Committee for Lorne runs Workshop for Lorne p-12 College students

During 2017, the Committee for Lorne (CfL) sponsored a series of workshops to involve members of our community in the process of updating our document “Achieving Lorne’s Aspirations.” This is a document now used to present our views of Lorne’s future to the agencies both local and state, who oversee planning Lorne’s future.

Three workshops were held in Lorne, and one in Melbourne, which was particularly well attended. These workshops were facilitated by Steve Atkinson, a Lorne resident and Australian Director of Reos Partners, an international consultancy who are global leaders in the art and science of systemic change.

Steve and Alain Purnell, committee member of CfL decided that, if our Aspirations Plan was to truly reflect the aspirations of our community for Lorne’s future, the views of the youth in our community needed to be heard. Fourteen students from years 5-9 at the Lorne P-12 College participated in a workshop, exploring their views and aspirations for Lorne. It was also attended by Geoff Couper (deputy principal) and Alain Purnell. There was lots of energy and enthusiasm from the students throughout the session and surprisingly insightful, interesting and creative ideas.

The workshop was broken up into two sessions:

The first session involved exploring the Lorne’s Defining Features (as per the Aspirations document) where the students described what they believed was important and special about Lorne.

The second session involved a model building exercise where four groups of students built their ideal future of Lorne out of Lego blocks. These models were built to incorporate their ideas about what an ideal future Lorne would look like. The students were also asked to incorporate elements of Lorne’s Five Aspirational Strategies (as per the Aspirations document) into their models.

Session 1: Why I love living in Lorne.
After a short introduction, the students were shown Lorne’s Defining Features (as per the Aspirations document) in summary form and then asked to comment on what they loved about Lorne and living in Lorne. Here is a brief summary of their responses:

• I love the way the forest comes down to join the beach and Lorne is nestled in the middle
• There are friendly, fantastic people and families here. We’re very lucky
• It’s a great community with a great school that compares well to other schools
• I love the forests and waterfalls at the back
• It’s got good internet
• I love how all the shopkeepers know our names
• I love the pier – it’s an amazing part of Lorne. Good fishing too
• I love it when the tourists come – it’s exciting
• The tourists and great for the shops and businesses
• The footy and netball teams are great
• I love all the wildlife around here.

Session 2:
This session was designed to meet the needs of the students in that it drew upon Lego as a frame for eliciting ideas, concepts and metaphors in a way that is uniquely different to (and cannot be as easily done) using words and lists. Building an imagination of a future state in three dimensions using models can create rich imagery that is impossible to achieve in short periods of time using conventional methods. To read more about this metholodology, head to lego.com/en-us/seriousplay.

Four small teams built their imagination of Lorne in the future as they’d like to see it. At a point in the building process, the groups were paused and then asked to incorporate into their models Committee for Lorne’s Five Aspirational Strategies (as per the Aspirations document). These strategies were summarised for the students as:

a. People working together
b. Community for everyone
c. More jobs and successful businesses
d. Affordable houses
e. Encouraging visitors

Each team built their model and was then given the opportunity of describing their model to the whole workshop group. Future aspects of Lorne’s future included:

• More upgrades of roads (such as Deans Marsh road) to get rid of potholes and allow for safe walkways
• A great school
• More people taking care of the bush
• A friendly place to be with lots of people talking to each other
• Good businesses on the street and more jobs to go with it
• A big WELCOME sign to make all people including locals and visitors feel welcome at Lorne
• The whole town is working together like one big business – helping and supporting each other
• There’s an aquarium out near the pier under the water to attract visitors and allow you to see under the sea. There’s also a restaurant near the aquarium
• There is a wind farm for creating sustainable energy for the town
• There is a temple in Lorne to encourage those of different faiths – so we accommodate and welcome diversity in the town and outside people feel welcome here. There is an acceptance of all cultures
• There is an historic centre where people can come and learn about the history of the town – Aboriginal and colonial history of the area
• There is a wide boardwalk from the beach to the pier with market stalls along the side of it.

All of the models for the future of Lorne built by the groups incorporated ideas from some or all of these strategies. The only strategy that the students did not incorporate and seemed indifferent to was related to affordable housing. This is not altogether surprising and is probably due to housing affordability concerns being quite removed from the daily thoughts and worries of 10-15 year olds.

I think it was a really valuable session that will contribute to and enrich CfL’s work from a uniquely different perspective. We are talking about Lorne’s future and these students are the future.

Steve Atkinson
Reos Partners