Ep 20 - For the Love of Community Engagement, with Becky Hirst

Introducing Becky Hirst Becky Hirst is a skilled community engagement practitioner who is willing to tell it how it is.  And she has grave concerns for the future of public participation. To have a thriving society, we need people and communities who are actively involved in civic life. For politicians, public servants, corporations, or planners to engage with communities in any positive way, they need to learn a new way of doing things. A wealth of sophisticated public consultation slogans, methods and frameworks are frequently seen. But Becky believes we are close to breaking point. Some fundamental things are missing. And, right now, we need to focus our energies on them. As a matter of urgency. All of which led Becky to write For The Love of Community Engagement - a highly readable collection of stories and insights on community engagement. Connect with Becky via her website or on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In today’s episode you’ll learn: How our upbringing can impact our community engagement What’s missing in community engagement practice right now What is the “goosebumps" measure of impact Why we need our decision-makers to stay for more than just the photo-shoot What citizen-centric engagement actually looks like (with lots of stories of this in action) Why you need to go where the people are! And so much more. Seriously, this episode is packed full of value and we can’t recommend Becky’s book highly enough. Resources mentioned in this episode For the Love of Community Engagement - Becky’s new book Global Community Engagement Day. Sign up for the Movement Makers newsletter Sign up to our fortnightly newsletter and get the insights, tools and powerful whakaaro from people transforming the collaboration space.