One hundred and fifty community, voluntary, and environmental groups in Galway City will share their perspectives on what lessons to take from 2020, and what the future priorities of the city should be at the Galway City Community Network AGM.
The GCCN will hold its Annual General Meeting and first Plenary of 2021 later this month on April 14 via Zoom, and members are being encouraged to contribute to the diversity of voices that will be heard.
This will give stakeholders in our local communities a chance to  learn from the 2020 challenges while looking at future priorities and ways to further get involved in actively influencing decision making structures in Galway.
Ann Irwin, GCCN Co-ordinator, stated “2020 has been a year like no other for all of us. Since the onset of the COVID-19 alert, GCCN made drastic changes in how we operate while maintaining the focus on the community.”
“GCCN and other member organisations had to find ways to innovatively respond to the needs of communities and we were happy to contribute to the city’s Community Response Forum and the Community Call Helpline”.
The AGM will look at how the 2020 events have impacted the work of the Network and how, throughout the COVID-19 alert, Galway City Community Network supported and connected local communities at a time of great difficulty and isolation.
The GCCN helped co-ordinate the representation of the community, voluntary and environmental sectors in Galway City on local government bodies while also offering ongoing support in the Galway City Community Response Forum.
The second part of the April meeting, the Spring Plenary, will give a brief overview of what 2021 has brought so far.
GCCN and its members will then look at the future by discussing new priorities to focus on as included in the new GCCN Strategic Plan 2021-2023, which will be launching at this time.
Ann Irwin said that this Strategic Plan is the result of a collaborative process with their members which identified key priorities for the Network.
“We are delighted to be at the point where we will ask our members to ratify the Strategic Plan that will provide a framework for our work until 2023.”
