Kia ora
Fab Feathy’s application to the Community-led Development Programme was successful! We recently met with DIA, and the feedback on our application was that it was a straightforward decision for the Crown Panel. Awesome work Featherston!
Seven out of the nine communities that were invited to apply in the September round were selected. This is in addition to the five selected in the open round in March 2017. So, Featherston, we are one of twelve communities in the country to be selected for this programme. Resilient Carterton was also selected, for two years. This a great outcome for the Wairarapa Region.
Featherston has been selected for five years – this tells us the Crown Panel and DIA are very confident that our community has a robust plan and willingness to work together to achieve our shared aspirations. Of course, we already knew this but now we have some resourcing to get things done!
We wanted to give you a sense of next steps and likely timeframes for getting things happening with the community-led partnership with DIA. For those of you that like more detailed explanation please refer to What next and what kind of support is available , otherwise, the following outlines the next steps for the Fab Feathy Community-Led Development Project:
- Fab Feathy is currently working to draft a five-year partnership agreement with DIA for the Community-Led Development (CLD) Programme.
- The focus of the CLD Programme Partnership is “Communities Working Together”, following the principles of community-led development, to achieve shared visions and goals.
- Fab Feathy will remain the steering/governance group in the establishment phase of the partnership, holding the relationship with DIA. We will co-opt further members from the community as appropriate/needed. The intention is to set up a stakeholder group for those also involved in the community space in Featherston.
- Our approach will be consistent with that outlined in the Our Future Featherston Community Plan plan and in our application to the CDL Programme. A copy of Fab Feathy’s CLDP Application is attached.
- We intend to employ either one full-time coordinator or a couple of part-time coordinators by the end of February 2018. When we are in a position to, we will advertise the role within the community.
- The coordinator/s and Fab Feathy’s role as we go forward will be to facilitate and support the community (with stakeholders) to work together towards shared aspirations.
- We hope to organise a community event in February 2018 to celebrate being selected and formalising a partnership with the DIA.
- We aim to hold the first of our planned quarterly community meetings by the end of March 2018. Fab Feathy and the coordinator/s will facilitate discussions at this meeting about what community projects to get started on. We hope to get the first community projects off the ground early- to mid-2018.
- Some funding is available. There is no set dollar value that comes with being selected. We will need to apply to the CLD Programme Crown Panel for project funding and each proposal will be considered on its merits. It will be the role of the coordinator/s to manage the submission process. DIA will work with the coordinator/s, Fab Feathy and the community to support us to prepare each proposal.
- Key factors we will need to cover off for any funding proposal are: what outcomes we are wanting; evidence of community mandate for the proposal; what resources the community (and stakeholders) are contributing to the project; the plan for future sustainability; whether there are other, more appropriate, sources of funding (e.g. Lotteries Community Facilities).
Fab Feathy
(Fab Feathy: Liz Mellish; Alan Maxwell; Mark Shepherd; Phil Dittmer; Kara Pennington; Siv Fjaerestad; Sarah Taylor-Waitere)
