Presentation of international award

International Association of Facilitators’ (IAF) Oceania director, Nick Housego, will be presenting a Gold Facilitation Impact Award to Gisborne District Council and to Sheryl Smail, Pivotal, on Thursday 17 December.

The IAF Facilitation Impact Awards are the most prestigious awards in the world for demonstrations of facilitation excellence.

The Council is one of only two recipients from Australasia to receive the international award and the only New Zealand winner out of 20 awards given worldwide.

In October, Council and facilitator Sheryl Smail of Pivotal were announced as winners for extraordinary community involvement in developing the Wainui Beach Erosion Management Strategy (WBMS).

Environmental and regulatory group manager Kevin Strongman explains when setting out to develop the strategy for Wainui Beach, Council had anticipated diverse and strongly held views in the community.

“By including the community in our planning process, it strengthened the engagement skills of staff and assisted in building trust with a community that had previously been left out of the loop.

“Most importantly the engagement process resulted in a Strategy that has strong community ownership and will manage beach erosion risks in an integrated and holistic way.”

IAF Oceania director Nick Housego is travelling from Melbourne to present the award at Council’s meeting on Thursday at 1.30pm.

Ms Smail will also be presented an award for her role in assisting Council with engaging the community.

Mayor Meng Foon congratulates all involved. “This is a great feather in our cap and it is a model staff are following for other community projects.

ENDS

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