PWSA VIC Strategic Planning Weekend

The PWSA Vic held its 2019 Strategic Planning weekend in Melbourne on the 7th and 8th of
September.

Hugo Leschen of NFP Success wasinv ited to facilitate the weekend and
ensure that we kept on track in planning for our future.

Our 2018 Strategic plan was based around cleaning up the back end of the Association and ensuring the foundations and the structure of the PWSA Vic were in order. Strategically, this was intentionally built as a 12 month plan which required an enormous amount of work
and discipline from our board – we are proud to say that we have achieved success in most areas of last years plan and were excited to start planning for the next 5 years.

Our Theme for this year’s Strategic Planning weekend was ‘Dare toDream’, we invited members to share their ideas and dreams for the services and supports that they would like to see the PWSA Vic offer over the long and short term. We collated recent feedback from our members ‘responses from the recent PWSA Vic survey which our members were askedto c omplete and incorporated those ideas and feedback into a five year strategic plan.

“It’s important for us to not only thinkab out ‘tomorrow’ but what our goalswill b e over the next 5 years, so that we can start working towards our dreams and making them a reality”

Renee

To inspire us to dream, we invited Leonie White from Down Syndrome Victoria to present to the group on their own journey over the past 40 years and how they have achieved
their success. This was an extremely insightful presentation which had many participants on the day discussing how we could replicate their success. Leonie’s time was most appreciated
and we will continue to collaborate and seek advice and direction fromD own Syndrome Victoria to help ensure our own growth and success.

After hearing from Leonie, the team very quickly moved on with their Strategic Planning weekend. Two days of intense creative thinking held out attention and kept us all very busy.
It was very easy to lose track of time, so we were grateful for Hugo’s time management skills.

The team came up with their 5 year plan which will need some further refining over the coming weeks, but we will shar this with you once the document has been finalised.
In the meantime, we would like to share our new Vision statement, which we are extremely proud of.

“A world where people with Prader-Willi Syndrome lead a full and inclusive life”

Initially, this statement seemed extremely grand for a small organisations on the South Coast of Australia, but when we gave it some thought PWSA Vic have already created a worldwide phenomenon in the PWS community with Go Orange and we have recently been contacted by a start up organisation in the Middle East for advice on how they can become as successful in supporting their PWS community as PWSA Vic have been – so this small little Association on the South Coast of Australia is certainly are having an impact on he rest of the world.

We were also asked to create mission statement, which essentially is a statement that reflects how we will continue to work towards our vision.

“To empower those living with Prader-Willi Syndrome through support, education, advocacy and awareness.”

There were many successful outcomes from the weekend and there are some fantastic initiatives on the horizon, which our members will be pleased with. We will share the plan with you all once this has been finalised.

The next five years will be an extremely busy time for the PWSA Vic but the rewards for all will be well worth it in the end.

By Renee Di Genova