Implementing community and economic development into smaller communities

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.

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.