Our Services:

• Family Works Northern
• Enliven Positive Ageing Services
• Coactive Collaborative Disability Services
• Budgeting Service
• Connecting with Parishes
• Presbyterian Opportunity Shop
• PSN Foodbank

Putting Good Ideas to Work

Anne Overton, Community Mission Liaison

If you’ve got a bright idea for reaching out to your local community, Anne Overton is the person to see.

She’s recently been appointed Community Mission Liaison for Presbyterian Support Northern. Her job is to connect with Presbyterian churches throughout the region and help them identify and respond to needs in their communities.

It might be working with the local school to create a community garden; having cups of tea with lonely older people; or organising church young people into a working bee for the neighbours.

“It’s about asking ‘What’s God up to in our neighbourhood?’ and helping churches develop a strategic plan to meet those needs. Some churches have good ideas but don’t know how to start. PSN has the infrastructure and resources to be able to work alongside them and work out a plan together,” Anne said.

With well over 100 Presbyterian churches in the region, Anne is busy building relationships and gathering information about who is doing what and where. She also hopes to link with other denominations and community agencies, as well as work with Presbyterian schools.

Senior students at St Kentigern College for instance, are required to come up with a community-focused project for their International Baccalaureate studies. Anne wants to connect them with PSN’s Enliven and Coactive services so that older people and younger ones can learn the joys of befriending and helping each other.

“We can look at our own services too and ask questions: ‘What’s missing? What do we do well? What else is happening in the area?’ PSN has always had a heart for mission and the community and this is a way to work with churches to encourage that outward focus,” she said.

Anne has six years’ background in community education. Before that, she co-directed The Epicurean Workshop in Newmarket, (a specialist kitchenware shop and cook school) and spent nine years in Brazil with her husband Mark, running an orphanage and several community projects in the slums. While they were in Brazil they adopted their only daughter, now aged 12.

To have a friendly discussion with Anne about your community project or idea, please contact her on 09 520 8624 or email anne.overton@psn.org.nz.