Implementing community and economic development into smaller communities

Firstly, what do we mean by community in reference to rural services?

Martin Buber, the twentieth century Jewish theologian, has written "We expect a theophany of which we know nothing but the place, and the place is called community."

"Place is indeed, then, sacred to us; but our real place is community. Place is not nature, or man-made objects, but community - a group or groups of people united by a common endeavour and by trust and love."

"Wherever community appears, spirit descends. But, since man is in motion, community may have to take on new forms. Family may never again in our time be a real source of community; only with vast trouble and some sentimentalising do we renew neighbourhoods in a modern city such that they become true communities; institutions may not now as they did in the past provide the vitality of community that we not only desire but desperately need. Buildings that we love may have to be renewed to make room for new growth. We may have to make our own communities, wherever we can find them; we cannot always choose the place. But we can from time to time, return to our roots, the sacred things in our lives - and "know the place for the first time" (The Education of the Heart" Thomas Moore)

In light of the above then, the work of a community economic development officer becomes the development of groups of people united in a common cause - networks, committees, chambers - and from there to developing the sense of trust and the power to change ‘the place’ into "their community".

Economic development cannot occur, I suggest, till a ‘sense of pride’ and ‘community’ has occurred. Economic development follows from people being empowered to control their own lives, create their own destiny, build on their individual differences.

Why do we need community economic development? Because corporate economic development has been so successful that it has left the community behind!

During the past 10 years, rural Australia has taken a beating from the banks, governments and the ‘gods’ of drought and flood.

I was speaking with a young marketing manager for a bank recently, She told me that, unlike my program which has no budget, her budget was unlimited. In her keenness to lift the image of the bank, she had expressed the idea that the bank could mentor doctors to rural Australia, which would overcome some of the negative image of the recent past. The answer to her from above was "NO!". Wouldn’t it make a difference though, wouldn’t it create a precedent - to see a corporation give back some of profit to the community that they feed off! Would we be impressed - I think we would!

I challenge the banks to lead the way with community development in rural Australia!

After motivation and swot analysis, what’s next?

So Peter Kenyon’s been, the area is extremely motivated, the BEC have run their SWOT analysis and your community is wondering OK, where do we go from here?

It was important first to gain an understanding of the communities I would be working with. Just what were the ‘truths’ that the residents of the eight villages held? How did they perceive their future? What indeed were their problems? Did they have any or were we imposing problems upon them?

Often, impositions are made on a community and although often timely and well meaning, if the community hasn’t the knowledge to utilise these new opportunities, then the opportunity is met with mistrust and opposition.

In a recent CARED newsletter, the following statement reflected this sentiment. "In retrospect, the projects were technically sound but failed to effectively link with the community and maximise benefits from the projects."

Now, we recognize the need to integrate broad community consultations with project planning and implementation and to have the flexibility to capture collateral opportunities."

The collaborative approach and creation of effective networks

The time frame allotted for the development of a strategy and plan for each community (ie the total 9) was 12 months. This plan had to be responsive to the communities involved and truly reflect their ‘vision’ for the future. It was of prime importance that each community own the plan at the end of the process.

This meant that the councillors, directors, progress associations, local businesses and residents all had to be involved. A tall order!

In Cabonne Country, the council invited each village progress association to meet with myself and the director of environmental services to learn about the project and be involved.

At this first meeting, one held in each village, an overview of community economic development was given, a photographic survey of nine key points within each community (survey done previously by me), and a challenge to be involved. A committee of 4 people was called for in each village.

This gave a matrix of 32 people across 8 villages to work with who have met and continue to meet on a bimonthly basis. The Cabonne Country Development Group is flexible, coopting team members as needed, outsourcing where required.

This core group were in control of the entire process and the various development tools used in the collaborative process.

To gain insight into the psyche of each of the eight villages, the participatory photographic survey became an excellent tool, allowing for ownership and input in a creative and interactive way. The follow up workshop where community members identified the strong points and weak points on a town map, gave relevant information back to them and also encouraged them to take a leadership role within the community and amongst their peers

Identifying the leaders and the the ‘truth’ of a community

The Progress Associations were responsible for identifying and inviting to this first meeting those people that they felt would like to be involved in the CED process. It was this first small band of people in each community that the project was built, rather like Amway.

Three members of each team were asked to identify within their community people from the relevant stratas of the community to photograph their community from their point of view. Photographers represented the business sector, junior and senior students, people with disabilities, the elderly etc. These people were then invited to photograph 6 things they liked about their community and 6 things they disliked.

The resultant photos were displayed at a public meeting organized by the fourth committee member who also became the team leader and organized the photographers etc.

The public meeting brought forth an enormous amount of material about each community as locations were identified on town maps and people entered into the spirit of the meeting. All information was collected for later analysis.

The ‘positives’ were those things that made the community ‘home’ and gave an overview of the lifestyle of the residents and business community. The ‘negatives’ were those issues that could be repaired or provided projects for development and improvement.

Implementing the ‘visioning’ process for service delivery

At a separate meeting, councillors, council staff and community leaders were put through a ‘visioning’ process and a ‘vision’ for the future of the Cabonne shire and a ‘mission’ statement were obtained. This process was fun, provocative and enlightening.

What I found was that the ‘country’ people enjoyed their lifestyle, had no intention of moving into bigger areas and saw a bright and prosperous future, one that they were willing to work towards as a community together. How different to the media image of the ‘bush’.

Community development tools, training and funding

These were not the only tools that were used in the analysis and development of the strategy and plan for Cabonne shire. The other tools used were:

A Skills Audit to understand the creative side and resources of each community.

The building of a database of businesses as this information was not available for the 8 villages of Cabonne Country. Imagine the surprise at finding over 450 urban type businesses within a shire with a village population of 5,600/

Comparison of data from the last three census periods that shows that the villages of Cabonne Country have grown in size contrary to the media perception of rural towns diminishing. This has been perhaps the greatest revelation of all.

We used pyramid selling techniques to get people involved - you know, the two bring two etc.

Feedback to the Council’s engineering department

of all the information regarding beautification and problems as they came forth. The Engineering Department of Cabonne Council were extremely helpful and have assisted in addressing many of the issues. Ownership of the economic renewal and development process

Finally, the strategy document became available at the end of the first twelve months. It is called "Vision 2007" which relates to the census data collected and the next 10 years from the beginning of the process.

The photos included belonged to the photographers and were recognizable to the participants. The analysis had been returned to each village team for checking, final approval before being included and the entire document was checked in each village by being made available at the post offices and through the progress associations and committees.

The Minister, Harry Woods launched ‘Vision 2007’ for Cabonne Council in July 1998 which gave the strategy credence with councillors, and then was adopted by Cabonne Council at its July meeting.

The Cabonne Country Development Group continues on, checking and encouraging their communities to adapt to change, to bring about the findings of the strategy and to continue towards their vision for the future. At our last community audit, over 50% has been achieved in most of the villages.

Some of the harder issues are being tackled at the higher level of council.