As 2024 draws to a close, we reflect on the year that is finishing, and the year to come. For us, it has been a year of clarifying our values and becoming clearer on the most effective pathways to our mission, of health and wellbeing, community capacity and community resilience and building sustainable communities.

Relationships are the key to all aspects of our mission, both internal within Live Well Tasmania and with other individuals and organisations. Hence we were very pleased to receive a grant from Volunteering Tasmania (via the Federal Government) which will help us build relationships with other organisations and promote volunteering at the same time.

We are confident that the strategy of  “if you believe in something strongly enough and persist long enough you will achieve it” will see us getting Federal funding for the trial in North-West Tasmania of Community based Income (CBI). The core of the CBI is that work, whether paid directly or unpaid, can and should be a significant source of health and wellbeing, particularly by providing meaning and purpose and promoting good relationships.

We are hosting a workshop on the 19th of January both to further our strategic planning for the CBI, and to learn about a great framework and toolkit to plan and implement any type of project called “Design Web”. It is one thing to vision a positive future, the Design Web helps with both visioning, and to create the steps and feel empowered to achieve the vision. Liana and Vari are guiding us through the process, see below for further details, everyone welcome.

We are also starting a Grow group on the 22nd of January, Grow is a community-based organisation that has helped thousands of Australians with their mental health,through a unique program of mutual peer to peer support and personal development. We have already had a few people indicate they would like to join the group, but we welcome more people joining in to gain the many benefits proven to occur.

In this edition we are very please to have the first contribution from Karen Ashworth-Eck and her “Rambling Reveries”. We hope you enjoy her inspiring article on ‘Birdsong’.

Finally thanks to everyone who came to our Christmas Party, lots of fun was had by all!