We're always happy to hear your thoughts on ways we can engage better and encourage participation. Share with us at communityengagement@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au.

Council recognises it is able to make decisions that better meet the needs of the community when it involves them in the process.

The Community Engagement Policy, which includes a set of principles and commitments to guide open, transparent, meaningful, and accountable engagement, reinforces this view.

Since its adoption in February 2021, Council has applied these principles and commitments to all its projects, seeking feedback earlier to help inform the development of its plans and strategies as well as reporting back in a more timely way to our community.

To enhance participation, we have also adopted a range of methods and continue to explore new tools to ensure those who wish to be involved are able to make their views known - some examples of this approach are highlighted in the cards below.

As we approach the second anniversary of the Policy adoption, we want to understand how you think the new approach is working, which of the tools and methods you prefer, and whether there are others you would like to see us employ.

We are particularly conscious that during COVID, online engagement was the only viable way for us to reach our community, and with restrictions lifted, we're wanting to know how you've enjoyed the return of face-to-face conversations. If so, we're interested in what form you would like in-person engagement to take i.e pop-up sessions, workshops, conversations at markets and festivals, for example, or something entirely different.

Your feedback will be important in supporting continuous improvement in our engagement practice to help us set new benchmarks that support the needs of our community.

In-person engagement:

Come and speak to us at Central West Shopping Centre, Braybrook, from 10am-12pm on Wednesday 7 December 2022.

All told there were 35,647 visits to Your City Your Voice and 11,448 contributions by way of online surveys, comments, pin drops, and quick poll responses, in the first year of implementation of our new engagement policy in February 2021.

Towards the end of that year , Council also transitioned its digital engagement portal - to a new host platform offering greater functionality and opportunity for our community to engage with us by leveraging new tools and features.

As a result, we are seeing increased interest from our community, with greater numbers of contributions to our engagement activities, such as online surveys, comments, pin drops, and quick poll responses.

Below are some examples, linked back to some projects where they have been used, which demonstrate the breadth of online tools we have deployed to help with your feedback.