Regenerate

[00:00:02] Speaker A: It is an honour and privilege to welcome you to Country. My name is Bree Morgan. I'm from this land and place. I'm from a deep bloodline of people who have walked, fought and cared for this land for over thousands of years. I pay my respect to our mother, Mountain Gulagah and the cultural significance she holds. We take pride in country. We feel and embrace it. It is our identity. It is who we are and where we come from. I want to start by recognising that we're the oldest living culture there is, the first and continuous custodians of this land. I am on my great grandmother's country, Yuin Country. My great grandmother was born at Tilba and raised in Wallagar. She was a Thomas who met my great grandfather, a Morgan. He was from Kumarangar, which is down near the Victorian border where he grew up there on the reserve. They married and five kids later were living in Cobargo as the first Aboriginal family to move off the Wallagga Lake Mission into wire society. With that being said, I go forward with respect by acknowledging the Djiranganj people of the Yuin Nation as the original inhabitants of this land, waterways and airspace on which we gather upon. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Welcome to Stepping Up, a four part podcast series about community leadership in the face of disruption. This is our final episode. Regenerate just quickly. Before we get into it, we wanted to let you know about something exciting. The Bega Valley Investing in Rural Community Futures Program, or ircf, was a finalist at the New South Wales Resilience Australia Awards and was highly commended in the local government category. [00:01:40] Speaker C: Allowing the community to excel and thrive has been evident in this program like where we've worked with people that they felt heard and listened to and then trusted to go and do what what they considered was the right solution or the solution for this place. And it is the people of a place who will make that place better or stronger or more engaging. [00:02:09] Speaker B: I'm Leah Santo. I've lived and worked in the beautiful Bega Valley on the far south coast of New south Wales for 15 years. In this episode we'll cover everything from the big plans and ambitions of community groups to how we think about the building blocks of what leadership is and how we support and foster a strong community sector. We'll hear from Carolyn Adler from the foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal, Nicole Weber from Quality Matters Consulting, Alex Bulgakov from Renewable Cobargo, and Vanessa Spinelli from Grow the Future. Each has been connected to the IRCF program. The aim of this grassroots program is to support and strengthen the capacity of NFPs, enabling them to thrive and have a positive impact on community wellbeing overall. In less than two years the program has engaged about 150 organisations and trained 45 community leaders in the Beaker Valley Shire. [00:03:06] Speaker C: My name's Carolyn Adler and I live on yon country in the Yerrapa Dallah and work from home for the foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal. I'm one of 35% of our staff that actually work 100% remotely and FRRR for those if you don't know much about it is a charitable foundation that connects common purpose and funding from government, business and philanthropy and our vision is for a vibrant, resilient and revitalised rural remote Australia. [00:03:39] Speaker D: I'm Nicole Weber from Quality Matters Consulting. We help people at a strategy level so we do a lot of strategic planning and health helping enterprises put those plans into action. We also provide support around things like governance and policy, managing people leadership and developing up leaders skills and confidence. I'm based in Jindabyne but I do a lot of work in the Bega Valley. I've been working in that space for the last about 30 years which feels like a really long time but it has gone very quickly. [00:04:20] Speaker E: My name is Alex Bulgakov, I'm originally from Ukraine but I grew up in Sydney and I've been living in Bermagui in the bega Valley since 2020. I am a committee member of the Cobargon District Energy Transition Group which also goes by the name of Renewable Cobargo. We're a community group formed in 2020 in the aftermath of the Black Summer fires and our goal is to improve energy security and energy efficiency in Cobargo and the surrounding regions and and also to help with the transition to clean and local energy generation. [00:05:00] Speaker F: I'm Vanessa Spinelli. Hey everyone. I live up in Nunbugga on 70 acres. About four years ago I moved down to the Beaker Valley with my family onto vacant land. It's been a pretty big journey but we love it and my background is in community development which is exactly where Grow the Future is at. So Grow the Future is a social enterprise that exists to create opportunities for young people. The main vehicle that we do that through is running an urban farm and regenerating the land. We offer training, employment and engagement opportunities for young people in a hands on outdoor project based supportive environment. [00:05:43] Speaker B: For the Beaker Valley which was hit hard by the Black Summer bushfires. The idea of regeneration is literal as well as figurative. A crisis can be a turning point for any community. A time when local people can face an overwhelming number of challenges, placing community leaders at risk of burnout in the wake of significant disaster. When day to day life has been so utterly disrupted. Communities galvanize in unprecedented ways and are often inspired to reimagine the future. As I've witnessed in our region, this can result in the initiation of hugely ambitious projects as people are reinvigorated by seeing the power of community collaboration and connection in tangible ways. Another critical aspect of regeneration is the way in which it illuminates what is needed to ensure the sustainability of community groups and not for profits and the leaders who help drive them. In a world where success is often associated with scale, it's easy to forget that local community groups and NFPs are often doing sophisticated and specialized work tailored to the unique dynamics of place. This isn't cookie cutter planning or cut and paste implementation. Effective community leaders are often highly attuned to local quirks and ways of of working. They have the knowledge necessary to work in a way which maximizes the strengths and interests of their community members. This equips them to problem solve in an impactful way as they adopt a holistic perspective, viewing their own efforts as a way they can contribute to the collective resources and strengths of their local community. Next is Carolyn. [00:07:28] Speaker C: When you think about not for profits that are locally based, they really are the fabric that give community their unique identity to have them collaborate together and stitch their ideas and philosophies. It builds a beautiful tapestry across the shires and the communities themselves and strengthens that community as a whole. When you bring communities together, they actually identify the strength of working closer together. So naturally or inevitably they will identify those gaps together as a community, as opposed to sort of a program identifying what the gaps are. So providing that space for people to come together and organizations to come together and sit together and converse really allows the community from the grassroots level to identify what the gaps are and then how they within that community may solve them and they may come up with that solution themselves. And that's what we've seen a lot within this program, is the community groups identifying that whilst they might not have a strength, another organisation may, and so then they'll reach out. We've also found that when they don't have that skill set or knowledge within the community, they then can advocate and ask for that help or for that subject matter expertise to be brought in to then strengthen them even further. [00:08:59] Speaker D: Yeah, so one of the things I've noticed a couple of things across my career working in the for purpose space. And that can mean with business and it can also mean working with nonprofits. There's a couple of observations I would have about leadership in communities. One of them is that there are often people who hold leadership roles in communities who they may not necessarily be considered a designated leader, so they might not be on council or the mayor, you know, their title might not include manager or CEO. They are the known leaders in the community. They often hold a great deal of knowledge about the community, about how it works. It doesn't mean to say that they've been there forever. They don't have to have been there forever. Sometimes people just have that ability to make those connections and provide that leadership. What can happen is that a lot of responsibility falls to them and so they are seen as the go to person and the mover and the shaker and we need to make sure that those people are supported so that they don't burn out, basically. And also that they have the skills and the knowledge that they might need in terms of leadership to make sure that they can do that in a really sustainable way. The other thing I think that's really important to remember is that people who have that knowledge, that local knowledge, are in a really great position to provide information to organisations, for example, like funding bodies or back to government, to say what it is that is needed in the community. So rather than that information coming from outside that, it comes from within the community. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that and acknowledge that communities are best placed to know most often best place to know what it is that they need and what's going to work. [00:11:03] Speaker E: Volunteer community projects do benefit hugely from having input from all different parts of the community. Everybody will benefit from having diversity in the committees as well as in the broader volunteer workforce. The different points of view that we get from different age groups, from different backgrounds, genders and walks of life will always help us provide a service, whatever that service is, that is more fit for the community and more inclusive. There's been so many times on diverse committees where somebody's pointed out something that was a blind spot to me, but was obvious to them, for example, because of their particular background, their particular life experiences and vice versa. So I feel like I've been able to be that person and that's happened to me a lot of times. When everybody's the same, you don't get that kind of variety of points of view. I think I speak for most, hopefully all volunteer organizations is that we're all trying to do something that benefits a part of the community that we care about. We need to get input from as broad a range of community members about whether what we're doing is right for the community. And the way to do that is to have representation and communication with as broad as possible number of people. Diversity is key. It's. Yeah, it's been so beneficial in my professional life and it's so important in volunteer groups. So whatever we can do to make sure that our spaces and our volunteer groups are inclusive across a broad range of people is very, very. [00:12:51] Speaker F: Fundamentally grow. The Future exists to create spaces for young people to grow. And at the moment, predominantly we use food production and land regeneration as the avenue through which to do that. A social enterprise, in really plain terms, is the cross between a business and a charity. In lots of ways it's a more adaptable version of a charity and you can self determine your trajectory a little bit more through the income that you generate yourself. So because you're generating your own revenue, you have a little bit more control about where you head, obviously based on your purpose and what you've outlined to do for the community and the impact that you're trying to have. And I think that governments and community are starting to become more interested in social enterprise as a business model because of that adaptability and also because of the financial sustainability of them. For us at Grow the Future, as someone who operates in a social enterprise, it feels good to be able to be less reliant on the priorities of your investors and to be more responsive and guided by the priorities of your community and the people you are there to impact. If we had a world where all businesses had as part of their business model a social impact, then we're all going to be a lot better off, aren't we? [00:14:30] Speaker B: The IRCF program gave us a great opportunity to dive deeply into what leadership means to different people and allowed us to gain insight into how highly nuanced and progressive leadership can be. As a concept, the stakes in post disaster recovery can be high. If local groups and not for profits are interacting with a host of external groups and resources, it's critical that they're on the same page as to who the leaders are and what local leadership looks like. Next we hear from Nicole. [00:14:59] Speaker D: I think that ideas about leadership are evolving. I do think we need to make sure that we don't just think about leadership as a formal thing, that we think about it as something that is more of an intuitive thing. And so I do think that it's useful to always be reflecting on how we think about leadership. This idea that oftentimes people lead because they're motivated by that idea of community service. They're motivated by wanting to see things improve in their community. And so they just get on with it and do it. And people see that they're inspired by it and they naturally follow. [00:15:46] Speaker C: During this program, the Investing in Rural Community Futures program, we actually provided a structure around four important pillars and those were people, which is obviously the most important resource in a community. Systems, which really is about not just the systems within their own organisations, but the system itself, the whole ecosystem of the community efficiencies or those collaborative ideas where coming together and identifying where there's strengths and where gaps can be filled. And what we found is when they do that and put on their oxygen mask first and then really look at what within themselves they can strengthen, then when they take a look up into the vision for themselves, they've then identified strategy is. And a way forward is the next step, really. And we've provided that space, I guess, for them to get to that point where they connect and then strengthen themselves and then look at ways to move forward and to plan together. [00:16:53] Speaker F: For us at Grow the Future, we probably view leadership a little bit differently. I mean, growing food can be monotonous, it can be tedious, it's definitely physical work, it's outdoors, it's in the sun, sometimes it's hot, sometimes it's a drag. So it's not necessarily the most obvious way to engage young people consistently, though. What we find is that every young person who comes down to Grow the Future seems to be looking for confidence, connection and capacity, either all of them or some combination of them. And that's the main thing that we try to be able to give back through young people coming and, you know, either working or training. Beyond that sort of consultation that we are all recommended to engage in, I think involving young people in tangible and practical ways offers them the experience that they might be looking for, but also harnesses the energy that they bring and helps our communities thrive. One of the really lovely things about my job is that I get to watch all of these young people take leadership on site in so many different ways. Whether it's through finding out that they had a new skill, either me finding out or they themselves finding out. Whether it's showing social leadership, mentoring or also just having some maturity around some of the interpersonal relationships that happen on site, it's really beautiful. I think it's really important to consider paying young people for their Work in communities. Young people have got the same cost of living pressures that the rest of us have, and that's even more exacerbated depending on, you know, your background and what demographic of the community you might fit into. For me, leadership is about being the best version of yourself. [00:18:56] Speaker C: What we've found in relation to community leaders and leadership is the ability for leaders to take care of themselves initially and for them to then really notice what they have to give and to give them space. But also the ability for leaders to learn to step out and to pass on the roles that are in community. Community leaders quite often are given the baton through no choice of their own or hold the baton because they choose to. But they then need the skills and ability to do the best they can while they're holding that, but also the ability to pass that on and to share the knowledge that they've had and then to be able to step out, to revive themselves, to then be able to step back into that space and not become burnt out. So really important for them to learn and understand that you can step in and out and that you always have something to give. [00:19:59] Speaker D: There's two things at play. One of them is it's really worth thinking about what sectors do cooperation and collaboration really well. Where do we see, you know, leadership emerging really beautifully? Certainly we might see that happening in activism or in cooperatives. In the arts sector, we might see that happening there, where it's really about purpose. That's the driver. And I think that's useful that we can learn from that so that leadership becomes about purpose. It's not about anything else. It's actually about what are we trying to achieve here. So it's very values driven. The other area that I do think we can learn from in terms of supporting leaders is actually the business sector. Often what happens in the corporate sector in particular, and even in the government sector is that leaders are developed so they're given opportunities for personal and professional development. Their skills are invested in and there are often structures in place that provide them with support and things like succession planning. And I do think there's something to be learned from that so that we don't just assume that leaders, just because they have a whole lot of passion and drive and commitment, that they will be okay. And also that they have all of the skills that are needed to make that leadership sustainable. [00:21:32] Speaker B: Carolyn, Alex, Nicole and Vanessa's reflections illustrate how strong community leaders and effective local organisations are often fueled by big ambitions. From retooling critical physical infrastructure to reimagining the local food system. Community groups in the Bega Valley are achieving amazing things and it's clear that the deep level of expertise they bring to their work is an enormous asset that inspires further growth. Carolyn and Nicole also reflect on the role that the IRCF program and similar efforts can play. It's not trying to mould local people into a universal template of leadership, but to work in service alongside those who are ready to step up, acknowledging their strong understanding of the places in which they live and supporting them to harness that understanding for everyone's benefit. This speaks to the power of connection and collaboration to build networks of mutual support among community leaders, as well as the power of working together to crowdsource a clear set of priorities that Beaker Valley community leaders can advocate for going forward next. [00:22:36] Speaker C: Carolyn when we go into community, it's important for groups and individuals to identify where they might be lacking and needing some support. We really have supported participatory led conversations and learning within IRCF and what we've found is where they haven't identified within the community itself, where there is an asset that they could tap into or use that we've been able to then work to identify those subject matter experts and bring them into the community to provide workshops or one on one support to help them design strategic solutions or to plan on how a strategy that already exists might be activated. So capacity building and this is, it's really hard in capacity building to capture the essence or to capture examples. We're not cutting any ribbons, we're not building buildings. We're supporting those individuals in community to strengthen community and for social change to happen and for people to then have confidence to advocate on behalf of their community or have a conversation with each other and say actually we can do something about that bank closing or we can work on a way to invest in more educational opportunities for our children and really getting together as a collective. We can work on some transport solutions for the region. Things like that are things that pop up in conversations that emerge when people are confidently connected and brave enough to have those conversations because the space has been provided. And that's where with the Shire, that's. [00:24:14] Speaker B: Bega Valley Shire Council, they ran the. [00:24:17] Speaker C: Filling the Gaps series which really provided that ability for the individuals in the groups to identify where their organization might be lacking or what they can add on. And then as a collective group they came back and said, oh, actually we need a little bit more depth in that. Because they didn't actually know where they were lacking until they attended a lot of those workshops and identified where they needed to then build more skills. [00:24:49] Speaker E: There's a lot of studies now that show pretty conclusively that sort of the social health of communities as well as community recovery from disaster events depends much more on grassroots organizations rather than top down decisions. Of course we need, you know, a healthy federal, state, local government infrastructure in order to sustain our community day to day. But the real social health of the community and the ability to take on new projects and adapt to new challenges really comes from grassroots organizations and the community banding together to ask for what we need. So the formal way of organizing this is through volunteer organizations and NFPs. And I think they are very critical in both now and into the future. CSIRO completed a study in the last couple of years using the Cobargo and District Energy Transition Group as one of the case studies for what kind of organizations and people resources you need in a community for it to be able to get back up after a disaster situation. And there is some kind of science now behind what you need. And it does come down to having these community organizations that can pick things up locally and lead a way to recovery. The events of the Black Summer fires are going to have a lasting effect on all of us in some way for generations. But in that recovery process, because of that community banding together and hope that has emerged in a lot of ways. Some projects, some groups were created that are new and positive and hopeful that may not have been created had we not just lived through such a horrible event to say the cliche, the silver lining is that many efforts, many ideas have emerged thanks to some of the funding that we received, but also because the community has been in such a recovery period that we've banded together. [00:27:14] Speaker C: So the program itself, we use the term monology roadmap and there was a structure provided around some directional kind of waypoints of system strategy, efficiencies and people. We sat down and discussed what the not for profit sector saw for themselves going forward. So they identified needs such as more volunteer training or more strategic approaches to things, more collaboration and more investment in people, more connection to first nations culture. They identified a lot of needs and wants that they as a sector haven't ever had the ability to apply for funding for or to be supported in because they're generally volunteer led organisations with little or no income. [00:28:01] Speaker D: Really there's a huge opportunity, particularly in the work that the foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal FRRR have been doing in investing in communities. Over a period of time that program has been working with rural and regional Communities across New South Wales in different ways over that five years, with input from different sources of funding. Something that has been a common thread through that program is a sustained investment in building the capacity of not for profit organisations in those communities. And something that I have seen come from that investment is more collaboration and local responses to local challenges. And sometimes those local challenges, they're the same in different communities. And so whilst the responses have been very localized, there's definitely been a common thread of how those organisations in those different areas have been learning from one another. There's a massive opportunity for not for profit organisations to connect and collaborate, to share information, to share. What have they been working on, that concept of helping people find their people. Because in every small community there are committed but small groups of people who are doing what they can with the energy and the resources that they have. When we broaden that network to connect with many, many other regional communities, investing time and energy into building relationships, stepping away from that idea of competition and looking instead for alignment. So values alignment and purpose alignment and also an alignment just around wanting to make the community a better place. I mean, connecting into that and then looking for great alignment with other organizations and building relationships so that when collaborative opportunities come up, they're actually ready, they've worked out how do we work together and then it really is just about formalizing that and then finding a resource that they can use, whether it's applying for a grant or, you know, whatever that might be. [00:30:45] Speaker F: We work from a strengths based approach. So for young people, you tap into something that they either show ability in or interest in and you work from there. We take people exactly as they come down at grow the future. And for everyone, building capacity looks really different. For some people it's being able to step up into maybe a mentoring role. For other people it's just the routine of being able to turn up on site week in, week out. It's really varied. On a more community level, we also know that harnessing the strength that our community has is going to make us all more robust and able to adapt as needed. Part of that is not, not trying to be everything to everyone and being focused on the purpose that you've set out as an organization or a project. Our operations will most likely, and I think definitely always focus on farming and regenerating land. So we're never going to deviate away from that. But there's certainly room to create more opportunities for young people in our region. [00:32:12] Speaker E: So Cadet was formed in the aftermath of the Black Summer bushfires through a series of community consultations exploring mainly issues of energy resilience for the community. One of the really hard things about recovery from the bushfires, especially in the first few weeks, was that there was no power and very intermittent communication in the area. And the community consultations made it obvious that people wanted a better strategy. They wanted the power to stay on during that critical recovery period. And so Cadet was formed with the goal of increasing energy resilience. In particular. Our first project was to look at forming a microgrid in cobargo. A microgrid is a small subset of the electricity grid, so it could be a neighborhood or it could be, in our case, a whole town that can disconnect from the main electricity grid if needed and continue to power itself using local power generation. In our particular case, we were able to win grant funding to do a detailed technical and social feasibility study. Because a town wide microgrid is actually a pretty novel thing. There's not a playbook yet for how to do it. So we worked for the last three and a half years with an engineering company called ITP Renewables to go through the feasibility and technical design of a microgrid for cobargo and now have a technical outline for the fact that it is feasible. This is one of our main projects. We design what the microgrid would look like from a technical point of view. We are looking at different ways that the community can benefit not only from the backup power, but also financially from having a microgrid in the town. Now we're hoping to move on to the next phase which is looking at development applications for where it could go and funding strategies. The microgrid is going to look like a solar farm, like a mid sized solar farm on the order of a few megawatts and a battery. And that's going to connect to the cobargo substation. And during normal operation, it'll just stay connected to the main electricity grid and generate money by feeding solar energy back into the grid. But during times where the main electricity grid is down, it'll be able to disconnect from the main grid and continue to power cobargo from the solar and battery for hopefully quite a long time, Especially if the community can reduce their energy use during that period of time until the grid is connected back up. So that's been the main project, the main long term project, but we have a very active committee and have ran several projects in parallel. One project that we've just completed that we're really thrilled about is called the Cobago E Hubs. Or energy hubs. We have used grant funding to equip four key community buildings in Cobargo with solar and battery backup systems. The buildings are the Cooperative of Cobargo, the rfs, the School of Arts hall and the Aracel Memorial Hall. And these buildings now have a system that if the main power goes out, they've got their own local solar and battery backup supply and they can continue operating for the community when the main grid is down. Another project that we've run that we're really proud of is that we've employed two part time community energy coordinators. David Neal and Fiona Drumm have been employed by Cobargo and District Energy Transition Team as community energy coordinators, providing one on one consultations to members of the community about things like their energy bills, how they could best employ solar or battery or other new technologies at their household or their business or their farm. They've also helped organize several technology expos. One focusing on heat pumps, a couple focusing on electric vehicles that have really brought out the community and as well as local installers to come and network and learn about new technologies that could benefit them. This energy coordinator program has received really excellent feedback from the community. This is one of the programs which we wish we could continue to fund into the future. But unfortunately because of the nature of the funding available, it's quite difficult to find continuation funding for an employment role, basically a continuous community employee. This is one of the aspects we're struggling with a little bit because we think that kind of community outreach role is so important and so crucial to our organization's theory of change. Like we think that that ability to have one on one consultations about a particular topic is one of the most effective ways to reach the community. But it is also really hard to measure in the short term, which makes it tricky to find funding for. Viet Cadet is really, really proud of what David Neal and Fiona Drum have been able to achieve in that community energy Coordinate all. [00:37:41] Speaker F: There's a really lovely vibe down at Grow the Future that exists between the peer groups that are down there. It's something that the young people look after for themselves. So there's those connections that you see budding on site all of the time. Through the training program we're able to bring in lots of different experts and lots of the feedback from the young people who undertake the training program is that they really love the networks that they're able to establish from participating in that. And it's also maybe something that's a little bit adjacent to that is just that what we do is hands on, it's not screen based. So right from the start we're having direct interpersonal connections just by being on site. One of our philosophies and one of the ways that we work on site is project based work that lets people engage in something that they can see develop from the start, right through to completion. Whether it's planting a seed in the ground and then harvesting the food off it. A construction project where you've got a bunch of materials and you have to work out how to turn them into the tool or the useful piece of infrastructure that you need, whether it's a stool or a greenhouse or whatever it might be. Seeing that progression of an activity and being involved in that activity from the start to the finish has so many opportunities built in it for that person to build the confidence in whatever specific area they need. It's simple stuff, isn't it? We all know that that's what feels good for us. But yeah, it's great to be able to have a space down there where we can practise it. We see ourselves as a stepping stone for lots of young people. Calm down, get what you need and move on to whatever other brilliant thing you're about to do. Every single young person that has come through grow the future has shown up in a way that has been really impressive. And it's just. I think the credit for that should also go to the other young people who have helped plan, design and implement this project. One of the reasons that we've chosen vegetable market gardening as the farming production is that it's really accessible for young people. You don't need a big parcel of land, you don't need a huge amount of capital to get going. If you wanted to get into dairy or beef or something, if you're not going to be inheriting thousands of acres or thousands of head of cattle, you're kind of locked out of that market. And that's a reality for lots of us. So young people have been involved in the project from the start, literally in the design of how it should be structured and how we put it together. They work with us to, well, they have worked with us to develop the site and they continue to work with us to continue developing the site as we kind of grow and tweak things and improve things. And obviously they're involved in the day to day operations at the moment. We're in that position of needing to see how we can become sustainable. [00:41:03] Speaker D: Being able to clearly tell the story of impact. So being able to talk about what is it that we achieve, what do we do and how do we tell that story in different ways. One of them is about collecting data, so making sure that you capture information as you go about the impact that you make in your community so that when it comes time to apply for a grant or go for a partnership or get support, you can demonstrate your impact. So I think that's really important. And also gathering stories from people who are involved in your organisation, so your board members, your staff, people who access your service or your business. So getting those stories of impact that you can then share because that helps you bring more people into your organization. So again, it feeds into succession, planning and that sort of thing. [00:42:04] Speaker C: Allowing the community to excel and thrive has been evident in this program, like where we've worked with people and just direct comments around that they felt heard and listened to and then trusted to go and do what they considered was the right solution or the solution for this place. And it is the people of a place who will make that place better or stronger or more engaging. We just provided space and time for that to happen. To see the regenerate program roll out. It's been quite outstanding. We've actually been working with facilitators in the community and what we did particularly here was embed the program within the Shire Council itself. [00:42:49] Speaker B: Bega Valley Shire Council. [00:42:50] Speaker C: And so that has been a unique journey and really increased the trust of the not for profit sector with council and equally possibly the council realising the gaps that the not for profit sector fill and the energy that they bring to the community. And whilst I'm sure they were always aware of that, just to see it more come to life and for them to see it in a more tangible sense at things like the volunteer expos and all of the workshops that have proceeded and the beautiful emergence event that was curated by the council to bring the leaders together. It's just been a beautiful partnership and quite a live program like a lively, active and action driven program. [00:43:36] Speaker B: Thank you so much for listening to Stepping Up, a Bega Valley Shire Council podcast production. A huge thanks to all our interviewees for this episode, Carolyn Adler, Nicole Weber, Alex Bulgakov and Vanessa Spinelli. And to everyone who spoke to us for stepping up. Find us wherever you find your podcasts. [00:44:05] Speaker G: This podcast is part of the Bega Valley Investing in Rural Community Futures program, a partnership between Bega Valley Shire Council, the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal and the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation. The partnership highlights the importance of networking and collaboration and it supports the capability of of not for Profits in the Bega Valley to recover and thrive in the face of disruption. A full list of links and resources can be found in our show. Notes the music you heard was as We Make We Mend by Dean Gray and Anna Martin-Scrase from the Wolumla School of Music. We'd also like to thank Bree Morgan for her beautiful welcome to Country Project lead Leah Santo Scripting Shona Hawkes Principal Recording, Audio production and editing and sound design by Craig Garrett. The IRCF is a place based capacity building initiative for charitable not for profit organisations in rural, regional and remote Australia. It's delivered by the FRRR with the support of trust based donor partnerships. The IRCF program provides flexible, longer term support, funding and investment in people to build more confident, collaborative, resilient and sustainable communities. This project received grant funding from the Australian Federal Government.