Community Development Network

This public page is a work in progress and will be updated with information that participants have consensus on. For issues yet to be discussed, they will be in Google Docs that are accessible only to participants.

Request to join our Facebook Group Community Development Network SG

Purpose

Vision

Insert vision statement

Mission

Insert mission statement

Objectives

Insert objectives

Projects

Insert links to project pages

How Will the Network be Run

1. Participants will submit agenda items, and Facilitators will help structure each meeting based on the agenda.
2. Issues selected for discussion should be broad themes. These will be spread out over 4 main Roundtables (one per quarter).
3. Those with an interest in niche issues can host subsidiary meetings pulling together those with common interests. Their findings and proposals can then be shared with the main network.
4. For those who are keen, Planning Meetings can also be convened to discuss the content and structure of subsequent Roundtables.

General Guiding Principles

Openness sustained by trust, and balanced by integrity

The network should be a safe space for participants to share honest views and constructive feedback. Openness creates vulnerability too, so it should be sustained by trust and integrity among participants, so that new or diverse ways of thinking are not dampened.

Consensus-driven balanced by respect for diverse viewpoints

Through dialogue, participants should aspire to consensus on network matters. Where there is disagreement and collective decisions need to be made, voting can be the less preferred option.

Contributions should be participant-led and strengths-based

Network matters should be defined and led by participants themselves, tapping into their areas of expertise.

Everyone is encouraged to propose and take on projects or activities, and the network should reduce barriers to initiating and mobilising participation where possible.

Fun and informality

The network should be fun because community is built upon informal relationships and we should invest in those relationships.

(Note: These are working principles and will be reviewed and refined as we go along. Possibly new ones will be introduced and old ones removed. They will also be up- or down-voted by participants so that the most relevant ones go to the top, indicating a sense of priority. Guiding principles are only useful to the extent that they are useful reminders to achieve core ideals we tend to forget or overcome key habits we find hard to break; they are less useful when internalise them or already take them as given. They also become more useful when they articulate the relationship to alternative or competing values, providing an indication of how these conflicts might be resolved)

Network Events for 2019

Informal Discussion: On the Design of the Network

Date - Friday, 31 May 2019

Time - 10.00 am - 12.00 pm

Venue - Credit Suisse

Proposed Agenda

• What are our objectives? What value can we get out of it?
• Who will co-organise and participate, and in what way?
• Are there other existing networks already relevant to community work?
• Based on objectives and existing circumstances, how should we structure the network, and decision-making?

Materials & Presentations :

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MV43hH4ThwykSJWMe69drhl78xNhS79l

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Event 1

Date - TBC

Time - TBC

Venue - TBC

Meeting Structure and Rules

General

-Aspire to have quarterly meetings per year: partners set agenda and simple polling can be done to prioritise

-All partners will automatically be invited to attend. Associates will be invited based on the issue at hand and partners can deliberate who they want to invite. e.g. VWOs may not want their funders or regulators present as it may impede forthcoming dialogue or sharing.

-Partners will also discuss and source for speakers where their presence is required to shed light on knowledge gaps of interest.

-Between the quarterly meetings, partners are free to have separate meetings, commission studies or seek partnerships to investigate or discuss issues not on the main agenda, but will be integrated into the annual needs and gaps report.

-All reports will be sent to partners for their inputs and final approval before it becomes 'official' and published online.

-Where a partner is not able to make a meeting, they should aspire to send a deputy. Reports will be sent to all partners so that they get a chance to provide inputs even if they were unable to attend. (In order not to hold back publication dates, reports will reflect which partners who were unable to provide inputs in time, and these rpeorts be amended once they are able to).

-Where partners disagree on the content or position taken by the paper there are various options:

1) If there is a majority view, the paper can be written to reflect that, but capturing the organisations who dissent and their reasons.

2) Not publish a position paper if the opinions are relatively split.

3) Publish a paper that reflects the diversity of views and their rationale, so that there is a documentation of the report.

Meeting Structure

PRE-MEETING:

1-Take Stock of Needs and Gaps

2-Convene to Prioritize Knowledge Gaps

3-Set Meeting Agenda for the Year

EACH MEETING:

1-An issue brief will be sent out to partners before convening

2-Take stock of knowledge gaps and prioritise them

3-At the meeting, partners will deliberate on proposed policy recommendations or advocacy positions: policy or position paper will be written based on deliberations

4-Decide on how to present position if there is no consensus

5-Coordination and division of labour: Follow-up items; who will investigate what?

6-At the end of each session, there will be an opportunity for partners to reflect on and suggest amendments to all the various the guiding principles and rules of the Disability Network.

AFTER LAST MEETING:

1-Consolidate all findings for Annual Needs and Gaps Report

2-Facilitator will write up and send to all partners

3-Once approved by partners, report will be published online

Deliverables and Products

1-Issues briefs prior to each session

2-Position papers or policy briefs as a result of each session. There can also be feasibility studies, programme proposals, collective impact plans depending on the interests of the partners.

3-A needs and gaps report to be written at the end of the year

Members

1. Members List & Contact Info

Ngee Ann Polytechnic - Office of Service Learning

https://www.np.edu.sg/Pages/servicelearning.aspx

Position	Name	Email	Tel
Head	Joyce Tang-Wong	Joyce_TANG-WONG@np.edu.sg	6460 6783
Deputy Head	Hon Maode	Maode_HON@np.edu.sg	6460 7545
Deputy Head	Wan Chin	tan_wan_chin@np.edu.sg	6460 7002
Lead Catalyst	Faith Ong	Faith_ONG@np.edu.sg
Lead Catalyst	V Prema	prema_v@np.edu.sg	6460 6524

Republic Polytechnic -

https://www.rp.edu.sg/shl/beyond-the-classroom/service-learning

Temasek Polytechnic - Centre for Character and Leadership Education

https://www.tp.edu.sg/centres/centre-for-character-and-leadership-education

Office started in April 2018

NTU - Local Community Engagement Office

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/lceo/Pages/default.aspx

Position	Name	Email	Tel
Executive Director	Dr Toh Kian Lam	kltoh@ntu.edu.sg	+65 6592 2517
Deputy Director	Alvin Lee	alvinlee@ntu.edu.sg	+65 6904 1118
Senior Assistant Manager	Shi Jin Chen, Iona	iona.shi@ntu.edu.sg	+65 6904 1108

NUS Office of Student Affairs

http://www.nus.edu.sg/osa/

NUS Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Centre

https://ctpclc.nus.edu.sg/

SIT - Student Life

https://www.singaporetech.edu.sg/studentlife/

SUSS Office of Service-Learning and Community Engagement 

http://www.suss.edu.sg/CET/Pages/Service-Learning.aspx

Position	Name	Email	Tel
	Cynthia Christabelle Chang
	Meirlin Gunawan
	Yeo Lay
	Chia Ming Huei
	Chloe Lee Zi Qi

SMU Centre for Social Responsibility

https://c4sr.smu.edu.sg/

2. Observers and Associates

NYC Youth Corp

https://www.youthcorps.sg/en

Institute of Policy Studies / socialcollab.sg

https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips

Position	Name	Email	Tel
Senior Research Fellow	Justin Lee	justin.lee@nus.edu.sg	66011419
Business Development Manager of socialcollab.sg	Andrew Lim	andrew.lim@nus.edu.sg

•IPS: To support groups, where service learning is a valuable assets, intermediaries, how to work together, to learn from one another.

•How to support this COP, to do as much as we can.

•SocialCollab.SG – crowd-sourcing social needs.

•Helping to populate the service learning projects.

•Making sense of information.

•How to structure a page that will serve this COP.

•To encourage deeper conversations. Consolidating information.

•With permission, study as a case study – policy.

•Connecting gaps and services/skills available – VWOs with students.

•Disability – convene, process the info, put it up on a Wiki-page. What are the needs and gaps we can work together on. At the end of the year, the COP will come up with a report and send to MSF.

•Would there be a parallel process in this COP?

Useful References

On building networks

http://www.networkimpact.org/

On how to facilitate good conversations

Some principles of facilitating group dialogue https://www.icasc.ca/resources/holding-space

Disability Councils and what they do

http://www.disabilitycouncil.nsw.gov.au/

On referendums and democratic decision-making

Switzerland's unique form of direct democracy allows groups of citizens to call for national referendums on specific policies if validated signatures of 100,000 Swiss citizens are collected in support of a proposal. Possible to consider a similar mechanism for networks here.

Justifications for running networks like this

From Steven Johnson (2001) Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software: complex systems exhibit emergence because they “solve problems by drawing upon masses of relatively (simple) elements, rather than a single, intelligent “executive branch.” They are bottom-up systems, not top-down. They get their smarts from below. In more technical language, they are complex adaptive systems that display emergent behavior. In these systems, agents residing on one scale start producing behavior that lies one scale above them: ants create colonies; urbanites create neighborhoods; simple pattern-recognition software learns how to recommend new books. The movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication is what we call emergence” (Johnson 2001: 18)

Tips for giving good feedback at Networks

-be honest

-be specific (explain what you disagree with or don't understand)

-be constructive (suggest how to improve)

-comment on the most important things first