2010 Planning Week - Planning for Community Hubs Forum - call for Expressions of Interest

2010 Planning Week - Planning for Community Hubs Forum – call for Expressions of Interest

The PIA Social Planning Chapter will convene a one-day forum in Planning Week on the topic of Planning for Community Hubs.

Expressions of interest to participate and suggestions for topics are sought from Chapter members and others. These include suggestions for keynote speakers and case study presentations.

I plan for the forum to include several keynote speakers and two or three break-out sessions where participants can discuss aspects of planning for community hubs in detail.

Please feel free to forward this email to your contact lists.

Expressions of interest should be forwarded to Eula Black [eblack@planning.org.au] at the PIA by the 16th July 2010. These can be in an email, with the proposed title, presenter details and a short (max 250 words) description of the topic.

If you would like to discuss the Forum, please send an email to Eula and she will forward it to me.

Conferences and Forums

The PIA Social Planning Chapter Forum on the 23rd July was very sucessful, and we are now planning follow-up activities. It is a credit to the speakers, who shared their stories about undertaking social planning in disastery recovery contexts.

I also recently attended the IAP2 "Changing Climate, Changing Communities" Conference. This was another successful event, where a wide range of speakers talked about the issues around engaging with communities about climate change. One key thing I took away from the Conference was the need to make it real and personal. It's no good talking about scientific concepts which most people find quite abstract , like atmospheric carbon dioxide. Even talking about things like coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef doesn't necessarily bring it home. People need to hear the story about how climate change may affect them individually before they will really engage on the issue.