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.