Ready Macleay
Ready macleay
In 2024 the Ready Communities team has delivered our first pilot program, Ready Macleay in the Macleay Valley with a focus on the Kempsey community in New South Wales.
As a year 1 pilot it’s fair to say a lot has changed since our boots hit the ground in Kempsey. Some key learnings follow.
About the Macleay Valley NSW
Economic profile (coming soon)
Ready Communities mapping (coming soon)
Community profile (coming soon)
Why Kempsey?
- Prior knowledge of the community and key stakeholders (important for our year one pilot).
- Population size.
- Demographic composition.
- Location of national Stronger Places, Stronger People program. National place-based innovation delivered by Learning the Macleay in Kempsey.
- Community support via Council and several other key local stakeholders.
- Appropriate resources to host for SIITR24
Focus areas
Agricultural Communities
Youth Futures
Housing and infrastructure
Creative Industries
CBD Activation
summary
2024 - Ready Communities pilot
The Ready Communities team delivered 550 engagements over 1000 engagement hours across a series of one-to-one meetings and eleven public engagements engaging 244 community members across our five focus themes: Agricultural communities; youth futures; CBD Activation; Creative industries and housing and community infrastructure.
We are also mapping a growing list of 38 policies, strategies, and funds applicable in the region. The engagements have identified a growing list of 77 initiatives across the five focus areas and several outside these areas.
Ready Macleay Participants said
The Ready Communities program:
- “Improved my confidence in promoting my business. Improved my confidence to speak up and make suggestions” Kempsey retailer.
- “Improved awareness and the opportunity to have discussions in the community”
- (helped me to) “make new connections in the community”
- “Opened up new conversations”
- “I feel this has linked together a group of passionate people who are keen to see change in the community and are willing to put in the time and effort required to create effective outcomes. “
- “There are many people in the small cross section I’ve been involved with, who have gained a greater understanding of our multi layered community and have formed positive relationships with organisations like LTM who are trying to impact change.”
- “Increased conversations on topics that matter most”
Social Impact in the Regions 2024
Social Impact in the Regions was held on the 4th - 6th September, 2024.
The conference was hosted in a disused shopping centre in the Kempsey CBD. It attracted just over 240 people throughout the events.
SIITR24 economic contribution
SIITR24 generated $348K in the Macleay.
* 96% of spend was with SMEs
* 41% with Kempsey based SMEs
* 20% with creative industries practitioners
Other SIITR24 outcomes
Over half of the delegates said they were likely or very likely to visit Kempsey again.
Activated disused and underutilised spaces.
Key learning
Without gratitude to the many people who participated in the Ready Macleay program, the key learnings are noted not as criticism, but as a learning platform to adapt both locally, and in future Ready Communities programs. Some of the key things we learned in our first year are:
- Positive framing generates a different set of conversations in the community. People are conditioned to respond to questions about what is wrong. Not what could be right or even better. Ready Communities applied an appreciative inquiry approach that worked.
- The community is generally ready and willing to speak about what is wrong, but generally not prepared to do anything about what could change. There were several notable exceptions to this assumption in the Ready Macleay program where initiatives were (a) built into the SIITR national conference (b) embedded into existing NFP program delivery and (c) linked with the aspirations of motivated local residents.
- The embedded community rhetoric around solving problems via legislative change or grants and funding is counterproductive in building a culture of self-determination.
- Leading with identifying ‘initiatives’ (the Ready Communities initial consultation identified 77 initiatives) created unmet expectations.
- Multi-layered and regular communication mechanisms are important to keep the community up to date with progress.
- SIITR, the national conference plays a key role in demonstrating what is possible.
- There is benefit in not having a swag of funding to engage the community as an external provider as it encourages local collaboration and resource sharing. The Ready Communities pilot was funded by the co-founders. Without budget to deliver identified initiatives it was up to the community to find and allocate resources. Over $80K of cash and in-kind support was identified to deliver initiatives such as the NAIDOC Week art exhibition, a local portraiture exhibition and development of a mural which was donated to YP Space (youth service). Other local community members contributed their own resources to beautify the town, experiment with new business ideas and implement public events.