2011 John Jago Award
In announcing the winner, VLGA President Cr Samantha Dunn commented that all the projects represent the best of local government governance as local governments strive to engage and represent their communities.
2011 Award winner
Indigo Shire Council: 2030 Community Vision Project
The 2030 Community Vision Project is a community planning and engagement project aimed at providing a high level pointer for Council and the community for the future. It used innovative methods, including the arts, to access hard-to-reach groups in a geographically large municipality with a dispersed population and to allow different communities to express their vision in a way which worked best for them.
The creative approach included:
- recruiting a local cartonist to do drawings of primary school children in three of our outer schools, of what they thought they would be doing in the year 2030 - what profession would they be working in
- appointing 71 community members who became ‘conversation champions’ who helped gather ideas from others in our communities. Through the various methods used they received 656 responses – 83 short stores, 76 art works, 66 cartoons, 259 recorded conversations and 172 postcards from people aged between 4 and 88
- producing a song that will carry the collective vision through the coming years, and a film.
The winning entry was judged as being a very innovative approach to community planning by a small rural shire with significant challenges around geographical size and dispersed populations. Indigo utilised very creative approaches including the arts and storytelling to enable its various communities to speak in their own voices.
Shortlisted entries
Baw Baw Shire Council: 2050 Project (BB2050)
BB2050 is an innovative community planning project which successfully involved the Baw Baw communities in producing a “dynamic community vision for the future”. It involved more than 1100 people and resulted in the Council revising the Council Plan. BB20050 was based on the understanding that the community itself needed to identify what it wanted for the future and to share responsibility for achieving it. BB2050 is unique in that it has provided the community with the means of identifying this desired future, but also provides immediate tools for its implementation in a number of ways including:
- the strategic Shaping the Future program, a complementary suite of over forty strategic projects to provide the tools to act upon and implement the community’s vision
- Council’s corporate planning program which has been aligned with the community’s vision
- the Baw Baw community planning program.
This is particularly significant in the peri-urban area which is coming under increasing pressure to accommodate growth emerging from the metropolitan area, but not necessarily with the means of proactively responding.
Alpine Shire Council: Harrietville Community Building Initiative Committee project
This project involved the establishment and resourcing of a community committee to engage the Harrietville community and advise Council on priorities of action and funding in Harrietville. The Committee had clearly built respect in the local community and developed positive working relationships with the Council, and the outcomes continue to be a number of successful projects.
Maribyrnong City Council: David House Redevelopment Project
This project is a property and funding partnership involving the Council, the State Government, Annecto Inc. (an NGO) and the David House Community. David House is a community based centre which provides accommodation and support services for people with medium to profound disabilities and their carers. The aim of the project is to guarantee the future of the Centre and to redevelop it. The project involves a complex partnership and negotiation with contested objectives, in a very important area of social and health policy.
All entries
- Hume City Council: Community Engagement Framework and Planning Guide
- Alpine Shire Council/Harrietville Community Building Initiative Commitee: Harrietville Community Building Initiative
- Whitehorse City Council: Activities for the Whitehorse Disability Advisory Committee
- Baw Baw Shire Council: Baw Baw 2050 project
- Wyndham City Council: Truganina Streetscape Improvement Works project
- Indigo Shire Council: Indigo 2030 Community Vision project
- Maribyrnong City Council: David House Community project
More information
For more information about the John Jago Award and the 2011 nominations, including the opportunity to view the detailed entries, please feel free to contact Member Relations Officer, Chelsea Ayling, on (03) 9349 7983 or by
email.