Network North Event 1: Building Blocks

» Network North: Building Blocks Event

This event occurred on the 7th of April 2022. Thanks to all who participated! Please find a brief reflection on the event beneath this invite.

Invite:

Join us for the first Network North event, and take part in shaping the foundations of Network North 2022.

Network North aims to be a truly collaborative endeavour. That’s why for the first event, we've outsourced an external and professional community engagement facilitator.

Cissy from Community Think will be leading the network's first workshop, opening up the lines of communication and unlocking our collaborative potential as a group! This is an amazing opportunity for learning, as skills learnt here can be carried over to your own place of business and applied to collaborations and partnerships outside of Network North. We see it as invaluable to the commencement of the Network North initiative, to ensure that the group collaborates effectively, that true co-ownership is established and that the community energy created will fuel us all for the year ahead.

This workshop will include a highly practical element too. Is there something specific holding you or your organisation back? For example, maybe you have trouble funding your operations? You might be struggling to grow your volunteer base? Maybe you see so many opportunities but lack the time, knowledge or capacity to take advantage? We all face challenges in our organisations and also see many opportunities for growth. Let us use the first Building Blocks Event to discuss and decide on topics, event formats and goals for the consequent NN events 2022 to make sure that they positively serve our collective environmental efforts.

Goals of the event:

1. Establish a strong platform for effective communication and collaboration

2. Discuss and decide upon what subsequent NN events should cover and how they should look

Date:

Thursday, 7th of April

4pm - 7pm

Location:

Glenfield Community Centre, 96 Bentley Avenue, Glenfield, Auckland 0629

Network North E1

Visual Summary:

Building blocks visual summary

All done! Reflecting on the event...

Thanks to all who participated in the first Network North 2022 event, Building Blocks. We had a great turnout with 30 people in attendance, representing at least 23 organizations involved in environmental work across North Auckland.

This first event involved connecting, communicating and co-creating and was co-facilitated by Cissy Rock from Community Think and by a representative of the Kaipātiki Project.

After an energetic round of introductions and communication, we dove into the co-creating part of the evening. Circling the room in small groups, we contributed new ideas and fleshed out the details of some existing ideas onto 13 extra large blank pages.

Two topics stood out as clearly important and urgent to the majority of the people in attendance:

1. Behaviour change

2. Engaging with mana whenua and operating in a multicultural setting

We will continue to plan and facilitate events based on the ideas and outcomes of the evening. Our next event, Behaviour Change, will be hosted on the 5th of May.

Discussions on the evening brought about more clarity on what Network North is and what we hope to achieve with it:

1. Our hope is to encompass a broad scope of environmental work (climate action/ carbon zero, transport, infrastructure, zero waste/ circular economy, native forest/ bush/ wildlife restoration work, clean waters, food growing, composting, etc.).

2. Specific focus on the 5 North Auckland Local Boards.

3. This network has a dedicated (Auckland Council funded) facilitator for 2022 (Kaipātiki Project).

4. We aim to create shared learning opportunities.

5. We aim to create time and space to actively collaborate.

6. We will facilitate planned and focussed events (not casual networking).

-posted on the 19/04/2022