2015 Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania Conference
Wednesday 23 September 1pm to Friday 25 September 12:30pm
Strahan Village, Strahan, Tasmania
31 Neighbourhood Houses are coming to Strahan to explore the theme of “Our Enterprising Communities: People, Place & Opportunity”. In each of our communities, there is great talent, untapped resources, ideas and potential. How can we support new endeavours, and enable people in our communities to take hold of the local potential for social and economic enterprise? We’ll explore these ideas through our keynote speakers, through workshops, short presentations and lots of chatting!
The 2015 Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania Conference is being held at Strahan Village, Strahan, on Tasmania’s West Coast from Wednesday 23 September to Friday 25 September, hosted by our Zeehan and Rosebery Neighbourhood Houses. Over 150 delegates including volunteers, committee members and staff – representing 31 Neighbourhood Houses and their communities across Tasmania – will be making the journey west this year.
It’s exciting that people are coming from area as diverse as King Island, St Helens, Clarendon Vale, Geeveston and Zeehan, all united by their passion for their communities and their grass roots community development work in their Neighbourhood House.
Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania is the peak body for the state’s 35 Neighbourhood Houses, which are situated in disadvantaged and/or remote communities throughout the state. Neighbourhood Houses bring local people together to identify what’s important to them and their community AND work together with other volunteers to make things happen. From play groups to community sheds, from Cert III in Horticulture to community gardens, op shops to parenting support groups – it’s all happening at Neighbourhood Houses and it’s all run by people from those communities.
In holding the Conference in Strahan, Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania and its Members have wanted to provide, in our own way, a small economic boost through the Conference and express a vote of confidence in the West Coast communities and our Houses in Rosebery and Zeehan. In fact we had such a good response we had to close registrations last week to “outsiders” to make sure we could fit everyone in! Generous sponsorship from MMG Rosebery Mine, Aurora, West Coast Council, Huon Aquaculture, TAFETas and Avidity Training have enabled us to heavily subsidise the Conference enabling us to only charge House delegates half of what it costs us to put on.
“All of our communities are affected by the difficulties facing Tasmania’s economy and the key issues in employment and education” said John Hooper, Executive Officer of Neighbourhood Houses Tasmania. “It’s our young people, our partners, our small businesses, our communities that are feeling the effects. We see that while well-meaning, many of the programs and systems that are supposed to support pathways into employment, to stimulate our local economies, aren’t enough – so we’ve started to create our own ways and are going to explore at Conference what else is possible!”
That is why the focus for this year’s Conference is encouraging and supporting community driven social enterprise. For all the communities involved this presents a great opportunity to engage with other communities and experts around how we encourage economic development at the most local level.
On Day One Matt Pfahlert will be sharing stories of his involvement in Social Enterprise from a community organisation perspective, particularly around the role Houses can play in supporting and creating local employment and enterprise opportunities. Matt has received widespread recognition as a social entrepreneur and is a recipient of the Churchill Medal, studying rural based social enterprise in the US, Canada, and the UK. Matt will get communities at Conference to begin working out what social enterprises may be possible in their community, or how Houses can build and expand on what they’re already doing.
Adam Mostogl, 2015 Young Tasmanian of the Year and local Queenstown resident, will share his experiences of using social media to effectively drive social change.
We are launching our book “Starting Point: Community Development…It works beautifully”. We’ve collected stories from participants and Houses across the state about the real differences and outcomes Neighbourhood Houses make in their communities. We’ve attached a copy for your interest – seriously some of the stories from participants are so full of hope and show the difference that becoming part of a community again can bring. Peter from Ravenswood at the launch will share his journey from running his own business, to depression and being house bound for four years, and now being Vice President and volunteering four days a week at Ravenswood House. “The House was the starting point for me to get back my life”.
What’s important at Neighbourhood House conferences is that we learn from each other, from people like Peter, and from each other’s community and from each other’s Neighbourhood House.
That’s why we’re excited that Michael Higgins and Chris Devenish from GeCo – Geeveston Community Centre – will be relating their learnings from a study tour to the USA looking at community development organisations over there. They’re going to share the similarities & differences but also what ideas might translate to here, particularly how local communities are organising to respond to similar economic and social challenges to Tassie.
Another way to connect communities is through our 5 in 10 presentation – 10 Houses have five minutes to share about an interesting project to all the delegates then everyone will spread around over the next hour to discuss with those Houses what they learned.
There are a number of workshops over the three days covering – what it means to be a leader in your community; crowdfunding – the how and why; improving adult literacy; drug and alcohol issues in communities; supporting people with mental illness, and outcomes reporting. And a lot more!
“It is also a great chance to meet and get to know people in similar roles but from other corners of the State over the three days” said Kate Beer, President of NHT and Devonport Community House Coordinator, “To find out how they as Chairpersons, community garden volunteers or House managers, deal with similar issues in their community or organisation.”
John Hooper also commented “We also have a lot of fun, many communities have had a tough couple of years so we want people to take the chance to celebrate what they’ve achieved over the last year………and chill a bit. We’ve got 110 people coming on our Thursday night dinner cruise of Strahan Harbour where the locals may be a bit surprised at the creative way our attendees interpret the historic West Coast theme of “Piners and Miners” – surely they can’t work a mankini into that theme like last year?”
Media organisations are invited to attend or to contact us about engaging with the Conference and its attendees. Our key note speakers and attendees are very open to being interviewed or sharing their thoughts.
Download …
NHT_Confernece_Program_-_FINAL_20150918.pdf
Starting_Point_NHT_Stories_Low_Res.pdf
John Hooper Executive Officer
