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Built by locals, for locals.

The Welcome Bay Community Centre wants to help create a friendly community that looks out for each other.

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Weekly Events and Community Groups

Come down to the Centre to check out what’s going on in your Community!

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We are here for you!

The Welcome Bay community centre has a large range of services to aid our community. Get in touch with us now!

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Connecting People - Building Community

About us

The Welcome Bay Community Centre support and provides opportunities for the residents of Welcome Bay Ward (Poike, Ohauiti, Hairini, and Maungatapu as well as Welcome Bay areas). Our vision is for residents to feel like taonga – a precious gift that is valued. During the week there are a range of wellbeing programmes and activities, food and clothing support, and access to information and referral services. You can come in just to chat, have a cup of tea, connect or relax.

If you are a professional needing a room to hire for meetings, or a larger board room space get in touch.

The Centre is active in improving the wellbeing of our community, providing 100% commitment to the community. On a day-to-day basis, the Centre provides an info site and support referral centre, budget and advisory services, food referrals and support, free clothing Wednesday, yoga, table tennis and fitness classes, and a facility for hire. There are also a range of community support groups and classes running at any given time.

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Our Community

How do we define community? There are lots of ways to define community, including by geography and place.* Everyone who lives, works, plays, cares and invests in a ‘place’ shares common elements and has a unique understanding of that area’s past, present and future. People in a community usually have a shared vested interest in creating a place that, for example, they safely raise children, grow a business, go to work, or enjoy the environment. Early in 2015, the Acorn Foundation commissioned some local research on community and the result was the Western Bay of Plenty’s Vital Signs® Report. “Vital Signs® is an initiative measuring the vitality of a region; identifying trends, strengths, and areas for improvement.” This report looked at 12 of the various elements that make up the community, such as Arts & Culture, Belonging & Engagement, Getting Around, the Gap between Rich & Poor, Safety and Sport & Recreation. Overall, the participants in this research assessed the Bay region average, meaning that additional effort should be made. * Inspiring Communities, Learning by Doing. Community-led Change in Aotearoa NZ. 2013

* Inspiring Communities, Learning by Doing. Community-led Change in Aotearoa NZ. 2013

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Belonging & Engagement

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini ke
My strength doesn’t come from me alone but also from others

Belonging and engagement comes from having opportunities to get involved with your community, having a voice in local decisions and feeling supported by your community. The residents least satisfied with belonging and engagement in the Vital Signs® Report were of the Welcome Bay – Te Papa Ward.

The Community Centre has taken this message on board and embarking on various events and activities to enable better communication with the community and to provide more opportunities to engage with one another.

We are open to the public
Monday – Thursday
9am-3pm

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