The NSW Landcare Enabling Program team have been organising and hosting Content Specific Community of Practice meetings since December 2024. The purpose of these groups is to bring together people from across NSW who share interest and/or expertise in a topic or area specific to Landcare’s current context.   These topics or areas of interest are appropriate to be working on at the state scale, generating ideas and solutions that can be shared across networks and groups in NSW.  Participants include volunteers, committee members and Landcare and Local Land Services Staff. 

Content specific community of practice groups have been set up to for:  

• Leadership 

• Communication 

• Mapping 

• Self-sustenance 

• Young people and Inclusion 

• Nurseries 

• Human Resources 

• Weaving knowledges  

• New groups to be formed for Natural Capital, Climate Adaptation and Biosecurity. 

Conscious design: 

Community of practice meeting design follows Impact Network and Art of Participatory Leadership approaches to building connection, shared purpose and clarity of outcome.  These methods build the foundations for groups that will work together over time and enable collective sense-making and decision-making.  In a series of meetings, time is spent building clarity about the purpose of the group and what success looks like.  This shared ownership supports the group to share effort, stay on task and experience good participatory process. 

What is happening in each of the community of practice groups: 

The participants joining our Leadership in Landcare COP bring a range of qualifications and experience in the leadership space and an obvious enthusiasm for positive models of leadership.  The group seeks to find ways to acknowledge the skills that people have and promote our leaders across the state. Participants are exploring what leadership looks like in Landcare and exploring different approaches to leading, learning about leadership and practicing leadership.  To encompass this exploration and the notion that leadership starts with the self, the group has defined the following purpose for the group: to nourish leadership in Landcare and ourselves. 

The Communication in Landcare COP consists of motivated and passionate people with qualifications or experience in marketing, media, communications and landcare. Those who joined this group expressed a desire for improvement in internal and external communication. There was a call for warmer, non-violent communication and relationship building.  A question around purpose suggested that we don’t just care for the land, we care for the people, and this extends to the way we communicate.  

The purpose of the Nurseries in Landcare COP is to bring together Landcare Nursery people across NSW to connect and collaborate.  Participants working in nurseries and are keen to share ideas, build networks and learn.  Attendees bring varied levels of nursery experience and a range of skills and expertise in business management, landcare, and/or volunteer management/work.  The group has established a peer learning model in the group meetings with nursery presentations and Q&A. Conversations cover business models, pricing, and operational procedures for Landcare nurseries.  Peter Dixon from Landcare NSW presented to the group on a native plant supply chain project concept that addresses many of the endemic challenges of nursery management and plant supply. 

Each meeting steps us further into our work together.  For the Young people and Inclusion in Landcare COP, the purpose for the group is to collaborate across NSW to develop ways to engage all people better in Landcare, with a focus on children, youth, young adults and families. Participants shared challenges, including the difficulty of attracting the 20–30 age group, while also discussing successful approaches like festival-based outreach and school programs. The group emphasized making engagement fun, flexible, and inclusive beyond traditional Landcare activities. Key takeaways included the need for statewide collaboration, resource-sharing, and fostering long-term environmental stewardship through early education and local action. The group are sharing ideas and generating a library of ideas for Landcarers across NSW to draw on for inspiration and advice.  

The Self Sustenance in Landcare COP meetings explore and discuss different avenues for Landcare to be self-sustaining.  The work started with building connection and understanding of the good work that is already being done across NSW.  The diverse experience in the group supports a broad perspective of Landcare and the way groups are organised and resourced.  The group’s purpose is to share perspectives and explore self-sustenance so that we are stronger together as Landcare.  As well as exploring avenues for financial independence, the group recognises that at its core, it is the people and the energy of Landcare that needs to be sustained – that we need to reinvest in our communities.  The essential nature of Landcare as a conduit between community and the government forms part of the value proposition this group sees for Landcare.  The following categories have been identified as areas to explore further: i) The next iteration of a NSW Landcare Program, ii) grants and funding programs, and iii) alternate business model and income generation, including philanthropy.  The group will be learning from each other: exploring and sharing ideas, innovative solutions and models with a broader statewide audience. 

A Human Resources Working Group has been meeting fortnightly and includes Regional Administration Officers, executive staff or volunteers who work in this area. Each meeting is half an hour in length and enables attendees to bring up any employment or human resources questions or issues. The group supports each other and provides information or discusses possible solutions to tricky questions. A shared Q&A file enables participants to go back and see links or information that was provided during the meeting. 

The Mapping and GIS in Landcare COP was the first of these groups to form. The participants are a group of passionate Landcare and Local Land Services staff and volunteers bringing knowledge and experience in GIS, mapping and data collection.  The purpose of this group is to connect and collaborate across the Landcare community to build shared knowledge, improve GIS capability, and develop consistent, practical approaches for mapping and spatial data use.  The group are exploring consistent data fields and building a framework for mapping in Landcare.   The Atlas of Living Australia’s Restoration Hub has been identified as a consistent and accessible option for data collection and representation for many of Landcare’s mapping needs.  The group’s focus is on understanding the data collection scenarios and needs in Landcare, the software applications that best suit these scenarios and the context of Landcare and how to match these needs with the capacity and resources that are available (or can be sourced) at this time.  

Design is underway for a Community of Aboriginal Partnerships Practice called Weaving Knowledges with the following invitation: While the exploration of this community of practice started with a conversation about Aboriginal Partnerships, we realised that it extends further that this, to courageous conversations about our learning and our practices in this space, about what we know and what we don't know.  This community of practice will invite participants to join a space of deep listening where we can share our stories and together make sense of what it means to weave knowledges in Landcare. 

Sample of Content Specific COP feedback 

Each meeting starts with a check-in and finishes with a check-out.  Here is some of the feedback provided during the checkouts: 

• Everyone who is meant to be in the meeting is here. 

• Excitement for the potential and for the discussions and conversations to come & gratitude to Peter for setting this up 

• Thank you for giving me a bit of confidence and energy. 

• Reminder how important our social networks and connections are – leadership is also about turning up.  

• Sense of optimism and a great respect for the work that we collectively are doing. Excited to see what happens next and what actions come out of this group.  

• Gratitude, sense of emergence, possibility and the chance to get some traction on wicked problems.  

• This conversation is tapping into a deep satisfaction and really grateful for that. Jittery excited now. 

• Leaving with a full heart after a great meeting and this is pulling things together like a big jigsaw puzzle.  

• Grateful and a little more connected to the people here on the screen. Taking the breadth of pieces in the communication puzzle. 

• We could share the things we learn to a broader audience, statewide. 

The flow and intention of these gatherings is set by the group and they evolve and change over time. If you would like to be included in any of these meetings, please email Peter at lep@landcarensw.org.au