Vincent Community Board will meet in the Omakau rugby club rooms today (Tuesday February 3), marking the first of several meetings to be held outside Alexandra this year as part of a push to engage more directly with smaller communities and rural residents.

Board chair Jayden Cromb told the first full council meeting of 2026 last Wednesday the board was committed to holding sessions across the ward.

The schedule includes a meeting at the rugby rooms on Alton Street at 10am, as well as at Clyde’s historic museum rooms in March.

“It’ll be a really great opportunity to get out into our smaller communities and rural spaces and hearing from them so they’re not always having to travel to us,” Jayden said.

Jayden also outlined changes to the board’s community liaison roles, to be discussed at today's meeting.

Rather than assigning members to just specific entities as has been done in the past, the board is proposing to trial engaging with broader interest groups, such as faith-based organisations and business collectives.

“We’re going to be having meetings throughout the year with different interest groups and sectors of our community…It’s just a way to kind of spread out beyond just the traditional groups that we have always liaised with,” he said.

He said the new approach would be evaluated after 12 months and adjusted if it did not achieve the desired community engagement.

Jayden said the board’s new members had settled in well.

“They’ve been really engaging and energetic, and we’re really looking forward to the next 12 months and working with you all,” he said.

Mayor Tamah Alley welcomed the initiative, saying she looked forward to seeing how the board’s outreach approach worked in practice.

“It is totally worthwhile trying some different things,” she said.

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