Call for Bellarine summit

A local community association is proposing a Bellarine-wide community summit - titled Bellarine 10-20 - to review of the City of Greater Geelong's current Bellarine Peninsula Strategic Plan 2006-2016.

The summit is the idea of the Drysdale and Clifton Springs Community Association, whose Secretary, Mr. Doug Carson, said, 'For four years, the Bellarine Peninsula Strategic Plan has provided a "big picture" within which particular areas and towns on the Bellarine have grown and developed. Now is a good time to review whether and how the Strategic Plan suits the Bellarine's increasing population. For example, is the Plan retaining and celebrating the Bellarine's diverse natural and social environments? Is it making the Peninsula more economically self-sufficient and environmentally sustainable? And is it making the government, management and development of the Bellarine Peninsula more accountable to those who live and work here?'

Bellarine 10-20 would be a summit meeting run by and for the people of the Bellarine Peninsula. The Affiliation of Bellarine Community Associations (ABCA) will be asked at its next meeting in late August to act as an umbrella body for Bellarine 10-20. Doug Carson said, 'Bellarine 10-20 will give individuals, groups and organisations a chance to discuss the changes that are happening not just in individual communities and towns but across the Bellarine Peninsula as a whole. That's why we feel that the ABCA is the ideal organisation to run it.'

(An amended version of this was published as 'Call for Bellarine summit' in the Bellarine Times 4 August 2009.)

The announcement of Bellarine 10-20 was published on the front page of the Bellarine Times on 25 August 2009. (To read the full story, go to the newspaper's archives: http://issuu.com/surfcoasttimes/docs/bellarinetimes_aug25)