Who said romance was dead? The story of how we met and became one!!
By Marie Calderbank

On the 1^st July 2014 Options in Community Living merged with Tautoko Services.

But the relationship goes back much further than this. Options and Tautoko Services/Neighbourhood Connections had enjoyed working together for a number of years, meeting regularly and sharing training applications. (So romantic!)

When I heard that Options in Community Living were thinking of merging with Tautoko I was delighted, it just seemed to make so much sense. Neighbourhood Connections and Options delivered similar services and appeared to come from the same value base. We were lucky enough to secure some funding through the Working together fund which was great as it allowed the two management teams to come together firstly in the South Island in sunny Nelson to discuss how it could all work. We used the 4 plus 1 tool to explore our thoughts.

Since then Neighbourhood Connections and Options led by Marie Calderbank and Carol Sebborn have been working closely together to discuss how to provide the best possible support to people. The Nelson management team went North to ‘Windy Palmy’ – Palmerston North and then something happened with some buckets which I never quite got to the bottom of! (unfortunately I had to stay home and woman the fort!)

But obviously the outcome was…..it was a match made in heaven! After consultation and a discussion at the Strategic Planning meeting the decision was made to proceed with changing the name of our Neighbourhood Connections service to “Options”.

The date was set for the end of March 2016 we are no longer just ‘merged’ together, we are now joined in name!!

Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi.

(With your basket and my basket the people will live)

The End