Year In Review 2025-2026
Download our 2025–26 Year in Review
Take a look back at a year of ideas, action, partnerships and community across the Furneaux Islands. Enter your email below to download a copy of our Year in Review.
Presidents Report
This year has been about turning ideas into action while putting the foundations in place for what comes next.
The Tasmanian Government has committed $600,000 over three years to activate the next stage of The Islander Way project.
Importantly, this is not an investment in the Furneaux Collective for the sake of creating a new organisation. It is an investment in Flinders and the Furneaux Group of islands — its people, ideas and future.
Our role is to help turn that investment into action and ensure its benefit reaches well beyond the organisation itself.That has meant working on two fronts. In the community, we have been bringing people together, supporting local initiatives, creating opportunities to participate, bringing expertise to the Island, sharing our stories and building partnerships. Behind the scenes, we have been strengthening our governance, business planning, policies, finance and project systems, while working towards greater sustainability beyond our three year funding period.
Put simply, we've been getting our ducks in a row whilst getting on with the work.
The Furneaux Futures Forum was a highlight of the year, creating space to share ideas and think about the future of our Islands. It was particularly rewarding to see the Forum with the 2025 Event Organiser Extraordinaire award at the VNT Champions of Tourism Awards.
We delivered Portals to Place, continued capturing the voices and stories of island life through the Latitude 40 podcast, and held a fundraiser and community workshop with harpist Emily Sanzaro in partnership with Furneaux Community Arts to support the Patriarchs Wildlife Sanctuary. Work also progressed across visitor experiences, regenerative business, circular economy, wildlife care, employment and training. Our relationships beyond the Island have grown too. In April, we met directly with Premier Jeremy Rockliff to share what was happening, what we were learning and our shared vision for the future. These connections matter because they put Flinders Island, its ideas and its potential in front of people who can help make more possible.
This year has also reinforced that the Furneaux Collective doesn't need to own every idea or have its name attached to every outcome. Sometimes our role is to deliver. Sometimes it's to connect people, find funding, build capacity, support someone else's idea or provide the capacity to get something moving. That's increasingly how we see our role.
We've learned along the way too. Some ideas have changed, some have taken longer than expected, and others have led somewhere we hadn't anticipated. That's part of creating something new.
Our Roadmap 2030 recognises this time as a period of capacity building - strengthening the systems, partnerships and participation needed now while working towards greater independence and sustainability into the future. Ultimately, the success of this three year investment won't be measured by how much the Furneaux Collective does or how many projects carry our name. It will be measured by what becomes possible for the Furneaux Islands because the investment was made, the skills that stay here, partnerships formed, additional resources attracted, ideas given a chance and capacity created to keep making things happen.
Thank you to our volunteer committee, our Project Manager, our partners, our funders, our volunteers, our contractors, our mentors, our local businesses, our community groups and to everyone who has contributed their time, skills, ideas, support, encouragement - and questions - throughout the year.
There is plenty still to do and plenty to look forward to.
Onwards we go,
Andrew 'AK Killengray
President