Maleny is getting it right…

Maleny, in the hinterland of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, is a community whose history (pdf) and current activities I find quite inspirational, and I am certainly inspired by the final draft of their vision statement that Karyn Maher has emailed to interested people – like me! I’m sure you can imagine the effort the group has put in as Karyn says:

“Thanks to Shaun’s brilliant facilitation skills which have been tested to the limits to help us to come up with the vision statement. The final (draft 1) statement was a synthesis of the statements arrived at August’s workshop.

‘We are individuals united to create conscious communities, guided by grace, that are havens liberating and nurturing the potential of all through social equity, integrity, courage, transformative growth, collaborative enterprises, celebration and care of the planet.’

I’ll attach the statements that lead to the synthesis to the next mail-out. What a great job, everyone!

The vision statement will help feed into our next workshop, this Saturday…this next workshop is around the themes of personal and community development.

The anticipated outcomes are:

1. Common definition of ‘personal development’ and ‘community development’

2. Develop Vision statements for both; and

3. Formulate processes to achieve them.

In preparation for this, some questions to reflect upon:

• What are the opportunities for community building? Eg How often are we gathering as a whole community? For shared meals? Shared enterprise? Celebrations?
• Is there an optimum number of people to build community? Formation of cells?
• What commitments are required by people?
• How should we reach common decisions? Resolve conflicts?

An agenda will be sent out Thursday this week.

Warm regards

Karyn Maher

‘Each new friend represents a world in us, a world possibly unimagined until they arrive, and it is only by our openness to this meeting that a new world is born.’

What is YOUR community doing? We’d love you to share your efforts with PWF readers…