26 & 27 August 2015 – Keynote presentations and workshop at Power to the People Conference, Melbourne (Australia):

· ABCD in Action: People want a life, not a service

· ABCD in Action: Making small the new big

This unique Australian national conference was organised jointly between Bank of Ideas and the Municipal Association of Victoria, and it featured Cormac Russell as one of the keynote presenters

This annual national event continued to focus on the fact that we are living in times of unprecedented change and complexity and that governments are becoming increasingly aware they often do not have the answers to the major challenges confronting society.

What does all this mean? Local communities will need to find solutions from within. Building community health, resilience, connectedness and inclusion will increasingly be the focus of local government. Local communities will need to re-localise, build from the inside out and take responsibility for their own future.

The conference explored:

· Communities transitioning beyond engagement and beyond dependency.

· The global trend towards community empowerment with a new emphasis on localism.

· How great communities don’t just happen – they are created, nurtured and sustained by caring and involved residents.

· Devolved community planning, community governance, building social capital, improving community wellbeing and providing public value.

· How fewer dollars for local government means a greater focus is needed on what’s important to communities.

Continue reading here.

Download the flyer.

Read the Thoughts, Comments, and Points for Discussion document.

You can also read about the 2014 conference here and see Cormac Russell message for that conference below.