The challenge
Our Cairns was launched to identify the needs and desires of the Cairns community to help develop a new Corporate plan and ensure Council considered the social, liveability, economic and cultural aspirations of the wider community.
Our action
Articulous designed and delivered a program to engage with the community and stakeholders and:
• Capture views of differing sectors within the community and from the general population on what sort of Cairns they want to live in
• Ascertain the community and sectors’ satisfaction with Council’s overall activities and service delivery
• Enable residents to raise issues or suggestions about their specific suburb
• Ask the community their views on specific topical questions or issues
• Identify new site investigations for infill developments
How it happened
A major success factor in this engagement was the use of topical questions to seek feedback from the community on issues which might normally be contentious, e.g. fluoride in the water supply. Council received valuable information around ratepayers’ expectations and willingness to pay for services, which allowed them to better plan for the future.
Articulous also used visual techniques such as avatar surveys and images to encourage people to respond when they might not have otherwise participated. People shared their avatars with friends and family, demonstrating the type of Cairns resident they were. This created a talking point and encouraged other people to participate.
Several hundred photographs were submitted by the community showcasing what they loved the most about living in Cairns. A selection of these were shown at the community forum.
The outcome
More than 6400 residents responded to the Our Cairns survey, which formed the major component of the engagement project. This was around 10% of the adult population of Cairns.
The community engagement program helped to set Council’s goals for the next five years.
Our Cairns won the Judges Award in the 2017 IAP2 Australasia Core Values Awards.
