We want you, your mind, your passion and your drive!
Our towns have been blessed with generations of community-minded people collaborating for our area’s prosperity, now it’s time to shift gears.
For the past 15 years, Barham Consolidated has been the vehicle which has driven many town projects, now it’s up to you to shape what’s next!
Faye Ashwin, a founding member of Barham Consolidated, has seen what is possible with people and passion.
“In the last 120 years of Barham being a community, there's always been some version of a local progress association or something like that.
“It gives the locals opportunity to say what they want to see focused on in their town.
“Barham Consolidated Incorporated was the last version of that and it had its beginnings in 2008 when a handful of local people got together and decided they would like to replicate a boardwalk that they'd seen somewhere further south and thought we really needed to enhance and give people of all abilities access to the river.”
The 10-year project of the now famous Barham Boardwalk is just one of the many achievements that Barham Consolidated facilitated in its time. The body also became an umbrella in which smaller groups could operate under. These included the Barham Koondrook Traders Group, the Barham Koondrook Festival Group, the Barham Koondrook Tourism Group and more recently, the Barham Women’s Group.
A key strength to a strong community body is the ability to advocate to local councils and funding streams. Having a bigger shire in recent years means this has never been more important.
“An organisation like Barham Consolidated, or whatever it may evolve into, is needed to be that really strong conduit to council, and for council to come to community through the organisation to understand our needs,” said Faye.
Now it’s your time to shine!
You now have an opportunity to shape where we head to in 2030, 2040 or even 2050.
The seeds have been sown with projects like River Daze, the water tower art project or the shop local cards. Now it’s time to nurture the growth!
The gathering next Thursday will discuss the draft Vision for the new body! Its bones have been outlined and now it just needs you to give it flesh!
The vision is: To support and promote the development of a robust, resilient and liveable Barham and district community, to enhance the local economic benefit through attracting tourism and industry to the region.
With possibilities to explore, such as:
- Engage, promote and grow local businesses;
- Enhance and encourage local tourism opportunities;
- Piggybacking on existing local events – River Daze, fishing comp etc – and create new ones to celebrate where we live, attracting visitors to town;
- Develop advertising strategies and how to fund it;
- Develop a community structure that can attract grant funding to employ a part-time officer to coordinate and drive local projects;
- Identify the demand for industrial land, working with council to create opportunities;
- Provide support to facilitate development of the next generation of community leaders;
- Enhance a strong working relationship with Koondrook Development Committee.
For this phoenix to rise, it just needs your creativity and passion!
“You're doing something really worthwhile, and you can do it at whatever level you want to do it,” said Faye.
“You can be in there and you can be on the executive, you can be one of the movers and shakers and drivers of the organisation or you can be someone that’s happy if someone else has got an idea. You can go along and help out, be on the door and sell tickets and do things like that.”
So, what will it be? Are you driving the direction or a government department somewhere?
See you there.