Building Resilience in Communities
Following on from the excellent ‘Building Strong Communities’ course held in February at Trafford Hall, CGA delegates attended a follow-up course titled ‘Building Resilience in Communities’ presented, once again, by the indomitable Mekor Newman from Newman Francis.
Building on the foundations covered in the previous course, this session initially reiterated the basics of building a strong community and then progressed to the, perhaps even trickier, task of maintaining these communities, making them resilient and keeping them sustainable.
To this end the course covered, amongst other things, the process of identifying the continually changing needs of the community, maintaining a balanced voice that continues to represent that community, taking action based on these evolving requirements and, of course, evaluating the impact of the actions taken.
Of course, all of the above is wasted unless tenants and communities can see the results of their hard work and planning.
As a consequence, the second half of the course focused on achieving those results. Introducing strategies for win/win results for communities, exerting influence in the right places and in the right way, and developing negotiation skills to successfully attain those goals.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world, and when things aren’t going to plan we need to be able to resolve conflicts and maintain a calm professional demeanor, skills which we covered in the final part of the course.
As usual there was an ideal mix of discussion, interaction and even roleplay, which allowed us to absorb the information in a fun and enjoyable environment.
The venue was again a delight and the course presented, by Mekor, with its usual panache.
All in all, another excellent course with even more ideas to filter up into the CGA’s ethos and working practices.
Wren Giles
Involved Tenant