Kia ora koutou katoa 💚

Some of you may remember me. I took a hiatus due to poor health and technical difficulties, but I'm back and ready to talk about all things community! I still need to catch up on reading everything posted for the last year, so please forgive me (and perhaps link me!) if any of this has already been covered 😅

Over the last year and a bit, I've been an elected member of my local community council, office holder of our Toy library, started working in emergency response communications, and helped start a community workshop. It's been a process learning how to navigate egos and still make progress.

I've found I absolutely love consensus decision-making and co-chair structures! Here in Aotearoa, there has been a change to the incorporated societies act. we are all required to rewrite our constitutions, which means we can hardwire more community-minded processes into our organisations. This will be especially handy for limiting the amount of control hostile council members can wield and hopefully lead to a more positive and productive future.

I literally just got a working phone yesterday, but I'm hoping to put together some resource lists for grants and community group structures. I think it would also be great to discuss what an ideal community looks like and what sort of community infrastructure can we implement on an individual level to move us closer to that vision. Think community gardens, free pantries, repair cafes, alternative recycling, co-working space, time banks, community workshops and tool libraries etc etc etc. We could come up with how-to guides to help other get similar things going in their communities making the process more accessible!

I also want to discuss software for community. We are switching our Toy library system in the next year, but the options for small non-profit community groups are limited. I think we've found one to handle general catalog with reserves and loans, but there doesn't seem to be anything out there at the moment to handle our future plans of starting a time bank.

Please TLDR about your lives over the last year. I want to hear about all you amazing people 🥰

So happy so many of you are also interested in finding, sharing, and discussing new ways to better our communities! I hope everyone finds inspiration here and we all get to brighten up our little corners of the world.

I would love to hear from people about what is working in your community.

What does your community have or do that you think is going well? (Maybe its a neat festival. Maybe it's a community centre like a workshop or garden. Share the ideas!)

What small things have you done that you would like to do more of? (Cleaned up rubbish on the beach? Planted some trees? Helped with a fundraiser or event? Good on you, we're all proud! Tell us so we can all get motivated to go out and do the same)

What are you wanting for your community? (Maybe its helping with food insecurity, maybe its cleaning up parks or planting trees, maybe it's better public transport)

No task is too big or too small to share, this is a place of positivity and celebration ✨️

Here's an article with links to resources on starting your own library of things. It's US centric but still has good ideas I've been stealing for getting ours organised