About
I am the principal and only worker in the Melbourne based consultancy, THORNE Partners. THORNE is my business name and my maiden 
name. PARTNERS was chosen to reflect much of my work being about helping people to work in partnership and collaboratively. In addition, I often work in partnership with other consultants, either co-facilitating groups or delivering jobs requiring a wider range of skills.
Specifically, I work in the fields of community engagement, meeting and group facilitation, and board governance (in the not for profit sector).
Community engagement (or public participation as it is known in other places) has been a long term interest of mine having written my postgraduate urban planning thesis on Public Participation in Planning in 1980. While my career took me in other directions for a while, I have come back to make this a primary focus of my work. Finding ways for the community to effectively have their voice heard in the decisions that affect their lives is my major interest. As part of my contribution to my professional association, I am on the National Committee of IAP2 and I was the convenor of the National Symposium held in Melbourne in September 2007.
To help groups to be heard, I need to be an effective facilitator of groups – a skill that I have spent considerable time developing over the last three years, undertaking short training courses with Bob Dick in Queensland (2005 & 2006) and a year long course in 2007 with Glen Oche of the Groupwork Institute in Melbourne. I am an active participant in the Australian Facilitators Network and have attended the AFN Conferences in Geelong (2006) and Adelaide (2007).
I also have an interest in board governance in the not for profit sector. I was the CEO of Business East in the mid 1990s and in recent years I was a Director on the Board of MEGT Australia