Community facilities punch above their weight for how many wellbeing services they enable

Like local rooms of requirement they shape shift for whatever the community needs.

They are like schools because they provide kids after school programs
They are like health centres because they deliver community health access programs
They are gyms and fitness centres because it's where we go for yoga, pilates and bootcamps
They are theatres where local amateur dramatic societies perform
They are therapy centres where Oranga Tamariki deliver family counselling
They are churches where people gather to worship

The 'Digital Transformation Fairy' has visited many services at council but community facilities have been left behind.

The staff got Microsoft 365, the building consents team got a shiny new application process and even the cemetery records got to go online.

But the the community hall still had mostly manual processes, heaps of paper forms and no way to see availability and book online.

About 80+% of councils in NZ have no ability to check availability and book online for local facilities.

Strategic Facilities Network Planning

Many councils have mapped all their potential options that could bolster provisioning of spaces to communities. They are also devolving expensive assets like halls and community venues to community trust operators to save costs.

Handing over assets for communities to run or getting existing facilities to share their spaces is a fantastic way to cut costs, increase provisioning and build grassroots engagement in what happens in local spaces BUT...

Volunteer groups are rarely given tools by council to help promote their space and manage bookings.
How do local residents know what spaces are actually bookable?
How do you measure the quality of service being delivered by these facilities?
It can feel like a tug of war for both parties to get what they need from each other.

Traditional Council online booking software

Implementing a council booking system is great and can lead to some process efficiencues.

BUT...

It's often an internal tool that can't be used by community lead spaces, so they have to struggle on with manual processes
It can just 'look' like an online journey. Submitting a web form still leads to manual availability checks or even if you can do most of the process online, there is often a lot of manual chasing and reconciliation of invoices or manual processes for exceptions like cancellations, credit notes and bonds.