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 🥰