We sat down at the back of the church hall. It was a relatively foreign place. We were quietly asked for our gold coin "donation"; which is such a symbol of community participation. It was a friends and family event for a community choir that had not performed all year, mainly due to covid scuttling other opportunities to perform. You could sense the excitement and nerves of the performers.
This could have been any community hall around New Zealand any night of the week, enabling community engagement, be it through art, religion, culture, sport or other leisure activities. As I waited for the choir to begin, I was thinking about community spaces in general and the value they bring (anyone else find it hard to switch off when visiting venues?).
The importance of these spaces cannot be underestimated. Groups that operate on shoe-string budgets rely on affordable access to spaces to gather and participate.
As service level expectations are driving up the quality of community facilities in many areas, let's keep thinking through how spaces can be affordable for the wide range of community groups. The financial bottom line needs to be balanced against the social bottom line. It's not all about the money as such; rather the engagement this brings.
Let's ensure that the gold coin donation remains the measure of community participation. The choir sang beautifully, by the way.
