A community is not just a bunch of people who happen to live in the same place. It requires work and dedication to build and maintain relationships and a sense of common purpose.
This weekend the 30th Merimbula Classic was staged. This event is promoted as the longest running wave sailing event in the world, and some have argued one of the biggest event of it’s kind.
Perhaps there are not a lot of events that involves sail boarding, kite surfing and stand up paddling – but it is fairly impressive that a town with a population of <5,000 people has achieved this milestone.
The reason is that a bunch of folks felt passionate about establishing and sustaining this event. They have this shared sense of purpose. Because they share the passion/purpose they have stuck with this project and built it up over the years.
In addition to this Wind/Wave festival the town also hosts a large Jazz Festival held in June, this has also been running for 30 years, plus a number of smaller events spread throughout the year. The community understands that continually bringing tourists into the region is essential to make the area economically viable.
In general I think you will find that rural areas, like Merimbula, have a stronger sense of community than urban areas. People are more willing to help each other, and seem to be able to make time to help (more importantly).
The same principles apply bringing resilience into an organisation
Building a community does not just happen. You cannot introduce “Communities of Practice” without spending time on building that community.
I little while back I was working with a group that was seeking to establish a community-approach to continuity/recovery processes across Government Agencies. It was (and still is) a great idea, but it just assumed that being common tenants of a large Data Centre, or critically reliant on services delivered from a shared location, made these agencies a community.
It doesn’t – this is where we have to work at the people aspects and the relationships. This is an essential part of making our organisations more resilient.
Help your people to become more resilient first.
Help the communities they live in become more resilient, especially if your organisation operates in these communities too.
What communities can you/should you be building around your organisations supply chain?
The Classic also gave me an excuse to experiment with some new video editing, and video posts. Enjoy some of the action, excuse the shaky camera work!
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