Councils need to Pivot their Parks assets Usage NOW!
Most Councils and Government community assets are in full lock-down. Now more than ever, Local Councils Must Pivot their focus on what their Communities Can and Will do instead.
Basketball stadiums? Closed
Swimming Pools? Closed
Theaters? Closed
Libraries? Closed
Community Halls? Closed
Around the country these critical social assets are in shut down. And with them the absolutely vital community asset that enabled social cohesion and mental health support. But as a species, we do NOT sit still in times of stress until we have entered the phase of ‘Learned Helplessness’. Learned helplessness can be defined as a state where even when an opportunity for relief is present, the past history of discovering there is ‘no way out of the suffering’ teaches the person to not take action even when a way out has been identified’. Instead the person has mentally ‘given up and accepted their state of suffering’. Councils CANNOT allow that to happen.
So if people are not going to sit still, where will people go for relief? OUTSIDE.
And Outside means PARKS. Right now Councils MUST ‘pivot’ their operations to ramp up passive use of parks – walking, running, taking the dog for a walk, throwing a ball or frisbee within self-contained family units, reading a book on one’s own; the park based home office area and more. Councils must move beyond a ‘maintenance’ component to one in which additional temporary seating is available – all at safe distances. Where temporary fencing or visual barriers help create additonal safe spaces to congregate with one’s own family or on one’s own. Councils could consider things like identifying spaces for temporary creative works to be developed (sculpture, street painting (inc Graffiti murals) chalk parks and so on). Councils should see that Parks can take advantage of the cessation of structured and scheduled sporting activties and commandeer that space for the much larger demand for passive/non scheduled activity. More seats, more pop up desks/tables
Right now, Councils will be letting staff go through enforced layoffs. One spot for them to reallocate staff in a meaningful way is in re-creation of parks as broader social assets by redesigning how they operate as a community space.
The other is home delivery of food when Stage 4 kicks in – but that’s another post
One of the challenges for one aspect of the world is fuel and the price of fuel used for private transportation. I use the word ‘aspect’ quite deliberately because the ‘aspect of the world’ that seems to be making the most noise about rising fuel prices is by and large the ‘westernised’ world – that’s…
Read More >With the theme ‘Moving Forward, Supply Chains of the Future’, Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will open the Australian Supply Chain and Logistics Conference in Brisbane in July on behalf of the Supply Chain and Logistics Association of Australia. Details for the conference can be found below. The focus on the future of supply chains…
Read More >When it comes to quality strategic futures work as part of making the pragmatic decisions that shifts beyond theoretical futures work, I encourage my clients to question the assumptions they make about the information they have available to them. Which is why I am recommending the book ‘Gang Leader for a day – a rougue…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber was well and truly forced to justify the existence of his profession when venturing along to Jon Faine’s Conversation Hour last week. Co-hosted by Cath Pope the discussion looked at the role of Futurists, the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit and Jon’s scepticism around the role of futurists.. Along with Janoel Liddy,…
Read More >You’d think that given a focus on the future, you’d ask specialists in the future to have some input, and whilst that didn’t occur for the PM’s Summit in Canberra over the weekend, some of Australia’s Futurists had already done the leg work to contribute their thoughts on the future of Australia. That report is…
Read More >Some of Australia’s leading futurists gathered in Melbourne in March to provide a specialist Futures approach to addressing the Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra. The outcome of that Summit and the development that subsequently followed has led to the creation of the report ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’ that has worked through each of the ten…
Read More >Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber will meet with eminent ABC radio presenter Jon Faine on Wednesday the 16th of April to discuss the outcomes of the Australia 2020 Futurists Summit and Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra on the weekend With a focus on the future of Australia it would be only natural…
Read More >A group of leading Australian Futurists gathered over the weekend to consider the 10 core themes set to be tackled at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra in April. Convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber, the 2020 Australia Futurists Summit utilised some of the advanced facilitation and strategy development techniques as a…
Read More >As preparations continue for the Prime Minister Rudd’s ‘1000 heads’ ideas summit in Canberra in April, a group of Australia’s leading futurists are gathering in Melbourne this weekend for the ‘Australia 2020 Futurists Summit’. The futurists attending the summit work across Australia, in corporate, not for profit and Government agencies in a variety of fields…
Read More >A few thoughts on what steps could be taken to overcome the ‘treat everyone like a nail’ approach that Interest Rate rises seems to do. Check out the idea under the ‘Latest Focus’ section Interest Rate Rises are going to penalise too many people who don’t deserve to lose their homes
Read More >