgtn, Akld)

15 November (Wellington) and 22 (Auckland).  By operating as a social enterprise, organisations can reduce their dependency on external funding.

This workshop with Bice Arwan (Chief Executive, Skylight) is designed for a wide range of participants from the community and voluntary sector.   Full details in our Events Calendar online...

24 – 25 November Tonic conference 2011 'Strengthening the Sector' (Tauranga)

This year’s Tonic conference from Exult presents workshops, information and advice on how organisations can not just survive - but thrive - in the current economic climate.

When: 24-25 November 2011

Where: Historic Village, Tauranga

Cost: $360 for 2 days

See the Exult website for more details, speakers etc.

29 November Evaluating Community Impact: Capturing and Making Sense of Community Outcomes (Canada)

Tamarack is again offering this three-day, interactive learning event that is focused on strengthening the capacity of community leaders to understand and evaluate the outcomes of their efforts. The event will be led by Liz Weaver, Paul Born and Mark Cabaj.

When: 29 November  - 1 December

Where: Kitchener, Ontario.

Details:  See the Tamarack website.

December Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference (Auckland)

The New Zealand Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Research Centre (SIERC) is hosting the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference, which will be held at the Massey University Albany Campus in Auckland from 1-3 December 2011.

The Conference theme is “Extending Theory, Integrating Practice”. The Conference will include a special panel discussion on the critical issue of measurement of social value and impact. Visit the SIERC website for further details.

ABOUT INSPIRING COMMUNITIES

To find out more about Inspiring Communities, our approach to learning, our framework for Community-Led Development, and more, visit: www.inspiringcommunities.org.nz

For all our latest news you can go straight to our to Community News online

The work of Inspiring Communities is currently being supported by The Tindall Foundation, The Todd Foundation, the J R McKenzie Trust, Community Trust of Southland, BayTrust, ASB Community Trust, Slingshot-Call Plus, Auckland Council, TSB Trust, Lottery Community and the Lottery Community Sector Research Fund,  Ideas Shop and many other generous people and organisations who contribute time, skills, meeting spaces and resources to help us grow the recognition, understanding and practice of community-led development in Aotearoa, NZ.

For more information This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .    If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .