Playspace design and maintenance guidelines
These guidelines have been developed by play planners and designers, as well as council operational staff who are experienced with play design and maintenance.
Review Status:
nature play; role of open space in mental health
Playspace design and maintenance guidelines
These guidelines have been developed by play planners and designers, as well as council operational staff who are experienced with play design and maintenance.
MCC Policy – Use of Public Open Space by Commercial Fitness Trainers Policy
MCC Procedure – Use of Public Open Space by Commercial Fitness Trainers Policy
These two documents, the Policy, and the Procedure, set out Council’s position on the management of commercial fitness trainers in their use of public open space in MidCoast Council area.
Long-term recreation professional Peter Nicholls of Adelaide has generously agreed to provide the substance of materials on his website Australia’s People Gardener for re-presenting and curating on PaRC. Peter’s professional qualifications in the fields of leisure and recreation planning and development include:
A profile of Peter is also preserved on PaRC under the category “Inspirational People“.
THE BENEFITS OF CREATIVE LEISURE INTERESTS
LIST OF LEISURE/RECREATION IDEAS. Although this document includes 2005 in its heading, that is the date it was commenced. Activities have been added continuously since then.
BEING WHO YOU REALLY ARE IS A RISK WORTH TAKING
BEWARE OF THE RETIRED HUSBAND SYNDROME
DARE TO HAVE FAITH IN YOUR DREAMS
DON’T THROW YOUR ABILITIES AWAY. RECYCLE THEM
EMPLOYERS OF CHOICE WHY THEY ATTRACT STAFF LOYALTY
FEAR AND COURAGE THE ODD COUPLE
HOW MUCH WOULD YOU TRUST YOUR TRUE SELF
I WISH I WAS THE ME I ONCE WANTED TO BE
IT’S TIME TO TEAR DOWN THE WALL THAT SEPARATES WORK AND LEISURE
LIFE AFTER WORK WILL BE LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER KNOWN BEFORE
MY APPROACH TO EXPONENTIAL PERSONAL GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
SPACE THE SEPARATION THAT KEEPS US TOGETHER
THE CHANGING ROLE OF BUSINESS IN MAKING SENSE OF WHY WE ARE HERE
THE ENQUENCHABLE YEARNING TO FOLLOW YOUR HEART
THE GLORIOUS ENIGMA OF UNCERTAINTY
WE NO LONGER ACCEPT LIFE IS OVER WHEN IT
WHY IT’S TIME FOR A PARADIGM SHIFT TO CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT
The above 23 files AGGREGATED
To be continued.
Peter Nicholls, of Adelaide, a long-term Trustee of the AIPR Trust Fund-Education (forerunner and originator of PaRC), has described himself as “Australia’s People Gardener”. His inspiring life story has been summarised in his “Manifesto“, a challenge to people enslaved by an economic worth ethic to substitute “life enjoyment” for “work” as their purpose in life.
Peter’s professional qualifications in the fields of leisure and recreation planning and development include:
Peter has made his updated Manifesto available to PaRC readers. Further details of Peter’s vision may be obtained from his website, https://australiaspeoplegardener.com.au/. The substantive documents from his website are being curated on a separate post “People Gardening“.
Human well-being is central to the worldview of parks and leisure people, it’s a, and perhaps THE primary purpose of parks and leisure activities and facilities. So there is likely to be wide interest in a series of thought pieces being published in The Mandarin, a national online newsletter of public administration, under the aegis of the Royal Societies of Australia.
The series has its origin in a conviction by the scientist members of The Royal Society of Queensland that the knowledge held by scientists and medicos about human health and well-being is not being adequately reflected in national public policy and there is a need for public advocacy of scientific insights to better inform policy settings in health, education, and a range of other portfolios.
Some of the columns published to date don’t overlap much with the interests of parks and leisure people (speaking generally), but some will resonate strongly with readers of this website:
Articles 3-7 will be of particular interest to operational managers who struggle to implement good ideas: they explain that there are five major ingredients to a successful program or project, and the absence of any of the one can be fatal to success.
The Mandarin is tagging the articles and the full series can be accessed by clicking on this link. The parent website, a page under the Royal Societies of Australia banner, is being developed as a knowledge hub on the subject.
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Most of the articles published to date have been written by one author, but the project envisages contributions from a range of people with expertise. Any parks or leisure practitioner who would like to write a column of about 1000 words on a well-being subject of their choice is warmly invited to contact the Coordinator via health AT SYMBOL royalsocietyqld.org.au or the secretary of PaRC via secretary AT SYMBOL parcaustralia.com.au.
Many parks people will be highly sensitive to the need to protect green space within and around areas of urban settlement. This has long been understood by town planners and by the parks and recreation officers of local governments. However, in the contemporary push for densification of urban development, this deeply held principle is being set aside as lot sizes shrink and vacant government land is being re-described as “under-performing” and targeted for blocks of flats. Parks and recreation people who have some anecdotes to share can write for PaRC. Those with more policy-orientated advocacy to share can write for The Mandarin. Those with a social media aptitude are warmly invited to join the LinkedIn account.
Please see the Call for Authors for details of style and format.
The Australian Clearinghouse for Sport is the pre-eminent information and knowledge-sharing platform for Australian sport.
The Clearinghouse brings together Australia’s leading sport and active recreation agencies, using Sport Australia as the principal information coordinator, to share news, evidence and insights about sport, human performance and physical activity. The Clearinghouse works to:
The Clearinghouse is a central access point for knowledge about the Australian sport sector and for communication between sportspeople and sporting organisations. It is an entity of the Australian Sports Commission, itself an agency of the Australian Government. Access its website https://www.clearinghouseforsport.gov.au/ here.
Given the existence of the Clearinghouse with its focus on ‘active’ recreation and sport, the PaRC document library and this PaRC narratives website have purposely focused on ‘passive’ recreation, open space and park management, although of course no clear distinction can be maintained.
The Clearinghouse’s useful list of definitions of key terms in sport, for example, has been extracted and converted to a durable PDF format in a post in PaRC.
Canadian Sport Information Resource Centre
The Canadian equivalent is an excellent source of technical knowledge about sports played in that country. Click on SIRC Resources or its French version.
Parks and Recreation Portfolio Planning
This is a presentation that I gave at the Parks and Leisure Australia (PLA) 2024 National Conference in Brisbane.
The presentation outlines the portfolio approach to planning for parks and recreation.
This report dated 1992 by consultant Pamela Lyon was published by the National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies, Department of Education, University of Tasmania (Hobart).
In 1989, the National Youth Affairs Research Scheme (NYARS) had research done into the health issues affecting young Aboriginal people aged 12 to 25 years. The
researcher was also to look at how culture and life situations, living conditions and relationships with other people (”social factors”) may affect the health problems of
Aboriginal young people. The result was the report The Health of Young Aborigines, by Maggie Brady, an anthropologist with much experience of Aboriginal people and Aboriginal issues in many different parts of Australia.
The report:
• identifies the most important health issues affecting young Aboriginal people in cities and towns and in country and remote areas,
• looks at some of the ways people are trying to do something about these issues; and
• recommends other ways of making young Aboriginal people healthier.
The report is based on published studies, Ms Brady’s previous fieldwork, and several field trips to South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. This summary of the original report was prepared by Pamela Lyon for NYARS so that Aboriginal people living in communities, and community-based health professionals who work with young Aboriginal people, may understand more easily what is in the report.
MidCoast Recreational Boating Infrastructure Plan 2024 – 2035
This boating infrastructure plan is part of the MidCoast Parks and Recreation Planning Portfolio.
It covers more than a hundred individual boating assets, which include boat ramps, pontoons and jetties, across our coastline, rivers and lakes, many of which are sensitive ecosystems. The Plan not only focuses on the assets but also on the activities that are conducted on the waterways, and which use the facilities. Environmental protection is the main focus of the Plan.
This report Games to Play Sitting presents some 54 games designed for the elderly and disabled. It was released by the Division of Recreation and Sport, South Australia, but the games are credited to the Occupational Therapy Department, St. James University Hospital, Leeds, England. February 1979, about 32 pages.