Suburban
The Borrowdale Ratepayers and Residents Association (BRRA) has announced that it will be holding its first strategic meeting on Friday at the Borrowdale Brooke Country Club.
Peter Tanyanyiwa Suburban Reporter
BRRA said they saw it fit to hold the strategic planning meeting at the beginning of the year as the operating environment for corporates, institutions and individuals has been changing rapidly and sometimes taking unexpected dimensions.
The residents’ body said it has seen that there is need to transform and conform to these changes as the COVID-19 pandemic came as a signal of how global and local situations can shift to the left or right violently without warning.
And unless people learn to adjust and adapt at the pace of the changes in their external environment, everything around them may collapse.
BRRA chairperson Mr Robert Mutyasira said they are holding the strategic planning meeting so that they map a way forward as they have identified that there is need to remain relevant to the needs of their community and the community needs to see value in the existence of the residents’ association.
“BRRA have found it critical to hold a strategic planning meeting right at the start of this year. Having being in existence for more than 20 years as a vibrant residents’ association, we have decided to further introspect and shake our nest in order to remain on a trajectory of positive growth, effectiveness and impact.
“If we are entrenched in systems that worked then but are obsolete now, we then need to knock ourselves hard and unanimously decide to pursue what works best for our residents.
“As much as we would want to maintain the traditional texture that has made us unique as a residents’ body, it is pertinent for us to face reality and improve ourselves around the new status quo,” he said.
According to the BRRA, it has secured the attendance of all the committee members for the strategic meeting. The body has also invited key stakeholders whom they say without their input the strategies may be incomplete.
“We have engaged the services of a professional facilitator to guide us through this process for the best outcomes.
“A written report will be issued and that report will inform all our activities for this year.
“Through this initiative, we intend to have a bigger foot print in our ward and usher in positive changes in all sectors.
“We will deal with our strengths and weaknesses and unreservedly improve ourselves where we need to.
“Implementation of our mandate and purpose for existence will leave a good legacy for our successors.
“As I always emphasise, our children must not find reason to blame us for having not done and achieved in our time what we should have.
“We would want to hand over to them a pedestal where they can explore and render greater benefit to the community,” said Mr Mutyasira.
He said expectations were that the deliberations at the strategic meeting will be robust and even brutal with the objective of producing a refined blueprint.
“We are working with a very tight budget but we hope to achieve the best results as we have always tried to do.
“We shall give residents feedback on what we will have reached consensus on, as a committee, to be the drivers of our activities this year.
“One of the areas we would want to touch on is how we can get maximum participation from all households and residents, in fact all community stakeholders.
“Our visibility needs to be enhanced and extended beyond what it is now,” said Mr Mutyasira.
