National forum showcases local feats
SUCCESSFUL partnerships between communities and councils in South Gippsland were the toast of Australia at a national forum at Inverloch last Tuesday, October 11.
Representatives of community foundations across the country heard how local councils had worked with community foundations to save the Mirboo North Childcare Centre and also train young drivers in Bass Coast Shire.
These topics were among the highlights of the National Community Foundations Forum held at Inverloch RACV Resort, jointly hosted by Mirboo North and District, and Bass Coast community foundations.
The foundations raise and invest funds that are dispersed into their respective communities. A new foundation servicing Leongatha is in the formative stages.
Bass Coast Community Foundation executive officer David Wall said the forum opened many possibilities.
“This brings the 30 community foundations represented here together so there are 30 different ways of operating,” he said.
Outgoing executive officer of Mirboo North and District Community Foundation Derrick Ehmke said 92 delegates attended.
He was accompanied by incoming executive officer Ruth Rogan, a lawyer formerly of Ireland and a resident of Mirboo North for four years.
Bass Coast Shire Council chief executive officer Paul Buckley noted the shire was the second municipality in Australia most reliant on tourism, after Uluru.
The Mirboo North and District Community Foundation’s director Wendy Major spoke of the foundation’s involvement with saving childcare services in Mirboo North in 2013, after UnitingCare Gippsland withdrew, citing the centre was unviable.
“The foundation board recognised the impact of the loss of the childcare centre,” she said, noting parents would have taken their children to childcare centres in other towns and shopped there, and even possibly leaving Mirboo North.
The foundation underwrote existing losses and further losses for the first two years of a new provider operating, funded repairs and provided new equipment ahead of YMCA Ballarat taking over.
Delyse Graham of the Bass Coast Community Foundation told how the group provided $40,000 to the Bass Coast L2P program to fund the purchase of vehicles in which volunteer drivers have taught 170 young people how to drive.
The program is run through council.
Leaders together: Bass Coast Shire Council chief executive officer Paul Buckley discusses the role local government can play with community foundations with South Gippsland Shire Council chief executive officer Tim Tamlin.
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Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Oct 18 2016. Filed under Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
