Meantime is a youth-focused platform designed to connect young people aged 14–24 across Waitematā with activities, events, and opportunities that inspire creativity, wellbeing, and community. Funded by Auckland Council and developed in partnership with local organisations and young people, Meantime brings together existing youth initiatives while nurturing new ideas through its youth incubator program, Maketime.

Through Maketime, young people receive practical support, mentoring, and funding to develop and launch their own initiatives. Community Think, alongside young people, brought the platform to life and now manages its ongoing development and delivery.

Following the extreme weather events of early 2023, Auckland Council’s Tāmaki Makaurau Recovery Office funded a community-led recovery process for the Sunnynook catchment, including Sunnynook, Totara Vale, and Forrest Hill. Community Think partnered with the local working group to facilitate a broad and inclusive engagement process, bringing together over 100 community members through events, workshops, and conversations.

The process centred on building connections, identifying recovery priorities, and co-creating practical actions under the Sunnynook PACT — focusing on People, Action, Communication, and Trust. Highlights included a large “Neighbourhood Share and Connect” event with skill-sharing stations and recovery discussions, alongside targeted group sessions and a community dinner.

This community-driven recovery plan supports stronger local relationships, improved communication, and practical preparedness, helping to build resilience and confidence across the catchment.

Following the severe weather events of early 2023, Auckland Council’s Tāmaki Makaurau Recovery Office funded a community-led recovery process for Milford. Community Think partnered with the Milford Recovery Group and Milford Residents Association to guide an inclusive, locally driven engagement process.

Using creative methods such as a storyboard trail, targeted street pop-ups, and “coffee and chat” sessions, alongside workshops and an online survey, we reached a wide cross-section of the community. Locals helped shape activities, shared their experiences of the storms, and explored ideas for building resilience and connection in Milford.

The resulting community recovery plan reflects local strengths, shared visions, and practical strategies for the future — a plan that the community helped create, owns, and can carry forward.

Ōrākei Local Board wished to find out what ideas people had for the Town Centre of Ellerslie, in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. We devised a two-part engagement, gathering wishes from community members and using these to set up an online survey on Polis, a platform that allows participants to vote on statements and also add new statements.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

Community Think were approached to lead a process in partnership with the Rodney Local Board, Ngāti Manuhiri and Motu Design (the core project group) to collect community voices to inform the Warkworth Town Centre Plan.

We worked with community leaders to map out the key community stakeholders and understand the best ways to reach them. Broad activations focused on the whole town; including a Festival of Ideas held in the town hall, a custom board game that locals could check out from the library, and an online platform. For those groups we identified as having barriers to participating in these activations, we worked with them to hold smaller and more targeted workshops.

We held a meaning making session based on the main themes surfaced from the engagement, and then worked with the urban designer to transform the ideas into designs. We then went back to the community and did guided a walks around the areas in the community where ideas might be activated to present back visually the community’s ideas. Further feedback was gathered for the urban designer to incorporate into the centre plan.

We worked alongside the newly formed Epuni Fairfield Community Group, and supported two local community activators to build a community-led plan for Epuni Fairfield. Engaging in table talks with people, co-creating a plan and establishing a community organisation that will turn this into action.

West Auckland Together is a collective that was activated during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 to respond to the needs of their local communities.

Community Think worked engaged in twelve in-depth interviews with different organisations involved in the collective, sent out a survey and ran focus groups to capture the process of the collective.

Working alongside an existing youth services network to connect with young people who engaged in a youth-led listening campaign with young people in Dargaville. This led to the creation of a new rangatahi-led group for Dargaville Ngā Potiki Toa Collective.

We also ran a free community organizing workshop in Dargaville for anyone in the community to explore how they can come together to organize around shared goals.

It all begins with an idea.

Community Think engaged in a process of discovery, meaning making and testing with the Mobile Library and Access Service team, a wider Thinking Group from Auckland Council and people who live in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to help understand how a future mobile outreach library could best serve communities in the context of COVID-19.

This process involved working together to find out how the current resources could best be distributed to reach communities experiencing systemic barriers to Participation.

The Community Think collective was contracted by the Kai Collective Te Awaroa to assist them in creating a community-led food security plan for the South Kaipara region.

This involved several months of food talks (using the table talk model), playback theatre and other engagements to collect community voice and create an action plan with the community.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.