Community Charrette
A charrette is an intense period of design or planning activity and the general idea of a charrette is to create an innovative atmosphere in which a diverse group of stakeholders can collaborate to “generate visions for the future”.
In 1996/97 Katanning, although continuing to be an important regional centre, was not thriving. It was difficult to bring key stake-holders together to look at ways to for the town to become proactive in its own future. The Shire of Katanning was looking at putting together a plan for the future.
Cr. Arthur Todd
To help facilitate this, Councillor Arthur Todd (manager of the Great Southern Herald), Michael Archer (Shire CEO) and Peter Kenyon with the support of the W.A. Department of Trade and Commerce organised a community charrette to enable the entire community to look at the issues facing the town and community and to develop a vision for the future.
Mike Archer
With funding support from Trade and Commerce, and working conjunction with Katanning Shire Council, Doing More With Agriculture, and the Great Southern Development Commission, arrangements were put in place to bring a team of students and tutors from the Ball State University College of Architecture and Planning in Muncie, Indiana, USA.
Peter Kenyon (York)
The Charrette team from the US included Brad Johnson (coordinator), Malcolm Cairns, Elizabeth Clark, Matthew Miles, Steve Spears, Angela Grammer, Meghan Kelly, J. Rebecca Leonard, Meggan Lux, and Paul Howey.
The Katanning team consisted of Arthur Todd (coordinator), Ray Ford, Gabrielle Hansen, Tony Severin, Helen Beeck, Tamara Ford, Kerry Palmer, Mandy Harris, Russell Pritchard (Great Southern Development Committee), Andrew Pritchard, Brooke Phelps, Peter Jolly, Alan McFarland, Wilma Severin, Ainslie Evans, Doug Cherry, Mal Osborne (Shire of Katanning), Mike Archer (CEO, Shire of Katanning), Peter Kenyon, and Colin Jones with special service and salinity research provided by Mucushala Prosser-Jones, hydrologist.
Vision without action is merely a dream.
Action without vision is just passing time
Vision with action can change the world.
Joel Barker “The Power of Vision”
The purpose of the Katanning Community Charrette was to help the citizens, business operators, civic leaders, town and shire to:
- Rediscover and more fully understand the community of Katanning;
- Develop short term goals and objectives and help visualise them;
- Utilise a citizen-based input process;
- Develop specific recommendations for projects, policies, and programmes; and
- Educate and involve members of the community and visiting planning professionals in the planning process.
The resulting “Katanning Community Charrette Handbook” is a collection and elaboration of the ideas offered by the citizens, business people, town officials, and the Charrette Team. These ideas were compiled by students from Ball State University.
A primary goal of the Community Charrette Handbook is to encourage the community to recognise its own outstanding features and realise its opportunities. A second goal of this project was to build momentum toward positive change. It is important to look beyond the negative elements in the community and build hope for a better, higher quality-of-life. A few simple successes and the community begins to get involved and continue the forward momentum.
Throughout the intensive study of Katanning during the Charrette, the Charrette team found the community to be a wonderful place. The residents of Katanning enjoy living in the area and want to stay there. A third goal of the Charrette was to get people to clearly express their concerns and to identify key issues. Participants were asked to express what they see as needs and dreams for the community.
The document compiled the suggestions and information from the residents, business operators and civic leaders of Katanning. This document reflected those ideas and information, combined with some additional input from the Charrette team. The document reaffirmed that Katanning is a great community with incredible potential.
The document was a summary of the observations, analysis and recommendations that came from the Katanning Community Charrette, held in Katanning from 28 May – 31 May 1997. It was a reflection of the ideas, concerns and vision of the over 400 people that participated in the charrette workshop.
The report was meant to be an idea piece. It was designed to help visualise and define some of the community’s ideas, and to focus and facilitate discussion as Katanning continues its strategic improvement process. The ideas presented were just that – ideas.
The ideas addressed economic development, main street revitalisation, quality-of-life, a variety of opportunities, and general aesthetics in the community.
While only ideas based on community input at the time,
you will find many of the ideas raised during the
Community Charrette have either happened or
are still in the process of happening.