Connections and Collaboration in Gore

Inspiring Communities and the Community Networking Trust brought together a large group of participants for the recent Connections and Collaboration workshop held in Gore. We had 31 eager participants: 20 community practitioners from Gore and Invercargill’s health and social service sectors, eight staff from Southland Council involved in community development, one from Venture Southland (the council’s Economic Development Agency) and two Gore Council community development workers.

A few examples of great work being done by participants follow. 

The Gore Kids Hub is a unique multi-use facility created for the benefit of families in the wider Eastern Southland Region and home to a Toy Library, a Parents Centre and a Playcentre. It also caters for other users from the community for yoga, pilates and a range of clinical support like midwifery and smoking cessation clinics.  

The Gore Community of Learning|Kāhui Ako brings together the Principals, teachers and education specialists working to help learners achieve their full potential.  They are constantly seeking ways to make better connections to the social sector support available in their town.

Ready for Growth – a development project for the Gore District is a community-led development strategy for the Gore District. Its overall objective is to grow the Gore District’s population by 1500 people by 2030.

Next steps 

The workshop participants really valued getting together as practitioners who are interested in CLD generally from both community organisations and from Council.  They were really keen to extend their capacity for collaboration. While there are a range of existing networks, everyone was interested in having an ongoing “learning connection” with this goal in mind.  Everyone went away with Action Plans to activate so it will be interesting to see what the future holds for CLD in Gore!

Find a workshop coming to a town near you!