TIDY TOWNS TIPS COMMUNITY ACTION & PARTNERSHIPS AWARD
Recognises partnerships between government, business, industry and local indigenous council and community networks
The award recognises achievement in projects encouraging community presentation, health, wellbeing, pride and those that celebrate community. It also recognises partnerships between the networks described above, where possible.
Judges will be impressed where entrants show that they are:
attracting, maintaining and rewarding volunteers from within their community
training/mentoring young community members
promoting their Tidy Towns Sustainable Communities initiatives, goals and achievements to the broader community
sharing ideas and innovations with neighbouring communities.
Try to get as many different people involved from the community as you can, ensure you record a mixture of projects coordinated by several groups, and tell the judges when they visit your town. For example, the local shire often undertakes projects or works that could easily be incorporated into an entry. Others who might get involved include:
Scout or guide groups
Rural youth
Service clubs such as Lions and Rotary
Schools
Progress associations
Local businesses and industries
Business associations such as Chamber of Commerce
Sporting clubs
Environment groups such as World Wide Fund for Nature, Greening Australia and Green Corps
Landcare groups
Historical societies
Aboriginal corporations
Gardening groups
Social groups
Transition groups
*Please note these are examples only and are not essential.*
By avoiding reliance on too few people, volunteer burnout can be avoided. Consider these ideas for attracting and maintaining volunteer participation:
Market your project – have a breakfast or sausage sizzle
Leave flyers in shop windows, libraries and local cafes
Put a community service notice in your local paper
Write a 30 second advert for a community service announcement on radio
Get current volunteers to bring a friend to meetings
Provide opportunities to develop skills and knowledge
JUDGE’S TIP
It is important for communities to work toward achieving their own overall objectives, and in fact,any worthwhile activity that benefits the community can be assessed under this category.
Estimating volunteer participation and hours is important as a performance indicator of the program: don’t under-estimate the value of volunteer work.
CASE STUDY
The State Winner of Community Action and Partnerships for 2014 was Imintji. You can read all about their projects here (from page 4).
ONLINE RESOURCES
Resources available on the MoreVolunteers website:
A Manual for Small Town Renewal: Full text: