Meet Your Neighbour
MHCC's new approach to encourage organisations to meet, learn more about each other and find ways to work better together.
Who are the neighbours?
Your neighbours are those targeting the same groups or delivering similar or complimentary services in your geographic area, particularly sharing an interest in mental health.
Meeting your neighbours is the first step in the process of getting to know them and the services they provide and what better way to get to know your neighbours than to have them visit you, see where you are and meet your team? Experience has shown that through Meet Your Neighbour, referral pathways have been established, clients/consumers have been better matched to programs and responses to consumer needs have been more informed of options and services.
What happens at a "Meet Your Neighbours" event?
One organisation in a particular area volunteers to be the host (with different organisations taking it in turns to host future events). MHCC works with the host organisations to send out the invitations, manage the responses and to organise morning or afternoon tea.
The get-togethers are meant to be somewhat informal with input from the hosts and plenty of time for networking and sharing individually but a typical program runs like this:
- Chat over tea or coffee on arrival
- Welcome by MHCC
- Introductions of those present
- MHCC shares about our work
- Host organisation shares about their work
- Other organisations share about their work or particular projects (as time permits)
- Sharing and networking over tea & coffee and light refreshments
Those coming are welcome to bring any material about their organisation or projects to share.
How long do they take?
Usually 2 to 2 and a half hours. Meet Your Neighbour events morining events usually start between 10am and 11am to finish 12.30pm to 1.30pm and afternoon events start at 2.00pm to finish by 4.30pm. Check the details for each event to confirm the actual starting and finishing time.
How often are they held?
The frequency depends on those who are interested volunteering to host in each location or area. The aim is that different organisations will host each occasion so we get a chance to meet different neighbours over time.
Where are they being held?
Meet Your Neighbour events have been and are being scheduled all over Sydney and NSW. To check details of upcoming events, please enter the words Meet Your Neighbour into our What's On search.
Meet Your Neighbour opportunities scheduled for 2010:
Anglicare Maroubra PHaMs 25 March – St John’s 339a Maroubra Rd Maroubra 10.15am
Centacare Griffith 26 March – 140 Yambil St Griffith 1.30pm
Aftercare Maitland 13 April – 2/541 High St, Maitland 10am
Neami Bankstown 6 May – Suite 102, 8 French Ave Bankstown 10am
Our hosts so far:
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Around Sydney
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Around NSW
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Find out more information or volunteer to host
Contact Rod West at MHCC 02-9555 8388 ext 110 or rod@mhcc.org.au