NEWS FLASH! Over 100 Goomalling folk came to the project launch and local business expo on Thursday night. That’s 10% of the area population. Fantastic…
My team and I are currently involved with a lovely project in regional Western Australia (WA). It’s focussed on regional resilience and helping little towns to thrive and grow into the future. It’s called Living Towns or Living Communities.
With WA so heavily reliant on the resources boom (mining and big business), we are already seeing little places that have put all their ‘eggs in one basket’ suffer when those global multinationals move out of town. Couple this with the lure of the big city and large regional centres (particularly for young people) and the picture for some towns is unclear.
Living Communities aims to help build the resilience of towns by working with local people to create a community vision that includes social entrepreneurship and new business ideas. We are embarking on a first pilot in Goomalling in Western Austalia’s wheatbelt 132 kilometres east of Perth. The local community and Shire have been wonderful in welcoming us and teaching us that little places can have big hearts and dreams. We are launching the project tonight with a community information evening and will keep you posted as to our regional adventures. We are hoping the model will spread and be applicable to other regional towns. Check out Greg Winning’s blog for more about new economic approaches to living life in 2010. Here’s a pic of some of the team including local Steering Committee members (our t-shirts say ‘help plug Goomalling’…
and Sue Crock and I at the local lovely caravan park…
Gerald has done a wonderful job of interviewing locals…
More to come soon. M
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Comments (2) »
Congrats on the work to Mary and all the team.
I worked in Goomalling many years ago [the 1980's] when I worked for the Dept of Sport and Recreation from their Northam office. That whole region has many small rural communities full of great people and ideas.
I remember even 25 years ago we were talking with local communities and developing sport and rec plans … going into schools and sports clubs and the local butchers and asking people what their town could be.
One very small town of only a few hundred people decided even then that they would buy their local pub and garage rather than see them close down … people often find creative solutions when faced with crisis.
I loved working in all those rural communities and felt very privileged to meet people in over 20 shires and be a small part of their development.
Northam and the midlands region was my first job 25 years ago and I learnt so much from the people I met … and then I got to work from Geraldton and the midwest as a community development officer … and kept meeting resilient and passionate and very creative people who loved their towns and regions.
Those years working in over nearly 40 shires hold many many fond memories and gave me the skills and experience that helped me when I moved here to Ireland in 1993.
One day I’d love to go for a wander around those places and see how they have prospered.
I send my very best wishes to your team and the people of Goomalling in their work.
Goomalling is a lovely town with some unique and creative folk. We got over 100 people last night! Lots of ideas flowing and people putting up their hands to volunteer onto the town steering committee. Love to do a regional trip with you when next you visit…