Australian Community Development Blog

Sock It To Suicide Week

Gotta love this one. Today signals the start of the Sock It to Suicide Week. The idea is to wear brightly coloured socks (odd or even) and donate a gold coin.

Its organised by the White Wreath Association Ltd and their objective is to establish a Safehaven Centre for those who want a 'place of safety' at times when suicide threatens.
Donations can be made via their website and if you can spare more than a gold coin, I'm sure they'd gratefully accept.

Difficult to think of a much more worthy cause really.

Oz Government Community Portal

Many are probably aware of this resource but just in case.

The Australian Government Community Portal provides some wonderful resources on communities an community development.

Its worth a browse when you have a moment.

Learnings from Hairspray

I'm talking about the movie not the stuff that comes in cans.

Don't worry, if you haven't seen it, I'm not about to tell the story. All I'll say is that the message of "Integration not Segregation" applies equally today as it did in the US South in the '60s.

The only difference is that its just not as easy to see.

When skin colour is the issue, it stands out fairly readily.

When its got to do with our own prejudices around things like body shape, personality, etc, well, its not so obvious.

The message?

We still need to integrate. That what societal development is all about and its a great basis for commmunity development.

Leading Meetings That Matter

If you're interested in the issue of making your meetings more productive - and given their importance to community and organisational development you probably should be - this recently published book (Don't Just Do Something Stand There! Ten Principles For Leading Meetings That Matter) is a classic.

I don't know of 2 people better experienced than Marv Weisbord and Sandra Janoff to tell us about how to do what the subject of this post suggests.

There are dozens of gems in this book. Here's one to try.

One of the critical issues with leading productive meetings is getting the right people in the room. How do you decide on who the right people are?

First you need to be totally clear on the purpose of the meeting. Once that's done, Marv and Sandra suggest applying the acronym ARE IN which stands for:

• Authority to act (eg decision making responsibility)
• Resources such as contacts, time or money
• Expertise in the issues to be considered
• Information about the topic that no others have
• Need to be involved because they will be affected by the outcomes and can speak to the consequences

Identify the people who meet these criteria and you've got your ideal attendees.

13 Steps to Community Engagement

Communities sometimes struggle with effective engagement. Below are 13 steps that have helped other communities.

Not all steps will necessarily suit all situations so you may wish to pick and choose. (Note that the first 3 steps are what I'd call foundational rather than action oriented).

1 - Adopt a Marketing Mindset

2 - Do it Properly or Not At All

3 - Don't Engage for the Sake of Engagement.

4 - Prepare a Pithy Positive Passion-filled Purpose

5 - Form a Planning Group

6 - Identify Your Stakeholders (the 'Whole System')

7 - Identify Your Major Stakeholder Groups

8 - Identify Stakeholder Group Needs

9 - Use Appropriate Messages Based on Stakeholder's Needs

10 - Use Appropriate Channels Relevant to Each Stakeholder Group

11 - Describe the Initiative in Your Communication

12 - Build Credibility for the Initiative

13 - Offer Incentives If Necessary

More detail on each of these steps is available in our free report The Facts About Community Engagement - 13 Steps To Raising the Right Crowd.

If anybody has any others, lets hear them.

Facebook - Connecting Your Community or Group

Facebook offers some real advantages for communities and community groups who want to enhance their communication.

It essentially enables groups with like minded interest to share information including general posts that everybody in the group can see plus their own information (photos, videos, details, etc).

There's a great article on the 9 steps Introduction to Facebook (see the link on the NSW Community Builders
homepage).

Also, if you have an interest in the application of Facebook for businesses, here's a blog post from my friend and colleague John Jantsch on the subject.

Australasian Facilitators Network

The stated purpose of this network is to "share a passion for facilitation and participatory practices in pursuit of better communication, understanding, collaboration and learning in workplaces, communities and the world at large."

(Not a bad ideal by any standards).

It achieves this through:

• the AFN email list (moderated by Bob Dick at Southern Cross University)
• local networking sessions
• AFN Annual Conference
• shared resources

I'm a member of the network so I stand to be accused of bias but I think its a great resource for anybody interested in community development generally and facilitation particularly.

More information is available on the AFN Website.

NSW Community Builders Website

The communitybuilders.nsw site is a fantastic resource that is chock a block full of great information, ideas and events.

Definitely worth checking out for anybody whose interested in community building or development.