ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to create spaces where community can be built. This chapter has described an experiment in community leadership training that seeks to do just that. It promotes the idea of community building as a process rather than an outcome. The Building Better Communities (BBC) training course was established by Community Praxis Co-op to counter this dominant mode of thinking. The first course evolved from the experience two Co-op members had in running a community orientation course in inner city Brisbane, Queensland. It was a huge success and led to numerous courses being funded across the Shire over the following five years. Since then the BBC training has been delivered over eighty times throughout communities in South East Queensland. An essential part of the mandate in developing the BBC course was that it could bring a diverse group of people together from disparate backgrounds, support processes of group formation, and then inspire and mobilise the group to collective action.