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Community Resilience Workshop (7 March 2012)
Over 70 members of the community gathered recently to hear presenter, David Engwicht, talk about community decision making that will lead to a more resilient community. The event was organised jointly by the Whanganui Community Foundation and Wanganui District Council. We learned that all of us have conflicting views that don’t always sit well together. David told us “We don’t want people speeding in our street, yet we get impatient with that slow driver in front of us!” He also told us that we need to front up to our own contradictions. How can we start to address community issues when we don’t even agree with ourselves, let alone other members of the community? In looking at any problem we first need to be very clear about all aspects of the problem before we even start to think about solutions. It’s like finding out about the part of the iceberg that we can’t see. Asking good questions at the outset is so much more important than finding solutions. There are often a range of solutions and the more we generate the more likely it is that we will find that lateral thinking low cost idea. It’s the zany off the wall, low cost solutions that can add vibrancy to our cities. David introduced us to a range of tools that we can use to both generate and evaluate possible solutions. It was fun and we learned a lot trying these tools on real community issues. He even had some of us in funny glasses to see the issue through a different lens. Could we become an international birthing tourism venue, complete with merchandise and value add experiences? While it’s unlikely the idea may be the spark that helps someone else come up with a solution. To create strong resilience in communities citizens need to take responsibility for their city; we need to become more playful and use humour more, especially around bureaucracy; we need to create civil relationships between all parts of our community and foster a sense of belonging. To be truly resilient we need to develop as resilient people and organisations rather than developing plans of what we can do when specific events happen. And the good news is that the more we play and have fun the more we develop into those resilient people.
New Chair for Whanganui Community Foundation (2011)
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Trustees have unanimously elected Prue Anderson as the new Chair of the Whanganui Community Foundation. Prue is a chartered accountant and partner in the accountancy firm Carey Smith & Co. Prue was previously Deputy Chair and has been a trustee of the Foundation for the past 5 years. Prue brings strengths in both finance and strategy as well as a deep understanding of the community. |
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Creating our future - The power of the Whanganui community
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Preamble |
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