If you were to envisage what the community services industry/sector would look like in one or two decades into the future, what do you think would be different from today?

How could the community services industry approach this situation?

What values do you think would be the best values to promote in a community services sector workplace?

Having chosen three values, why do you think they are the most important values for your work and workplace?

What connection do you see between community service organisations and local government?

If you support your colleagues, how do you do it?

If you think that supporting colleagues is important what would help you support your colleagues more?

What do you think about mentoring in the community services sector?

When did you last feel welcome and included in a community service organisation?

What was that experience like?

What did that organisation do that made your experience noteworthy?

How do you make connections with your client group?

If you are successful at making connections with your client group, how did you make that work?

Do local neighbourhood centres need to respond to important community issues such as major downturns in the manufacturing industry, mortgage interest rate hikes, climate change, school closures etc?

If yes, how should neighbourhood centres respond to community crisis or significant changes?

The Illawarra Mercury recently reported that the Federal Government has spent $11.9 million on Illawarra projects compared to $37 million in the Hunter. There has been long-term discussion about pockets of neglect within the Illawarra where some postcodes seem to have been forgotten.

Is there a role for the community services industry in seeking more money for the Illawarra and Shoalhaven areas? If yes, what should we seek funds for? If we did support the community services sector seeking more regional money what approach would we choose to do that?

What characteristics make up the best funding model?

What features/requirements would you include in a community service’s funding agreement?

Governments regularly say they want to fix a problem, for example, homelessness, substance abuse, violence, poverty, and so forth.

What strategy or approach do you think could go towards addressing one of these problems that;

• doesn’t involve additional funds
• does involve additional funding

Which approach would work best with your client group or those you work with in your community?

What do you think are three core elements of a community strengthening approach?

What was the last community sector big issue that you thought was important for the community services sector to devote time and energy to understand and work toward solutions?

Is there a community services sector issue that would inspire you take a variety of actions? If yes, what issue inspired you to take actions? What sort of action (s) did you take? Did you need help to take action? Did you seek assistance to take action? If you did seek assistance was it forthcoming?

What three things have helped you do your community services job (or support someone working in the community services industry) in the last year?

The government documents use the term “best practice” regularly. What does this term mean for you? What do you want that term to mean? Is there another way to describe the concept?

The Illawarra Forum’s Annual General Meeting on 11 November 2011 was an opportunity for us to meet with our colleagues in the community sector to consider some of the issues that challenge us in today’s environment.

We used the World Café model ( http://www.theworldcafe.com/ ) to engage participants in these conversations. “Based on the understanding that conversation is the core process that drives personal, business, and organizational life, the World Café is more than a method, a process, or technique – it’s a way of thinking and being together sourced in a philosophy of conversational leadership.”

The World Café explored these themes.

1. Community strengthening and empowerment
2. Funding the community services sector
3. Relationships and processes in community work
4. Work at the grassroots relating to social and political change
5. Collegiality and networks
6. Collaborations and partnerships
7. What will the future look like?

You will find further discussion of these themes in this blog.