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 \u201cAchieving Lorne\u2019s Aspirations.\u201d This is a document now used to present our views of Lorne\u2019s future to the agencies both local and state, who oversee planning Lorne\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The workshop was broken up into two sessions:<\/p>\n
The first session involved exploring the Lorne\u2019s Defining Features (as per the Aspirations document) where the students described what they believed was important and special about Lorne.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s Five Aspirational Strategies (as per the Aspirations document) into their models.<\/p>\n
Session 1: Why I love living in Lorne.<\/strong> Session 2:<\/strong> Four small teams built their imagination of Lorne in the future as they\u2019d 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\u2019s Five Aspirational Strategies (as per the Aspirations document). These strategies were summarised for the students as:<\/p>\n a. People working together Each team built their model and was then given the opportunity of describing their model to the whole workshop group. Future aspects of Lorne\u2019s future included:<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n I think it was a really valuable session that will contribute to and enrich CfL\u2019s work from a uniquely different perspective. We are talking about Lorne\u2019s future and these students are the future.<\/p>\n
\nAfter a short introduction, the students were shown Lorne\u2019s 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:<\/p>\n\n
\nThis 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.<\/p>\n
\nb. Community for everyone
\nc. More jobs and successful businesses
\nd. Affordable houses
\ne. Encouraging visitors<\/p>\n\n