Creating A Container for Change: Coober Pedy Together

Coober Pedy Together is a place-based initiative. It is about working together to find a new way forward together. It recognises that over the years, many people have provided many hours of time and incredible efforts to bring together several different places to move the community forward. Coober Pedy Together values and respects these plans and efforts and seeks to build on them to ensure the long-term sustainability of Coober Pedy as a thriving community.

Coober Pedy Together is a about bringing change, community spirit, community pride, and a sense of purpose to the community of Coober Pedy. It’s about creating a common plan and vision. It is about resourcing the community to be able to create the place in which they would like to live.

Coober Pedy Together is led by a facilitation group, made up of local residents. Regular community workshops and conversations are held to gain ongoing feedback and ideas from the community to inform the work of the initiative. Coober Pedy Together initial mandate, way of working, and priorities, were established by the community.

Coober Pedy Together has focussed on rebuilding and creating new relationships with multiple stakeholders, including local and regional organisations and businesses, the resources sector, opal miners, state and federal government departments, potential philanthropic and alternative funding sources, and other supporters. It has already successfully hosted a range of community events, delivered a community playground upgrade, hosted a vice regal visit, facilitated promotional opportunities with national and international media, provided ongoing support to multiple local organisations and clubs, facilitated a master planning process for the drive-in, and commenced conversations for key projects.

Coober Pedy Together compiled a first document titled Coober Pedy: Our Story, Our Potential, Our Next Steps. Feedback and ideas received from the community across workshops, small group conversations, and one-on-one conversations were the heart of this document. This document enabled many key conversations to take place. All of these activities have laid the foundation to create and implement a Coober Pedy Plan.

The Coober Pedy Plan 2024-28

Vision is a destination – a fixed point to which we focus all effort. Strategy is a route – an adaptable path to get us where we want to go. (Simon Sinek)

It is no secret that Coober Pedy has found its fair share of challenges in the last few seasons, but that is not who we are. Coober Pedy is not defined by these, but by the potential for great opportunities to grow and thrive. Coober Pedy is the Hub of the Far North and intends to claim that title with as much energy and effort as possible. Coober Pedy Together is not just about today, or tomorrow, but about securing Coober Pedy for the next hundred years.

This plan sets out the necessary actions that must take place if Coober Pedy is to be in the best place possible. It establishes a destination for all of us, and our partners to begin moving towards with everything we have. The strategies may change, or the way in which we deliver them might change, but the vision remains strong. This is Coober Pedy’s chance to stake their claim, not only as a remarkable place to work, live, and play, but as an asset to ourselves, to the wider state of South Australia, and to the nation as a whole – it is the opal capital of the world.