Character Community

Last week I raised the idea of committing a percentage of discretionary spending to majority marginalised owned or benefitted local enterprises to help them out of a self perpetuating existence, in doing so strengthening the community they live in. I received some support for the idea; however the question of where one finds these enterprises arose. Endeavour Foundation is one enterprise that comes to mind; assembling and selling outdoor furniture, document destruction, supplying survey pegs are some services it provides in giving opportunities for people with disabilities. There are no doubt other such enterprises in Central Queensland. If a list of pre-qualified enterprises was available this would obviously help. Conscious of adding extra tasks to CQ community organisations, if such a list was overseen by them this would add considerable credibility to it. Combined with a loyalty card, as outlined last week, tangible steps to stronger character communities would be made. That was another question asked of last week’s column, what is a character community? A community that nurtures positive character attributes and enhances it as a desirable place for all to live, learn, work, and play. A worthy aspiration, if applied across all groupings that make up a community. Community organisations play a major role in helping marginal groups with this aspiration and thus in developing character communities. However community organisations find themselves using their finite resources in competition with each other, an environment governments contribute towards by tendering out community service deliverables. How much more effective would they be in further developing character communities if at times they combined their resources for projects like the ones suggested above? Thus this is a call to the boards of CQ Community Organisations to discuss the ideas presented and others that could be more effectively performed using combined clout. This unified grass roots approach has the opportunity of not only strengthening the social standing of marginalised people, but the community organisations themselves and the character communities they operate in. Majority marginalised owned or benefitted enterprises could, if they are not already, make this aspiration more achievable by being more visible to at least the community organisations of CQ and seek to obtain preferred supplier status.