Community Forums

Basic groundrules for running effective community forums

A Community forum is based on one or more public meetings to which local residents are invited to share their opinions and ideas about the community's economic future, or a specific economic development strategy. Through the formation of a steering group and advance planning, a tremendous amount of information can be obtained in a short time period, often at minimal cost.

Community forums provide an opportunity to:

• Gather opinion
• Raise awareness
• Generate new ideas
• Test ideas
• Legitimise directions
• Identify new leadership and resource people

Effective community forums require:

• First rate organisation, especially in designing, promoting and staging the event
• A comprehensive publicity strategy to ensure local residents are aware and motivated to attend. "No rock should be left unturned" in a publicity effort to attract people to the forum. A notice in the local newpaper is not sufficient!
• Skilled facilitation of the events
• Appropriate timing and location
• Follow up

Community forums also need some ground rules which must be outlined at the beginning of such events. A useful list is as follows:

• Check in old disputes, feuds and ideologies at the door
• Anything goes! Don't be afraid of new ideas. Respect others' opinions
• Keep ideas, opinions and comments short
• Allow everyone to contribute
• Focus on the positive. Avoid spending time blaming others or dwelling on what has not happened in the past.

An example of a Community Forum is the "Tallangatta 2000" Workshop. A five hour planning event which included the following elements:

• Introduction to community economic development
• Challenge to local residents to beome part of planning their own future
• Examination of Tallangatta today and where it could be. Involved small groups focusing on the following questions: -what are the strengths of Tallangatta (what is special about Tallangatta, why do we contniue to live here, what is its competitive advantages compared to other places?)
  -what are the weaknesses of Tallangatta (its drawbacks, limitations, disadvantages as a community?) and
  -Tallangatta in the year 2000 (what would we like to see it look like, what is our vision, what would we like to see it characterised by?)
  
• Discussion and development of practical projects/initiatives/actions which participants would like to see develop in Tallangatta. Groups brainstormed a list and then chose up to four projects/initiatives which had the following features:
  -contributes to our vision for Tallangatta and its quality of lifestyle
  -results achievable within one year
  -utilises underused resources (buildings, equipment, land, people's skills)
  -builds upon the town's competitive advantage
  -creates new opportunities/possibilities for local people
  
• Participation in a prioritising exercise to determine a ranking order of projects
• Opportunity to convene or participate in key identified projects - participants volunteered to join task groups.

Source: Ready, Set, Go. Action Manual for Community Economic Development. Municipal Association of Victoria. 1994.