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
In parts of the world it’s Christmas day, a time for excusing your retail spending on a ‘worthy cause’. Which is fun in some ways and delusional in others 🙂 Don’t allow my grinchness deter you from enjoying today. As for me, I’m delighted that a) my present was wrapped in old newspaper and b)…
Read More >Part of being effective as a futurist is being able to assess potential issues and their impact over time. The Victorian State Election is on this Saturday and though many say that State elections have little bearing on issues we face, our system means that the fluctuations at a Federal level are often countered by…
Read More >‘m wrapped to be acting as EmCee for the third year in a row at Blackwood 8’s Celebration of Hope event, raising money to find a Cure for Brain Cancer. And delighted that the event has sold out. But fret not – you can still bid for some great auction items online or make a…
Read More >The major party in Australia’s dual party Government, the Liberal Party, has removed their leader Tony Abbott, replacing him with the previous leader, Malcolm Turnbull. PM designate Turnbull may be inclined to spend the first few days appeasing and reassuring his party members that everything will be okay. And that would be a mistake. Public…
Read More >When I look at my overall client types, it seems to me that I have two main types of client. The first is a client that has a good business and is generally successful and wants a futurist to help keep them ahead of emerging issues and opportunities. The second main client type is one…
Read More >As a consultant, one of the great puzzles I consistently discover is the mindset many clients hold with regard to their own abilities to conceive of and pursue, their own approach to futures thinking. I know this is not an issues restricted to futurists as where some clients have a ‘not invented here’ approach to…
Read More >I’m going to come back to an idea I first floated back in 2004. By and large it is hard to change societal perceptions. Doing so requires on going effort, time and often resources like money to create marketing campaigns of some description. Unless you have a crisis. And right now it might be fair…
Read More >Whilst I appreciate the efforts that Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd and the various Australian Governments have given regarding their aims to have the Japanese cease their annual whale harvests, I’m not quite sure they are tackling the issue through the best means available. Sure the confrontational approach of ramming ships, climbing aboard vessels, getting in the…
Read More >I’ve just read an article about Corporate Visions and getting employees on the same page. And as happens so often, I shook my head because it offered the same flawed advice about what a leader needs to do to get their employees to buy into the Vision. And therein lays the fatal flaw You CANNOT…
Read More >As the drought in California continues to bite hard on the lives of millions, a recent article on Triple Pundit suggested that many people want to help save water, they just don’t know what else to do. Which is why California needs to look beyond its borders to the driest inhabited continent on the planet…
Read More >