In September and October, I’ve had the privilege of working with sixteen visionary leaders from South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula, who met in the remote Gawler Ranges on Mt Ive Station for the first session of a nine month initiative, “Strengthening Eyre Peninsula”, and then in Whyalla for Session 2.
It is a collaborative project between the Eyre Regional Development Board (ERDB) and the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board (EPNRM Board), who have also identified leadership succession as a key priority and is supported by the State and Australian Governments.
There is increasing evidence to show that regions that perform best are those with strong, diverse and innovative local leadership. Such leadership is a key ingredient of effective community capacity development, which in turn has been shown to be an important foundation of economic development.
Building the capacity of the community to be involved in leadership roles is critical to the ongoing increase in the regions long term viability and sustainability.
Typically, in regional areas the volunteer workload on community leaders is high and the same individuals are often involved in multiple organisations and networks. Leadership “burnout” and succession amongst industry, business and community groups and networks are important issues and are serious impediments to the process of regional capacity building and therefore sustainable economic development. Hence, Strengthening Eyre Peninsula was conceived!
The enthusiasm, passion and resilience of the sixteen participants is inspirational, and each person has a project that they are responsible for introducing and implementing in their local regions. I invited one of the participants to write about his experiences, and he says:
“In early August 2008, I was successful in gaining a place in a leadership program on Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. 16 participants attended at a remote sheep station in the Gawler Ranges. “Mount Ive,” is the station, and is close to the centre of the geological formation of the “Gawler Craton,” a relatively unexplored mass of land with immense mineral promise. No mobile phone reception, no news papers, no television.
It was an ideal choice of venue. The 16 participants, 2 project coordinators, 2 camp cooks and facilitator Karynne Courts were all captive together.
It was a fascinating 4 days.The participant’s background ranged from farming to fishing to government and to volunteers. All were people who wanted to help their own communities.
The quality of the program, together with vibrant presentation led to openness, to such an extent, that the musician in the group created our own song, “You’ve got to have passion.” How good is that? In addition to the amazing course content, we had the bonus of early morning kangaroos, magnificent colours as the sun set, the endless expanse of Lake Gairdner and the camp oven cooks having a smile at people clipping their own ears as they tried whip cracking.
Mt Ive Station will be remembered with great affection by those who willingly shared part of their lives with complete strangers.
Late in October 2008 a second session was held in an industrial town on Eyre Peninsula. The content was again brilliant, and the passion to lead was rekindled. The leadership program has been mentally stimulating and I will convince others to follow my lead.” - Jack Bourke, Wanilla, Eyre Peninsula
In times where prevailing conversations are about doom and gloom, it is refreshing and encouraging to know that there are passionate leaders who are getting on with building and expanding the capacities of their community, with optimism, humour and bucketloads of encouragement and collaboration. We’ll be posting more about this wonderful project in early 2009.
