What are Working Groups?
Working Groups (WGs) are a vital part of the process, allowing Members with an interest in any of the major areas of social, environmental, economic or governance concerns facing out community. By coming together, online and in group meetings, members of WGs can share ideas, sort, research and amplify residents’ desired outcomes relating to their topic and prepare statements for communication to our elected representatives indicating the wishes of the community for improvements. The relationship between Working Groups and the other main functions of the association is shown in the figure below.
Working Group process
- Each Working Group would ideally have a minimum of 3 or 4 members.
- Within your Working Group scope, identify an issue which is a particular problem or concern in the Northside community or an idea or a policy that the group would like to champion. The issue could well be a nation-wide or even an international one, but choose one that has special importance for our local area and one you would like our elected representatives to act upon.
- Research the topic, fact-check claims, debunk misinformation and document the priorities/desired outcomes of the community. Support your findings with reliable source references and instances of best practice solutions from peer-reviewed published papers.
- Collaborate on the topic with people from other organisations within the Northside area or from other Voices groups anywhere around Australia who have joined the WG as “Friends of NCV”.
- Produce a summary of your background information and findings.
- Propose a practical solution to the problem or an appropriate policy position you would like our elected representatives to take.
- Backgrounders are published on this website. Anyone can read them and respond — by raising their own issue in agreement, in disagreement, or extending the scope of the work — or by emailing the contact link at the foot of the Backgrounder to put their views directly to the authors.
Starting a new Working Group
As NCV keeps listening to our community, new topics come up that deserve a Working Group of their own. Some already have one. Others are waiting for somebody willing to convene them — and that is a real job we will support you to do.
You can see every group we run, who convenes it, and the topics still looking for a convenor, on the Working Groups and Action Groups page.
If none of them fits what you care about, tell us. Nothing raised with us gets thrown away.