Event Recap: Maldon matters

More than 40 people turned out in Maldon on Sunday 21 July to engage with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor on what matters for Tarrengower Ward, and how to build a collaborative, productive relationship between community and Council. Check out the full recording below.

What do locals love about Maldon and Tarrengower Ward?

It was clear that the locals at the meeting care about the natural environment, the scenic landscape, diverse birdlife, and rolling hills, as well as living in a friendly community. Walkability was also mentioned and building a diverse and thriving business community.

Celebrations and events are a big part of Maldon and surrounds: the Twilight Dinner, Easter Parade, Folk Festival, Gothic Festival and TEDx events, and heritage was raised as critical to the community’s identity, history and future: preserving historical sites and structures as a source of pride for residents.

How can community and council work well together?

The meeting explored where Council contributes to that through grants, promotions and maintaining town and environmental quality through planning.

A core discussion as well as the importance of community drive and energy and the vital role of volunteers.

There were tangible ideas for making this even better: the Mayor and Deputy Mayor committed to re-establish listening posts in Maldon in the coming months, there was a suggestion to better coordinate across the many community groups in the ward; and a plan to establish ongoing conversations with Councillors and Council representatives.

What next?

The meeting concluded with a roadmap for future actions and a commitment to meet again.

The meeting was a significant step toward enhancing engagement and collaboration with Council, laying the groundwork for a stronger relationship with government and a more connected and proactive local community.

Here's a recap from Rosalie Hastwell

Meeting notes

What do locals love about Maldon and Tarrengower Ward?

• Natural environment, landscape, birds, hils
• Friendly community
• Walkability
• Thriving and diverse businesses
• Celebrations and events
• Intact heritage

What works?

• Value our volunteers
• Many community groups active in Maldon, let’s bring them together
• Use Council’s existing channels: your local councillor, or reach out to another Councillor, Shape Mount Alexander, website, listening posts

What could be better?

• Council trying different avenues of engagement
• Getting responses from Council to every email (even if it just ‘we have received this and it is being actioned) – does Council use a CRM?
• A culture of good service in every staff member at Council
• Showing that feedback has been heard, even if the decision was different
• More active engagement of local Councillors
• Community toning down the rhetoric directed at council
• Community understanding how decisions are made and why
  •  A random selection of people from community engaging regularly in council/council decisions?
• Don’t use social media to raise grievances - influence
• Learn from other Councils
• More community meetings with Council (like this one!)

What will we do next?

• Conversations with Council and Council members
• More of these kinds of meetings
• Leverage Tarrangower Tomorrow as a lot of work has already been done
• Continue having conversations on the radio
• Community groups getting together and having open conversations
• Aligning the various community groups in Maldon
• Getting the community together more frequently
• Don’t believe everything you read on Facebook
• Running grant writing workshops
• Reactivating what Primary students know about talking and leadership
• Have more meetings like this
• Regular listening posts with Councillors
• We need a new engaged Councillor; need to hear from likely candidates about their views and where they’re heading
• Importance of heritage being a solid platform for Maldon to connect with Council

Full event recording

The audio quality isn't excellent as we have a basic AV setup, but we think it's better to share for more people to understand the kinds of things we discussed.