Now, our biggest engagement project has been nominated in the National Awards for Local Government — Cohesive Communities.

The award recognises local government initiatives which foster a sense of belonging, identity and shared values and promote civic rights and responsibilities.

Like families, businesses and councils across Australia, Glen Eira City Council is feeling the impacts of rapid inflation and rising costs. We needed to look at the best — and most responsible — ways to spend the money the community trusts us to manage. Thousands of residents provided ideas and opinions about the services you value most, and how you think Council should fund them.

The widespread engagement gave our community the time, connections and knowledge to discuss and decide on our key spending priorities — bringing high-level planning and community empowerment to people from all walks of life.

We received nearly 2,000 community survey responses and conducted more than 2,300 conversations through 17 pop-up engagements.

Together with translators, carers, teachers, advisory committees and community champions we worked directly with multicultural groups refugees, people with disabilities and senior through 14 targeted engagement activities. We connected with 152 young people across five targeted pop-up sessions and held creative drawing activities with 54 children.

Our Community Priorities Panel, a deliberative panel of 35 people, reflected our community’s demographics and diversity.

Whether people had their say online, participated in the panel or drew a picture of what they like about Glen Eira, every response counted.

Council unanimously voted to use the community’s feedback and Panel’s recommendations to inform future planning and decision making.

To vote for Our Priorities, Our Future visit https://tinyurl.com/VoteNalg2024 and search Our Priorities, Our Future.