Welcome to the Narratives component of the Parks and Recreation Collection, a structured, open-access repository of contemporary and historical knowledge about parks and leisure in Australia, New Zealand and the western Pacific Islands.
As explained in this 4-slide Powerpoint presentation, the Collection has two main elements:
Narratives (this site)
PaRC includes textual narratives explaining key themes in parks and leisure, news items and snippets of miscellaneous information. This element has been nick-named “An Australasian Wikipedia of Parks and Leisure”. Loosely, the Narratives site is dedicated to new, original writings. At 30 July 2023 there were 66 published Narratives – with only a sample revealed on the side-bar to the left. Use the search box above the side bar or the Categories tab on the top menu bar to find material.
PaRC includes a document repository housed on the website of the peak industry body Parks and Leisure Australia. Collection criteria and contact details are explained on that site. Loosely, the Document Library accommodates reports and other documents that have previously been formally published.
Contributions from practitioners and scholars willing to capture and summarise their knowledge are welcome – by providing a copy of an existing report, by adding a narrative on a new subject, by amending text of an existing narrative or by appending an observation or comment.
Refer to the Guidelines for Content Contributors for scope of materials to be added, glossary and a style guide as well as a Call to Authors. Further details about the accessions policy is presented in the June 2023 flyer and attachments. Copyright is explained here.
Refer to the page Support the PaRC project to register interest and for banking details for financial donations.
Managing parks and leisure organisations
PaRC is keen to receive copies of HR documents such as position descriptions, project briefs, templates for issuing permits to use public spaces and other documents helpful to practitioners attempting to fulfil their vocation within modern organisations. Much corporate memory has been lost during the successive organisational restructures in the managerialist era of mid-1980s to 2020s. See the landing page.
Parkland surrender
A draft Queensland-focused working paper on Parkland Surrendered at the Time of Subdivision includes formulae for taking land for public open space in developing localities. Planners and landscape designers who know of comparable (current or historical) documents from other jurisdictions or are willing to refine this draft are invited to contact parc AT SYMBOL parcaustralia.com.au. A fee is potentially payable for quality original writing.
Also see some sharp but highly valid comments by Dr Ken Marriott in his Cert IV course materials in a post on this website.