The somewhat hedonistic lifestyle of working in the leisure and pleasure industry, as it was aptly nicknamed by colleagues (recognising the long out-of-office-hours working in a venue where the majority of people spent their spare time), gave me the escape I needed from my already failing marriage. It provided the essential support I needed when my marriage ended. I built some great friendships during my time at GL1. There I learned the true meaning of having a ‘work family’.
It also convinced me of the potential of partnerships – both at a strategic level and operational level. The Living and Learning Centre would have been nothing without those partnerships.
Conversation Starters
WHO would you like to see proactively working together in your workplace or communities?
WHAT partnerships have you been involved with? This can be personal or professional! What did you learn from the experience? How can you use what you learned during this experience to form strong partnerships in the future?
WHY collaborate? What benefits might collaboration bring?
WHEN have you witnessed great things being achieved by people, groups or organisations working together?
WHERE have you seen significant financial investment in infrastructure happen in your communities? Were you interested or involved in it? If yes, did you have much influence over the process? If no, what stopped you being interested or getting involved?
5. Use creative and innovative processes
Creativity is the necessary work of evolving community engagement practice using methods that honour people’s individual and collective knowledge about their lives and their environments.
― Wendy Sarkissian¹²
My year in my mid-twenties traveling to Australia on a working holiday visa is worthy of a book of its own. However, to summarise, in early 2004, circumstances in my personal life led me to quit my job, sell my house, and set sail for the other side of the world. Perhaps saying I ‘set sail’ is a bit overdramatic, but you get the gist. The bright blue skies and glistening waters of Sydney were the tonic I needed at an exceedingly difficult time in my personal life. Although I was nursing a battered heart, I settled comfortably into a footloose and fancy-free lifestyle in Sydney. For this reason, amongst others, Sydney will always hold a special place in my heart.
Work-wise, the working holiday visa limitations meant I could only work for periods of 3 months or less. So I was having a blast, taking on typical backpacker jobs (jobs nobody else was prepared to do!) I remember feeling out of place attending a briefing to be a ‘promo chick’ for a well-known pharmaceutical company. I flinched at hearing I’d need to wear a pink bow in my hair, whilst sporting a short spiky, bleached-blonde look. That job was definitely not going to work out. One job involved being up before dawn to greet commuters in North Sydney with promotions for a newly opened gym. My assignment was to help the guy dressed up as a big muscle man not to trip over. I’ve since worked with clients and colleagues in North Sydney and always give a cheeky smile to, and take a pamphlet from, any person I see on the street. Who knows what their journey is?
I worked for a day in a call centre, making cold calls inviting farmers to attend a conference about something, somewhere. I can’t remember the details, other than by the end of the day I knew I couldn’t face it, so I quit on the spot! I covered a lunchtime shift in one of Australia’s leading telecommunications company’s headquarters inbound call centre, thankfully for only a few hours. I spent a couple of weeks working for a leading Australian insurer, as… wait for it… a Demetaliser! I made up my title to make the job of removing staples from endless documents to be digitised sound a bit more high-tech. I remember the great elation I felt when I was promoted to scanning from staple removal!
One job I’ll never forget played an incredibly significant role in my life. It’s another reason Sydney is so special. The infamous Route 69 pub crawl had been advertising for ‘reps’ and I thought it sounded like fun. It sounded like a guarantee for the good, slightly wild, social life I sought. I’ll let non-Australian readers do your own online research into the Aussie slang involved in this business name. I was poor at the hard sell of getting backpackers to buy tickets to join our bus to visit Sydney’s coolest pubs and clubs. But I did meet Dan, a fellow UK backpacker, also living his best quarter-life crisis under the bright lights of Sydney. Dan quickly became my best friend, my partner, and in recent years, the father of my children!
One beloved job was a temporary role as a receptionist at Tourism Australia. I’m not good at reception skills. I had a bad habit of hanging up on people while trying to transfer their calls, but I remember applying my creative skills to developing up an A-Z of Reception FAQs during the quieter times. And, of course, being an engager at heart, my welcome was always warm. Having dabbled in tourism recently in the McLaren Vale region, I wish I could return to that role just to eavesdrop on the conversations in the corridors. Maybe my path crossed with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who was one of the Managing Directors there at the time. Maybe I even hung up on him!
One sunny Saturday morning, in between backpacker jobs, I was sitting on the balcony of my shared Pyrmont apartment flicking through the newspaper. Curiosity about the job market beyond the backpacker scene had me glancing at the employment section. One advertisement caught my eye. Parramatta City Council was looking for an Arts & Cultural Development Officer to join their Community Development Team on a three-month contract. I couldn’t believe it. Here was a job I could do. I had the qualifications that perfectly suited the demanding visa restrictions. Of course, I applied, I attended the interview with a confident spring in my step and was offered the job. And so, my wild backpacking days transformed into a daily commute on the train from Central Station to Parramatta. And I loved every minute of it!
Sydney was the first big city I’d ever lived in. My hometown of Gloucester is a city because it has a cathedral. But it’s not a ‘city’ city. Sydney was the first place I’d lived that had a Central Business District, where people rushed about en masse , in suits. It was the first place I’d lived where the buildings were taller than four or five storeys. While I’ve never been a suit-wearer (my absolute favourite thing about community engagement is the unspoken right to wear denim to work). But I absolutely loved the rush of passing through Town Hall Station at 8 am on a weekday, followed by the dash along the platform at Central Station to board one of the double-decker trains to Parramatta. Here I was being lucky again. I had an opportunity to immerse myself in a community. And how exciting to be on the other side of the world, exploring and learning about a community in a totally different country.
As part of the Greater Granville Regeneration Plan, the Council was eager to undertake community engagement regarding perceptions of safety within this diverse suburb, known for its high proportion of older residents, single-person households, and large families with remarkably diverse backgrounds. Of course, there are limits to what you can achieve on a three-month contract. And I was in a totally unfamiliar environment. But I had enthusiasm and passion (and dare I say, the energy of a woman in her mid-twenties) on my side. My boss gave me leadership of the ‘Perceptions of Safety’ project, and I embraced it. An interesting plot twist helped me succeed. The funding was to be used for arts and cultural development. So my brief was to add creativity to the engagement process. Hmmm…. here was my opportunity to do something really cool!
Community engagement was already underway for the overall Regeneration Plan by planners Hassell, with Sarkissian Associates Planners taking the lead. Wendy and her team were already using a comprehensive suite of creative engagement tools to generate discussion and draw out community contributions, including a key stakeholders’ workshop, a SpeakOut, and ‘A Week with a Camera’ exercise where local children contributed their assessments with the help of teachers at two local primary schools.