Newsletter - June 2026

June has been a month of good rooms, good conversations and a reminder that some of the most valuable work happens through relationships built over time.

From the AICD WA Forum and Peel CCI’s CEO roundtable to catching up with regional collaborators in York and Albany, we’ve been reminded how valuable it is to create spaces where people can speak openly, share what’s really happening and learn from perspectives outside their own organisations and industries.  

It also got us thinking about community and stakeholder engagement, particularly after reading The Underbelly of Engagement by Sally Hussey and Max Hardy.

Good engagement sounds straightforward on paper: inclusion, transparency, collaboration and meaningful participation. In practice, it can be much messier. Engagement professionals can be brought in too late, expected to smooth over difficult issues or asked to engage communities when there is little genuine opportunity for those communities to influence the outcome.

For us, it reinforces why good engagement can’t be rushed. Listening, trust and relationship-building take time, and skipping that deeper work in pursuit of short-term efficiency can create much bigger problems later. It’s also important to recognise the people doing the work; meaningful engagement can be incredibly rewarding, but holding space for difficult conversations takes a toll too.

This month we’re also sharing a community funding opportunity, regional arts activity in the Kimberley and our latest Thoughts & Insights on using narrative case studies to capture impact.

June 2026.pdf

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