Council is seeking volunteers for the Future Hepburn Community Engagement Pool. The purpose of the Engagement Pool is to provide a flexible, as needed, and inclusive engagement forum for people and Council to:

• Discuss and contribute to Future Hepburn projects elements including the shire-wide strategies, place-based projects and engagement activities.
• Share views on topics that are of interest or impact you personally.
• Represent the collective views of the communities.

Engagement Pool participants will provide advice on a range of different topics as part of Future Hepburn and help to ‘spread the word’ among the community.

Participants can be involved as much or as little as they like as these engagement activities participation will be voluntary. These activities could include webinars, surveys, focus groups, online polls, workshops or interviews or deliberative processes like community panels. Activities will be varied and be offered both online and face-to-face.

This Engagement Pool does not replace broader community engagement, we will always provide opportunities for the broader community to have their say.

Council will draw on Future Hepburn Engagement Pool participants with relevant interest on a range of topics-based engagement opportunities throughout the Future Hepburn project. These activities may include workshops, individual interviews, webinars, forums and township-based Community Panels.

Engagement Pool members will be kept informed about Future Hepburn's progress on a regular basis.

Following the Initial phase of engagement, including a broad community survey and Community Conversations, we would like to bring together a group of 21 randomly selected community members from each of the townships to form five community panels. The purpose of the community panels will be to collaborate together to develop the township structure plans. We will have a community panel for each of the townships of:

• Clunes
• Creswick
• Daylesford-Hepburn Springs
• Glenlyon
• Trentham

Each community panel will work over three sessions, hearing from experts, analysing data, deliberating on important topics and preparing recommendations. Panel members will work through creating a vision for how they want their township to look, feel and be in 30 years' time, understand and resolve the issues and challenges that could prevent us for getting there and identify how a structure plan can help us realise that vision from a strategic planning perspective.

You do not need to have any prior knowledge of the topics – all the information you need will be provided to you. To be considered for the community panels please register for the Engagement Pool below by Sunday 3 September 2023.