Author Archives: Wendy

How to Avoid Disempowering Yourself with PowerPoint

June 29, 2009 – 2:23 am

  The other day we abandoned the shed to the rats, the python and the floods and drove to the University at the Gold Coast. I was a bit early for my lecture so I enjoyed listening to the students making their presentations about a planning project. They were sophisticated postgraduate students and very articulate. Great [...]

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Criticisms of Community Engagement

June 26, 2009 – 2:04 am

  It’s a worry! I’ve explained before that community engagement — especially with sustainability — is not an easy task. Many people argue that it is problematic and can actually hurt those it is most intends to benefit. So let’s just have a quick look at some of the major critcisms. I’d love to hear [...]

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The Wheel of Participation (or Empowerment)

June 25, 2009 – 2:32 am

I was speaking about Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation the other day to a group of students and I said that I thought it’d been eclipsed (in the past forty years) by other, better, models. I noticed an embarrassed look on the teacher’s face. Perhaps they had not updated their model? Well, in South [...]

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Community Engagement with Older People

June 24, 2009 – 2:00 am

  I guess everyone who’s been a speaker has had an experience like mine. But when it happened I was initially devastated. I’d been asked to speak to an aged care organisation’s conference. I’d written a story about a feisty older woman who was moving about her future community with ease and independence. The story [...]

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Community Engagement: 18 Considerations

June 23, 2009 – 8:05 am

    Don’t let anyone tell you differently. Community engagement is a tricky matter. We need to be flexible and still keep our eyes  on the ball. It’s a changing landscape. A bit like navigating white water rapids in a small canoe. When we add the issues of “sustainability” to the mix, things become more complex. [...]

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Appreciating a Mentor: Clare Cooper Marcus

June 22, 2009 – 8:06 am

Wendy appreciates her mentor, Emerita Professor Clare Cooper Marcus, for years of friendship, site visits, collaboration, housing wisdom, guided imagery guidance and “Space cookies”.

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Smoke on the Horizon

June 21, 2009 – 8:12 am

Smoke on the horizon of her Nimbin property in northern New South Wales reminds Wendy of her first bushfire in Humpty Doo in the Northern Territory 1991 and gets her thinking about trees, fear and fear of fire. The full story of her first bushfire is available as a download.

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Saying Goodbye to a Partner: A Souvenir

June 20, 2009 – 6:06 pm

This week, when the storms came and the rats and python got into the shed, I had to do some quick work to rescue my scrapbooks. I was unprepared for the emotional impact. But the urgent task became a meditation and yielded a great blessing. My father’s American Green Card (such a valuable treasure for [...]

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Remembering Mary Ann Hiserman

June 20, 2009 – 8:08 am

My friend, Peter, the local real estate agent, came over the other day to see how the building was coming along. He’s been cheering us on, especially during the storms and floods. I found a plan and we walked around the building site.  “Great that it’s all on one level,” Peter smiled, pointing to the ramp on the [...]

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Community Engagement with Children and Young People

June 19, 2009 – 10:05 am

    A few weeks ago the communications officer of a local council responded to my plea to include children and young people in their community engagement strategy. “Children and young people are not our customers”, she retorted. I said that where I come from, we don’t appreciate that sort of language. (“Wash your mouth [...]

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