8 billion people, 8 billion opportunities to create a climate disturbance

With a global population of just under 8 billion people, it’s hard to believe that our individual actions can have any great impact on the climate. I can hear you all thinking we can’t single handily stop the temperature from rising, remove all the plastic from the ocean, or stop the mining of fossil fuels. But 8 billion people making small purposeful actions, might just leave the world a better place.

Climate Expert Graeme Anderson painted a picture on the state of climate change in both a global and local context. Discussing the three P’s of climate impact, Physical, Policy and People he highlighted how our weather system, our political system and our corporate and commercial systems all impact climate, allowing us all to delve deeper into our own world to understand how the decisions we make as leaders influence climate.

We discussed Practice Change, the theory that individuals will only change behaviours when it’s proven to work, when we want to change and when we can.

As leaders this gives us the tools to enable our communities to make behaviour changes necessary for climate mitigation and adaptation. By providing evidence, mitigating risks, showing tangible benefits and building capacity, our community will be set up for success when it comes to climate action.

We considered risks and opportunities that climate mitigation and adaptation provides us as leaders. Climate change can be a contentious and somewhat scary dark box of a place, however it is through exploring these opportunities that it becomes a hopeful place.

Graeme mentioned “In a stable atmosphere it would never rain, you need disturbance for it to rain”. Perhaps the same thing could be said for climate action, keeping stable and to the status quo, things will never change. There needs to be disturbance for meaningful climate action to occur. As leaders it’s time for us to create that disturbance.

A big thank you to Damon Gameau Director of the 2040 Documentary, Graeme Anderson Climate Expert, Mark Wootton & Eve Kantor Principal Managers of Jigsaw Farms, Steve Morris Founder of Close the Loop and Kylie McIntyre Sustainability Coordinator at Southern Grampians Shire Council for enlightening us on the state of climate mitigation and adaptation and the opportunity for hope.

Ashleigh Glennon, 2021 Program Participant

Why did the apple fall from the tree?

Imagine you are sitting under an apple tree, and you see an apple fall, do you ever wonder why? Issac Newtown did. In 1687, he dared to ask the question WHY the apple fell rather than what happened or how it fell. Because of Newton’s question, we have an understanding of gravitational forces.

While it is important to understand WHAT a project is and HOW it will be achieved, the most important thing along the road for project success is understanding the WHY: the reason why you are doing the project in the first place. Does it align with your values? Are you passionate about the cause? Do you have a deep belief in making a difference? The why gives us the motivation to persist: the reason or reasons for the striving for outcomes.

Now, take a four-person team. Mix in a little leadership, a lot of passion, a splash of enthusiasm and a strong desire to make other people’s lives better and you have the beginnings of four amazing project pitches. Over the day we witnessed a smorgasbord of Project Pitches presented to the group, starting with a well organised and thought-out Yellow Team, who demonstrated their passion about providing access to our beaches for all abilities, complete with a PowerPoint presentation and thoroughly researched data. Next came Green and Red Teams’ brainstorm of ideas around their themes of Youth Mental Health and Intergenerational Connections. Finally, along came Blue team’s wonderings and ideas around how to best assist Food Share in becoming a Regional Food Hub. So from here with a balanced blend of –

• What the project is,
• How the project will be completed, and
• the all important WHY …the project was chosen.

The newest LGSC community projects have taken their first enthusiastic steps into the South West Arena.

Thank you to our guest speakers, Karen Foster, O2 Media and LGSC Chair, Dr Bernadette Northeast and Annabel Cussen, EO South West Community & Jones Foundations

Kylie Moroney, LGSC 2021 Participant

Everyone needs Community and Community needs “everyone”

A community should be a place that we can be ourselves, for this to truly happen communities needs to be inclusive, diverse, and equal.

An inclusive community understands and respects differences, such a but no limited to:

• age
• caring responsibilities
• cultural background
• disability
• educational level
• ethnicity
• gender expression
• Intersex status
• religious beliefs
• sexual orientation

Let’s empower and educate everyone to understand what inclusion is, by creating opportunities for communities to engage with advocates, like SAFE in the South West a program that aims to raise awareness of diversity, and challenging attitudes of homophobia, biphobia and transphobia in schools, community services, organisations, and the wider community.

We need to be promoting capacity not only in the community but also in our workplaces. Examples of inclusion in the workplace would be, for people with all abilities to be able to navigate around a business as an employee/customer or visitor easily. Information should be accessible in a way that is understandable by all.

Kylie Thulborn summed up inclusion in the community beautifully with two words “Community for Community”.  Kylie passionately spoke art, creativity and music being a universal language, and how important this is for building inclusion. A great example of this is the Find your Voice All Abilities Choir, that have performed at our very own Port Fairy Folk festival, and at Australia’s Got Talent. This is inclusion through the arts at its absolute best.

The Great South Coast has so many amazing arts, culture and wonderful stories that can all be found on the Story Towns podcast, take the tour like the 2021 Leadership Team did.

Thank you to our guest facilitator Alma Besserdin for her insights into workplace diversity, inclusion, and unconscious bias. Thanks also the Kylie Thulborn, Co-Founder Find your Voice Choir, Sparklez Hernan, Brophy Family and Youth Services, Ethan Bloom and Gareth Colliton Teacher/ Executive Producer, One Day Studios (LGSC Alumni).

Tania Penny, 2021 Program Participant

Process Makes Perfect

Process! Process! Process! The value of process in any project, whether large or small, cannot be overstated. Our Program Day presenter, Kevin Bennett was clear to ‘always follow and trust the process’. Processes make it very clear to all project team members what is expected of them and if followed correctly, can give the best chance to implement a successful project. This knowledge will be beneficial to all 2021 LGSC participants as we develop and manage our community projects.

The day was set up in a manner which provided us with an interactive learning experience working on a fictitious project in our project team.  The activity was set up in a way that we worked through this project in a methodically. This illustrated to us how important following the process is for project management. The interactive nature of the day honed the themes around project management we were being taught.

Understanding the five stages for a project is important to help us stick to the process. These stages are:

1. Initiating
2. Planning
3. Executing
4. Monitoring / Controlling
5. Closing

Working within our project teams, we were able to get a sense of what it will be like to work together on our own community projects. For most of us, our strengths and weaknesses were highlighted during the task we worked on. A mix of different strengths is a good thing for any project management team and if we follow the processes put in place, we should be able to execute our community projects to the best of our ability.

Process is important. And the process makes sense. If as teams we can follow the process properly, we will help ourselves to succeed. Our goal is to implement a project which helps the local community. For some of us, we have never done anything like this before. Following the processes will help us enormously and keep us on track so that we can do the best possible project.

Jamie Pepper, LGSC 2021 Participant

Thanks to Kevin Bennett, KB Business Solutions [email protected]