Meeniyan Community Plan

Without a plan, we plan to fail and that is exactly what Meeniyan wasn’t going to do. During 2023, Meeniyan went through the process of updating its Community Plan, which was originally drafted in 2012.

Setting off on the adventure of community planning can be a difficult one, and even with a really engaged community like Meeniyan, the process can be challenging.

A Community Planning Meeting was held at the end of February with over 80 people in attendance. To get people there it was widely advertised in the local newspaper, letters to community groups, notices around town, website notices, an information table set up in town on Saturdays, and all businesses were approached directly.

During the meeting, ideas were collated and compared against the current list. While some were identified as a bit too difficult to achieve, they were left with 92 items to further narrow down. Along the way, the entire community were given multiple opportunities to submit their top 8 from the list. These were then analysed and a list of the top 30 were grouped into five categories. To ensure this Plan and the actions within it don’t sit in a document forever, a spreadsheet was created with all items having a person or group responsible, who they need to partner with, actions, timeframes and status.

The Meeniyan Progress Association led this project, and received ample amounts of positive feedback from individuals and businesses who were involved in the project. Many remarking on how grateful they were to be involved and listened to as part of the future or their town.