1. Member’s forum February 2019
Regional Association of Neighbourhood & Community Houses

2. AGENDA 11.00-11.15 Short Break 12.30 -1.00 Lunch
Welcome to Members and Acknowledgement of Country/ Apologies 
10.10 – Community Development in Action – Food for thought (Sue Birch)
Lancefield Neighbourhood House (Vivien Philpot)
Short Break
11.15 – Growing Abundance (Ingrid Button)
Bendigo Foodshare (Cathie Steele)
Lunch
Open Forum

3. Community Development in Action – Food for thought (Sue Birch)
Why is food an important issue for Neighbourhood Houses?
What is our understanding of community needs?

4. Community Development in Action – Food for thought
What is “food security” ?

5. Community Development in Action – Food for thought
How can we develop “good practice” community development approaches to food security at the community level?
1. Local Food Connect (LFC)
2. Castlemaine Community Lunch

6. Community Development in Action – Lancefield Neighbourhood House (Vivien Philpot)
Over many years, the Lancefield NH has been involved in a wide range of community development strategies to address the issue of food security.
Vivien, the LNH Coordinator, will provide an overview of this work and the importance of providing sustainable access to fresh, locally grown produce.

7. Community Development in Action – Growing Abundance (Ingrid Button)
Growing Abundance is an inspiring, multi-strategic approach to building the capacity of local communities to grow, eat and learn about local food production and distribution. Ingrid will share the GA story and the community development strategies that GA has used to provide accessible, sustainable, healthy, local food.

8. Community Development in Action – Bendigo Foodshare (Cathie Steele)
Bendigo Foodshare collects food that would otherwise go to waste, and distributes it through charities, community organisations and schools throughout Central Victoria. Many NHs in our Network access food from BF to distribute within their communities and/or provide community meals. Cathie will provide us with an understanding of the work currently undertaken by BF and the requirements and challenges associated with providing a sustainable food distribution service in a rural location. .

9. Open Forum
Updates
Information
Issues

10. NH Community Transport project
NHCTP Project Scope and Methodology
Significant decisions have been made in relation to the NHCTP scope and methodology including:
Engaging 4 Project Officers/Teams to work with the Project Manager to develop the 4 models & resources
Adopting an action research approach to support the development of NH CT programs while developing the models and resources

11. NH Community Transport project
Neighbourhood House
Model
Rushworth Community House
Community Taxi Service
Swan Hill Neighbourhood House
Transport to health services in regional cities and Melbourne
Maldon Neighbourhood Centre
Linking small towns to existing services in a larger rural town
Lancefield Neighbourhood House & Romsey Neighbourhood House
Addressing the transport needs of financially disadvantaged community members to improve access to existing welfare and health services.

12. Participatory Action Research Process
What do we need to do?
What is happening now ?
What would be preferable?
How could we achieve this?

13. Project Milestones - December 2018 – June 2019
Partnerships established to develop 4 models using modelling tool
February 2019
First drafts of models completed
March
Modelling workshop convened to provide the opportunity for the 4 NHs involved to provide input into the development of each model.
Final drafts of models completed
April
NHCTP Reference Group endorses models
May
Draft Project Report Completed
June
Final Project report completed.

14. RANCH Mentoring Program
Group approach – All Coordinators are welcome
Based in Bendigo
Every 6 weeks for approximately 2 hours
First session late March /early April

15. Annual NH Survey
DHHS will not be funding a survey this year NHVic will need to organise and resource a modified survey to be able to maintain annual data collection to be used for planning, evaluation and advocacy