Avondale Collaboration

Providing platforms for bringing Avondale together through connection, collaboration, & celebration

VISION

For Avondale to be an awesome connected community

MISSION

To provide platforms for bringing Avondale together through connection, collaboration, & celebration

VALUES

Positivity
Celebration of diversity & difference
Integrity & transparency
Unity & effectiveness
A ‘better together’ approach

Seek the community’s highest good for present & future

Be connected - look for ways to build belonging & connection & be compassionate & forgiving

Assume that together we know more – work to understand the assumptions, opinions & ideas of others

Fast, fun & productive – stay on task, park issues outside the meeting purpose for later, accept parameters (don’t hijack – ask ‘am I helping or hindering fast, fun & productive?’)

Be accountable for what you think, feel, say & do – reflect, own your ‘stuff’ & your ‘stuff-ups’, apologise, & make amends

Be respectful

Open your ears & your mind – listening is not just waiting for your turn to speak

Be present – turn down your ‘shark music’. If you’re worrying about the future or responding to something in the past you miss what’s happening in the moment & become reactive, not receptive

Share airtime – everyone participates; no one is allowed to dominate

Be courageous – dare to stretch your comfort zone

Be proud & celebrate – acknowledge & celebrate success, courage, & effort

The Avondale Collaboration emerged / evolved out of a collaborative Pomegranate place-making project scoped early in 2017 by Avondale Community Action, Community Waitakere and the Community Empowerment Unit. This evolved into a Hub and Recreation Centre place-making project on the 3 Guys Site using an adapted Pomegranate process (June 2017 – Nov 2018), led by Neighbourhood Team Policing with the support of Community Waitakere and many others.

When the pop-up hub project was put on hold in Oct 2017 and then the site purchased by Panuku those involved continued to meet and over time came to be called the Avondale Collaboration as this described the way the group worked and its aspirations.

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The Collaboration delivered the Stand-Up Avondale event in May 2018. Following Stand-Up those attending Collaboration meetings resolved to continue to work together to foster collaboration in Avondale. They considered their next steps which included supporting the Avondale visioning workshops, support for more ‘collaborative activity and bringing together to build networks’, and the support and delivery of stand-up feedback suggestions.

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In the second half of 2018 the Collaboration supported the Avondale Visioning Workshops.

To support more collaborative activity, mid-way through 2018 Community Waitakere brought some of the key organisers of Stand Up together. The group reflected on the collaboration’s journey and felt that a steering group was needed to ensure the collaboration’s resilience, to convene meetings with support from Community Waitakere and to do the background support work. They formed themselves into a Steering Group and began work with Community Waitakere to formalise the Collaboration through drafting a vision, mission, purpose, values and strategic priorities, which were presented to the wider Collaboration group for their review and input. Towards the end of  2019 administration support / coordination of the Collaboration shifted jointly to Steering Group members Mel Yalomatua and Mandy Siita, with Community Waitakere shifting into fund holder role.