Community-led development techniques to be explained

September 3rd, 2014
[by David Armstrong]

How to unite business, government and community organisations in community-led development projects will be the subject of Vision Motueka's next public meeting to be held in two weeks.

Steve Henry (pictured), who very recently moved to Motueka from Wanaka/Queenstown, will explain how the group he belongs to, called Shaping Our Future, has developed a "futures" programme to gain the buy-in of community, business and government in large-scale projects that are improving those towns.

The methods that his group has used over several years are similar to the ways that Vision Motueka has been pursuing in order to find what Motueka people want for a better town here (see our earlier story).

Steve's presentation should be of great interest to those people who are trying to create community-led development projects in Motueka.

Steve says he will talk about how his group went about their work in Queenstown and Wanaka. He says the Shaping our Future programme has had an extensive future visioning with 12 workshops over three months and a range of open forums on events, economic futures, conservation, innovation, energy and tourism so far.

"We're following a process used by Whistler, Canada, and modified it for the region," he says. "Using forums, social media like Facebook and Twitter, our own website and an outreach programme, we talk about how we want our district to be and how we can create that.

"The forums are structured to allow for maximum participation. Following a forum, a task force is set up to investigate issues and determine recommendations to go to relevant organisations, such as Council, community organisations, tourism organisation, local business or other governance structures." He says that of the 30,000 or so people in the Queenstown Lakes, the Shaping our Future process has involved over 3000 people now in visioning, forums and task force groups.

Their website has more detail and people are encouraged to view this at www.shapingourfuture.org.nz

Steve attended the Economic Summit held in Motueka last week (see our story here), and when asked on his thoughts, he was full of praise for the start made.

"It's now time to get a unifying vision of success which can unite people and point the compass at when getting into the detail."

The process is modeled on success elsewhere, including the 2010 Winter Olympics in Whistler, widely considered a blueprint for Sustainable Community Development.

Asked about the role of local government, Steve said they are an essential part of the mix and best invited as a partner, not the partner.

Steve's role in Shaping Our Future has been a mix of volunteering on a steering group for two years and some professionally facilitating of forums and visioning meetings.

You can hear what Steve has to say at the meeting to be held on Thursday, September 18th at Community House, Decks Reserve, starting at 7.15pm.

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