The Wimmera is certainly ticking
Every now and then it pays to lift up the covers of society and peer in to gain a clear understanding of what’s keeping our part of the world seemingly warm and cozy.
What you can find can be surprising and concerning as well as amazing and inspiring and ‘all of the above’.
Having the privilege of being a judge for the Best Community Service category of Wimmera Business Awards has provided an opportunity to explore this critical sector.
To say what we’ve seen and-or heard about has been eye-opening would be an understatement.
To say the experience has restored faith in the power and dedication of individuals would be closer to the mark, but also fall short.
There is so much going on in our communities that can be out of sight, out of mind. Yet the reality is there is a whole humanity-based industry working quietly in the background and providing structural integrity to the way we live.
In a nutshell, community service is about people helping people and there are many people in the Wimmera who need or can benefit from help, guidance, support, direction, motivation or encouragement.
This support might come from a simple concept of volunteering services, gathering like-minded people together to come up with community-enriching projects, providing infrastructure and services, to meet specific needs or sector-inspired business ventures.
What is immediately obvious in visiting some of the many community-support organisations operating in the Wimmera is that this is a complex but fundamentally critical backbone part of society – perhaps part of the backbone many of us take for granted.
It is staggering how many people are directly or indirectly involved in this astonishing community matrix that hums away in the background.
What we’ve noticed is that this sector is more about humanity than money.
But money, either provided through governance, philanthropy, fundraising or generated by private enterprise to develop or sustain services, has a profound role to play.
What is also obvious is that it is going to be hard to pick a winner from the list of high-quality organisations that have nominated for this award category.