by Shane Sody

We need YOU on the Park Guardians team. It’s easy:

• Choose a Park in your Park Lands

• Take its photos

• Watch it change

• Share its stories

Yes, it really is that easy.  You can do it with a friend, if you like. Here’s your chance to meet other like-minded people in our team, while you protect and promote one part of your Adelaide Park Lands.  

We are opening the door for you to become the eyes, ears and voice of a chosen slice of your Park Lands, and become what we’re calling a “Park Guardian”.

This is a new, ongoing volunteer opportunity.

Ask yourself: Do you:

• Love Your Park Lands? and

• live near to a part of your Adelaide Park Lands? and/or

• regularly visit or commute through a part of your Park Lands?

Then this is something that you can do, easily. More than that, it’s something that we NEED you to do.

After eight years, I will be stepping down as APA President from April 2025. Likewise our content creator Carla Caruso will be finishing up at the end of 2024. Therefore, the Association needs to recruit a team of volunteers to take up, from 2025, the role of “Park Guardian”.

What’s involved?

The title “Park Guardian” gives you a flavour of the role. Put simply, after you choose a Park within your Park Lands, all that you need to do is:

• Take its photos

• Watch it change

• Share its stories

Too easy?

Yes it’s easy, but the key is to maintain responsibility for “your” one Park on an ongoing, regular basis. Once you’ve chosen and been assigned a particular Park, you (and a friend, if you want to share the role) will be:

• contributing at least one photo per month from "your" Park, for publication as the #adelaideparklands #picoftheday on our social media feeds;

• writing and illustrating one story each six months about "your" Park to share its features with our readers on our blog and social media;

• familiarising yourself with the Trail Guide for "your" Park; and taking responsibility for letting our webmaster know when it could/should be improved and/or updated.  Trail Guides rarely need major changes, just occasional tweaking, but for “your” Park it will become, in effect, YOUR Trail Guide; and

• providing back-up to a trained APA Tour Guide leader, who will be rostered to conduct and lead occasional Guided Walks, with your support, in "your" Park. There will be only one (or at most, two) per year in “your” Park. You and the rostered, trained Tour Guide leader will be a two-person team taking responsibility for these annual or semi-annual public tours.

Find out more

Come to a free introductory information session, where you can meet fellow Park Lands volunteers, ask questions, and, if you’re up for the challenge, nominate which part of the Park Lands you’d like to represent as a Park Guardian.

• When: 6.00pm to 7.30pm Monday 9 December 2024

• Where: McLaren Room, Box Factory Community Centre, Regent Street South, Adelaide.

Places are limited. Reserve your spot by booking, free, on Humanitix: https://events.humanitix.com/park-lands-guardian-info-session

Any questions about the event can be directed to our Executive Officer, David Winderlich: executive@adelaide-parklands.asn.au

If you cannot attend, or if you are reading this after 9 December 2024, please contact David Winderlich to inquire about the next scheduled information session.

The author of this article, Shane Sody, is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".

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