For forty years Community Colleges New Zealand has been pioneering, innovating, and delivering our vision of ‘creating better lives for our community.
In July 1983 this organisation started out, literally in the back of a bike shed on the grounds opposite Rangiora High School. It was a very humble beginning.
Two local businessmen, Tony Hall and Alec Murray, set up the Rangiora Enterprise Trust in association with the Rangiora Borough Council. In addition to running their own businesses and managing family commitments, they had recognised a looming national crisis of high unemployment would need a local response. Following Tony’s time of living in the UK in the 1970’s when the economic impacts of the global oil crisis affected communities, he had gained knowledge and contacts to help innovate a local solution. They based their model on the Scottish Enterprise Trust and began to provide training courses to meet their communities’ need for vocational skills and pastoral care. Horticulture and beekeeping were the first courses that started in July 1983.
With immediate success and then securing interest from the government to fund their training programmes, they formed the Rangiora Training Institute, in collaboration with Rangiora High School and the community.
Expanding further with hospitality, commercial skills, computing, tourism, outdoor recreation, trades and sports programmes, they also created the tasks and learning modules for each programme. This preceded NZQA’s qualification standards. They were pioneers in a movement of empowering people to gain work skills and qualifications in hands-on learning environments. During the late eighties and nineties, the organisation evolved, becoming The Academy Group (NZ) Ltd operating in both the North and South Island. In 2001, the business partnership became two separate entities. Alex retained the North Island and Christchurch locations as Academy Group and Tony established Community Colleges New Zealand Ltd (CCNZ) to operate in Marlborough, North and South Canterbury, Otago and Southland.
In 2004 Tony began the process of establishing charitable status (for CCNZ) and in 2007 transferred his private ownership to a registered charitable organisation (CC10303).
In 2012 Comcol successfully tendered for and began delivering MSD’s Youth Service contract throughout its South Island locations.
Our dedicated Comcol team of youth coaches and support staff touch the lives of close to 1000 young people and their whānau each year. They work actively and intensively to identify an individual’s goals and the best path to reach them. Guiding young people with tailored support and practical tools such as budgeting and parenting courses, driver licence training, and supporting options for education, work-based training and employment is impactful. Changing lives from a dependence trajectory to empowerment has many positive effects on our communities. Our delivery of the Youth Service contract successfully helps young people gain independence and success.
For forty years, our team; Tony (1983 to current), Doug Reid (1987 to current), Beryl Wilcox (1998 – 2017), Virginia Archer (1997 – 2019), Andrea Armstrong (1993 to current) and Kate O’Connor (1999 to current) supported by a wonderful team of dedicated people, have positively advocated for the needs of Aotearoa’s foundation learners.
However, over the years the delivery of education to meet the needs of foundation learners steadily became burdened by government policy along with increasingly restrictive eligibility criteria and compliance. There was no room for pastoral care, adventure-based learning, and an individual-needs approach. In late 2021 the difficult and sad decision to suspend our youth education delivery under the fees-free Youth Guarantee programme was made.
Following on from late 2021 our North Canterbury team has been forming connections in our community to find out what would help young people succeed, as we no longer had a vocational education provider in our region. How could we ‘make the rungs of the ladder close together so they could achieve success?’ What could we create and do differently with the freedom to start afresh?
At the beginning of 2023, we commenced a 12-week, three-days-a-week, GROW programme for young people aged 15 to 24 years, focusing on Goals, Resilience, Opportunities and Well-being.
We are also establishing a community native nursery in Rangiora, which will involve our young people, providing them with education and workplace learning opportunities, taking them closer to nature and sustainability.
Through our native nursery and by operating sustainably, we aim to create a positive and lasting impact on our environment, while empowering and enriching the lives of our people.
Our whakataukī reflects our vision, focus and values;
“Poipoia te kākano kia puawai – Nurture the seed and it will blossom.”
Learn more at comcol.ac.nz
So here we are this is used to be the rangor training institute now the um Community College and it’s just great to be here today in the sun shining and and uh imagine the number of students who came through the through this building over the last 40 years and have
Continued their journey and the number of successes we had it all started um over here in the back of the bike shed and there was no all of these some buildings were very dilapidated and now they just they’re really home the the students love this place because they
Feel safe uh it’s their place and then they walk in the front door um they belong here and this is the part of the essence of of what we’ve ever wanted so it all started in rura in the late 70s early 80s in a period where um it was predicted that unemployment would
Would climb and what our local response to that might be waiting for it to happen or actually doing something proactive to mitigate against that possibility and the projections unemployment happened it Rose from 3 or 4% through to 11% in 1987 89 and that progressed through the ’90s so we
Started initially with the rang your training institute and that started with these two programs beekeeping and Horticulture then we added Hospitality that was the the pilot of the access program and at those stage at that stage of it we thought we were going to have to make it a self- sustaining project we
Were surprised by the then labor government that they actually wanted private Enterprise to compete against the state institutions to provide um training at lower levels entry level training so we tended for those programs and we won contracts for both rure and Christ Church and that’s where the um
Academy we started as a private Enterprise proposition and over the next 10 years became a nationwide organization where we had at any one time 4,000 students enrolled on programs varying from Hospitality to Brick laning to Home Care to commercial skills the training was aimed at a making sure that they had the
Transferable skills to be attractive to an employer and that was making the environment that we offered as work likee as possible so that they’d Advance their ability to fit into a job and be productive from year one in the workplace that they chose to working in those very early years there was the
University and the polych who ran apprenticeship programs and because they required an employer those programs were declining by about 30% a year but there was no other training programs at all so we we were real innovators in those days to provide training for all ages so in the access program we had anyone
From 50 or 60 down to down to school levers but because employers were reluctant at that stage of it to take on new people we were providing that Wick experience on site here we called it practical training for practical people so it was very very work focused and
What we discovered it was quite straightforward to take a student on and they could be 15 or they could be 55 and give them an opportunity give them some care give them some hope there’s work experience built into that and after 12 or 16 weeks we could get them into into
Employment as well because the employer had some trust that they had a skill they had a commitment they had some work based habits through that period of time late ‘ 80s into the ’90s there were other providers in Christ Church doing a similar thing and we were always seen as
Elite and we’ve got we got the best students that wasn’t true at all what was different as we treated our students better we gave them good facilities qualified staff and just good programs I think that was the main difference and um in those High Times of unemployment we’re getting eight or nine
Or 10 out of 10 people in unemployment every time so was was pretty effective but do by 1980 1996 under trm bal’s coalition government with New Zealand first at that stage 96 97 that program access was abandoned and turned into two programs when was called training opportunities
For people over 18 and they were beneficiaries from working income and then youth training which is under 18s and that was the start of the separation and and as we follow the money through the years uh We’ve Ended up with with youth only I had this wish that the we got
Closer back back to our community it it started off in rangor as as a as a charitable organization and I was really Keen to get back back to that really so we decided that we would we would split the The Academy New Zealand up so we
Then um moved out to rur as our headquarters here and turned the name into Community College and then over the subsequent next two years change the Constitution to a charitable Constitution Doug and I essentially the the directors or or trustees so we have a formal relationship between ourselves
And Kate it’s been a difficult journey and she’s had to Traverse those changes as the government became much more prescriptive and what they required of us to the stage that a lot of the things that Kate and as elves held dear to make them good citizens in other words those
Transferable skills um communication um understanding the community that they lived in all of those Community type skills taught through adventure-based learning and other things crowded out by the need to race for credits so sadly the programs where each individual’s needs were being met that was their cry for help when they entered the
Organization we weren’t able to do that in this highly prescriptive and compliance-driven approach that the government took so sadly in the end of 2021 we chose to suspend those programs and focus very much on new service it was really sad time for us because um we
Lost people who had been with us for up to 20 years and had sacrificed a lot to continue working with us but nevertheless we got to the point where we just didn’t have the bandwidth to do both jobs well so now we’re very much focused on on youth Service as our key
Um delivery and then looked around and said right how do we how do we look as we approached our 40 years how do we look at the organization and you so we went to the community and we were like look we’ve looked after these young
People for the last you know 30 or 40 years what is it that you know what’s the community going to do for these for these young people and the message very strongly came back well you’re going to continue to do what you do in some way
Be and that’s what needs to happen um so then it was about how do we go about that so with then we looked at okay what is it that these young people need take away all the the the credit chasing and the qualifications and those sorts of
Things strip It Back to Basics and they need you know it was back to the five ways of wellbeing they needed somewhere to feel whether they could belong somewhere they could connect with other people somewhere they could learn things um somewhere they could you know be give
Of themselves and our grow program grew out of that which is all about goals resilience opportunity and well-being you know every program is full with a weight list well before it’s due to start because that need in the community is was still there but we want to be
More than just our you know our grow program and which we we’re moving in down the sustainability line we want to move into the food and fiber sector and we’ve established a native tree nursery with the view that we will grow our own trees to establish our own biodiversity
Corridor but within that that opens up a space for young people to come and learn those skills transferable skills in that space as well so now we’ve joined up with the council the school um with nahu and and other interested parties to really go on this journey and turn what
Was the school Farm into a living laboratory around sustainability um so it has reinvigorated ourselves I think um in terms of our vision for the next um 40 years I think really it comes back to you know the people that have been with us on this journey we’ve had some
Wonderful people who have been part of this and you know all I can do is pay tribute to them really they say that a good manager employs people smarter than themselves well that’s been easy for me all of the people here are smarter than I am so it’s it’s just been a
Wonderful wonderful journey and I’m just so looking forward to how the team take up the cules for the next 40 years I’ve worked with Tony for 36 years which seems pretty mad but I think one big factor is it’s a very involving role when you’re dealing with with Young
Learners and with colleagues and with other outside agencies there’s a lot to do and it’s very challenging and it kind of I think all people in com call that use it up a lot of themselves they’ve got to in invest emotionally as well as with time so there are also good rewards
With that you so you try and do something and it works or you make an appointment of a staff and brly successful or things go well you know and you know you’re making a difference to the young person their family and their Community it’s very important and it’s very rewarding so that’s been
Really cool it’s always been incredibly supportive to do to be able to do the right things and also to have the freedom to do what was going to work for each individual and I think as you’re moving through things that’s what you continue to strive to have in place that
There’s freedom for people to do what they believe is is the right thing for each person um and we’ve also always never been about the numbers any conversations that you’ve had around how things are going and what’s been it’s not about it’s never been about the numbers it’s about what’s the benefit
For that individual and you know that’s that’s a that’s that’s huge for me in each region where the managers and if you go out from morning tea with them along the street you know there’ll be there’ll be students or past students um wanting to say hello and and tell them
How valuable the college was or Academy was and it’s literally we’re probably talking an excess of 100,000 who have directly benefited from a program in a lot of occasions that person was the first family member to ever have a qualification even if it was at a low level so transformed that family not
Just that student but the family to encourage them to have a path that was a more positive path than they were on previously so you know we’re enormously proud of the influence that we’ve had and also a lot of work that Doug and I have done is advocacy at a political
Level too so that anything we’ve learned can hopefully persuade policy makers in favor of making sure that these kids are looked after not always successful the last 10 years it’s been much more difficult we used to have politicians who mired um in their policy work a lot
Of the work that we were doing um which we’re really encouraged by but sadly that hasn’t been um hasn’t been the case in recent years but we never give up so we we will continue to do that work so it’s pretty cool the environment that we’ve got to work in
And um the Legacy that you know has been left by Doug and Tony is yeah certainly left big shoes to fill but um really excited about the next 40 years and working with you know future generations and you know creating better lives for our community