Community plan organisation to incorporate

The Community Plan Central Coast organisation is set to move forward to incorporation and continue its campaign to have the new Central Coast Council adopt its grass roots manifesto.

A meeting of participants and supporters held at Pearl Beach on October 7 recommended a five-point strategy which includes a proposal to incorporate Community Plan Central Coast as a not-for-profit member-based organisation.

"Consistent with our processes which see all directional and policy issues determined by community-advertised public meetings, this recommendation will be presented, questioned, debated and amended, and determined at a meeting to be held at Ourimbah RSL from 10am to 12:30pm on Saturday, November 25," said Dr Davy.

"The recommendation comprised five strategies, the first being that the organisation's over-riding purpose, its 'raison d'etre', is to have a peoples' plan that sketches a preferred future for the Central Coast residents.

"The plan and its strong community support, gives political legitimacy and strength to the work of representatives who pursue it.

"There is much work, both organisational and intellectual, which requires an organisational group of people with research and writing skills and a knowledge of management procedures.

"Its job will be to organise and maintain a thorough community-wide and community-engaging set of procedures which results in an over-arching 'vision' statement, a succinct statement of goals for each policy, an endlessly refreshed, up-to-date community plan.

"Central Coast residents will want their Council to be heavily engaged in planning, and integrating planning across all 18 policy categories in the community plan and immediately attending to the most pressing policy categories."

Dr Davy said another strategy in the recommendation would be for the new organisation to organise a series of events each year that are designed to assist the Council to better understand, and act, on pressing issues.

The policy areas requiring the most urgent audit, summit and/or triage were environment, caring, youth, housing, arts and culture, pensioners, economy, small business and planning.

"There are many environmental matters requiring attention, some more urgent than others.

"We do not have a comprehensive log of old issues requiring repair, current issues to be addressed or future issues to be avoided with near-future actions.

"Nor do we have an ordering of priority environmental issues confronting residents.

The third strategy examines ways to market the new organisation so it has visibility and strong, ongoing community support.

Strategy four related to how the newly-formed group would approach the next Central Coast Council election in 2020.

The final strategy put forward from the meeting was to seek endorsement for the incorporation of the organisation, to be called Community Plan Central Coast Inc.

"CPCC will have a formal structure designed to facilitate its purposes, collect and expend monies, and provide clear guidelines in which its members and office bearers are expected to act."

SOURCE:

Media release, 11 Oct 2017

Van Davy, Community Plan Central Coast