Meaning and Importance of Community
In the last week or so, I’ve been thinking a lot about community and what it means.
You see, our eldest child, 20 year old Declan has flown the coop!
He had two specific goals…
The first was to get a job as a marketing officer in a university, and the second was to move to a state where foodies rejoice!
This week Randall went through the process of driving him down to his new job at the University of Tasmania, and to his new home; a state where food and the gloriousness of it is abundant.
But of course, part of that strategy is the importance of developing a community.
You see, Declan goes down there knowing no one.
And so time and thought has been given to how he can make friends.
We all want community; to belong.
We all value community and at different times of our year, communities gather.
Whether it’s Christmas, End of Year parties, or a sports club at grand final time.
Everybody wants to belong and every community has space for one more if we’re willing to belong to them.
At Churchill we have a community.
We have two in fact.
We have the community of people that work here, and then we have a community of alumni.
People who have achieved qualifications with Churchill, and who find themselves reaching back out to us when they need a hand.
We have a couple of ways that we work to really support our community.
One is an alumni referral reward. A thank you, to our community for recommending us to others who could use Churchill’s help.
And we also have scholarships that we offer at various times during the year.
And then there’s the third way, which is the people that come back to us and just ask us for help.
Whether it’s a name of someone in an industry that they could speak to, or a plan for where else they could go for something that we can’t help them with?
And we love doing that.
Community means serving others.
The other day Randall received a message on LiveChat from an alumni member who had a random question unrelated to what we do… Randall answered it anyway.
And the person replied, “I love you guys. I love the way that you serve.”
You see I think community has a component of service.
You can’t just rock up and ask for your space.
There’s got to be some connection.
Something that you both value and serve.
So, as you are wandering through your day, I hope you have community that you belong to and if you are ever looking for a community to be a part of, we’re here ready to welcome you.
You have a great day.
Tricia Velthuizen
Co-Founder
Churchill Education
