A sense of community that keeps growing

As with March, April brings more community building opportunities for Southbankers to get involved, meet neighbours, and have their voices, ideas and concerns heard in constructive spaces where decisions for our beloved suburb are made.

Firstly, it was great to meet the new Southbank3006 organisation through a community event last month at Boyd. We could clearly see the love, passion and determination for the betterment of Southbank’s liveability in its founders.

The event created a space for Southbankers to meet and voice some of their main issues, concerns and opportunities for improvement.

With one of their goals being building up Southbank’s sense of community and with overlap on issues like green space etc., we look forward to working with Southbank3006 more in the future and welcome its presence in our neighbourhood.

If you are looking for other opportunities for your voice to be heard, while influencing upcoming council projects and building a sense of community, you are in luck.

The City of Melbourne is organising a second round of Southbank Community Builders Workshops on Saturdays April 9 and April 30. These two free workshops will give Southbankers the opportunity to build and nurture new connections through facilitated networking sessions, discuss community issues with neighbours, visit and support local businesses, learn about council projects and how to influence them, discover existing community groups and initiatives, and learn how to start your own community project. You can book your spot through: participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/participate-southbank/southbank-community-builders-workshop

Members from Southbank Sustainability Group’s (SSG’s) leadership team will be present at these workshops to share some of our insights and knowledge for building a vibrant community in an otherwise busy and transient inner-city suburb like Southbank.

We are lucky enough to interact with many of you through our community vegie garden at Boyd and our own community events, where we get to hear first-hand some of your main concerns and issues with living in Southbank. While we do our best to respond to community needs around the theme of sustainability and climate action solutions, we strongly encourage you to add your input at participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/participate-southbank until April 30, so that your voice reaches the right channels to inform and influence Southbank’s very own council Neighbourhood Plan.

It is important to voice our needs and aspirations for Southbank in forums where what we say is considered in decisions that help deliver the solutions, long-term investments, and spaces we all need.

We will also be rolling out more of our own community building events in the next couple of months, while introducing people to attainable and fun environmental solutions we can all do in small spaces like Southbank apartments. Keep an eye on our Facebook page or email us to learn more about our upcoming events or if you would like to volunteer and help with delivering one of these events.

As usual, our meetups continue fortnightly every second Saturday, 10am to 12pm, where we do some gardening and chat over coffee about upcoming sustainability-focused opportunities to get involved. Our next meetups will be Saturdays April 9 and 23, at Boyd’s front yard. As always, we invite everyone to join regardless of gardening or climate action interest or experience.

About the group

A solutions-focused group of Southbankers working to bring positive change in sustainability practices and education to our neighbourhood, while building a wonderful community. Free to join. 2019 Environment Melbourne Award and KVB 2020 Sustainable Cities Environment Award winner. Reach us at [email protected] or facebook.com/SouthbankSustainabilityGroup •