Greater Melbourne Citizens’ Assembly: A Warm-up

How can we create a stronger future for Greater Melbourne - one where everyone thrives and we all have agency to make change happen? Building our civic muscle is key to this future. Across our city, we are already seeing examples of this: people are coming together and making change happen, on our streets, in our neighbourhoods and along the waterways and places we care about. Each is an example of exercising civic muscle - the ability to take the future of our place into our own hands. We love the civic muscle that makes up Melbourne, and we know we're going to need more as we look towards the future. So, what does it feel like to exercise and build it, as individuals and as a collective? Join Regen Melbourne and Jon Alexander, supported by the Greater Melbourne Foundation, to discover our civic muscle, give it a workout and help us warm up for a new approach to shared decision-making at a city scale, a Citizens’ Assembly for Greater Melbourne. We are thrilled to be joined by Jon, author of Citizens: Why The Key To Fixing Everything Is All Of Us and co-founder of the New Citizen Project. Jon’s work makes it clear why civic muscle is more important than ever, and also offers clear insights on how we can build ours here in Melbourne. Over the course of the afternoon, together we will: • Explore the idea of civic muscle, and understand how citizens are activating it to make change happen around the world • Exercise our civic muscle with Jon by applying the RAPID Democracy decision-making model to topics critical to Melbourne’s future • Reflect on how it feels to fire up this muscle to use it, trying out how a Citizens’ Assembly might feel and what we need to bring it to life This will be both a rigorous workout on its own and a warm up for the Citizens’ Assembly as a bigger game, which we are beginning to plan with Jon and our friends at the Greater Melbourne Foundation. Come and help us dream up what it could be. Curious? Pop on your sweatband, invite a workout buddy and join us for a stretch! PS, if you’re looking for a post-workout recovery, we’re hosting a Street Party to celebrate Global Doughnut Days directly afterwards, also at Balam Balam Place. Come along for a dance and dinner! Tickets here: https://events.humanitix.com/regen-melbourne-street-party