Overview (GWI)

Overview

Greening Woolloomooloo Inc. (known as GWI ) is a volunteer non-profit association of local neighbours and friends located in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, Australia (see maps.google.com.au search woolloomooloo nsw ) striving to serve ALL in our neighbourhood and surrounds by engaging private, public and homeless residents across all accessible social and economic groups by facilitating volunteer initiatives which contribute to our community in beneficial best-practice ways.

All GWI activities are based on an integration of EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT (Greening) and HUMAN EXPRESSION (Art).

GWI seeks to realise Greening as restoration of vitality or freshness; rejuvenation (see freedictionary.com) by supporting individual voluntary integrated endeavours involving Education, Natural Science and Art with emphasis on Sustainable Urban Living through the facilitation of community projects aimed at the shared development of community wide social capital.

GWI is incorporated as a non-profit association under New South Wales state legislation (see fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/Cooperatives_and_associations/Associations.html ) and is affiliated with Landcare Australia (see www.landcareonline.com ) and the Sydney Catchment Management Authority (see www.sydney.cma.nsw.gov.au ).

GWI remains true-local by permitting only local residents of Woolloomooloo to vote in any elections for GWI office bearers, in order to avoid subversion of the association by "out-of-area" participants, so common in other organisations in Woolloomooloo. This policy in no way excludes anyone from being a GWI member or participating in any GWI project or activity, except voting.

GWI has received project development grants from the Federal Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) (see www.fahcsia.gov.au ), Housing NSW (see www.housing.nsw.gov.au ) and the Royal Botanical Gardens Sydney (see www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au ) to promote non-partisan care of environment through community engagement in the Woolloomooloo and Inner East of Sydney. GWI enjoys cooperative project engagement with The St. Vincent de Paul Society (see www.vinnies.org.au ), Hope Street (see www.hopestreet.org.au/home.htm ) and Centrelink (see www.centrelink.gov.au ), and attracts members across all generations from all walks of life with a wide variety of interests backgrounds and skills who enjoy effective direct voluntary participation in community works.

GWI maintains a bank account with St. George Bank (see stgeorge.com.au ) and a public liability insurance policy facilitated under the National Landcare Insurance Program (see altiorainsurance.com.au ) to enable GWI members to undertake community projects securely, safely and prudently.

GWI volunteers are encouraged to deploy their diverse talents to undertake projects to benefit the entire community. Member facilitation takes a variety of intergrated support modes, including: project & activity planning, project financial management, public liability and occupational health & safety indemnity, funding submissions generation, specialist project skills & knowledge transfer etc., and aims to connect the project stake-holders to the broader community, government services, and private sponsors consistent with a Clearing House operations model (see www.unesco.org/most/bphome.htm ), exemplified by the Federal Republic of Germany's experiences of national funding delivery to local community groups. (see www.childpolicyintl.org/countries/germany.html and www.sprc.unsw.edu.au for Dr Ingrid Wilkens of the Institute for Economics and Social Sciences, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg ).

GWI members are encouraged to undertake tasks within their capacity, and to call on assistance from other participating members to develop individual cooperative and social skills through skills sharing and transfer in an activity team context, with participating members offering their own talents towards the shared activity, enabling the emergence of natural cooperative social dynamics realised as activity directed expressions of individual talents to satisfy task operational needs. Simple behavioural safety and social rules (wearing sensible protective clothing, taking care of self and others, the right to be heard etc.) serve to scaffold member engagement to preserve the the social cohesion of the activity. The engagement of individuals with others serves to build social and community skills, team work and initiative.

GWI activities aim to practice affirmative cooperation by promoting member interaction with others in the community by facilitating social opportunity through shared activity, specifically by encouraging members with shared interests to work together and undertake specific task ownership through regular participantion in shared interest group activities (see Calendar ). Additional socialisation is achieved by undertaking special group excursions and activities as opportunities and needs arise. Regular open attendance public engagement through activities is also undertaken to share knowledge and attract new members. Direct communication and personal engagement facilitates accommodation to new circumstances quickly and sensibly, preserving and extending the dynamic nature of creative social interaction enabling issues to be rapidly converted into effective solutions.

GWI member participation and self-reported satisfaction may be tallied to quantify activity and facilitation needs, and infenebrr efficacy. Activities usually involve small informal teams of participating members cooperating in the larger context of an overall activity, with only very basic safety, security and strategic direction offered, enabling individuals within teams to self determine activity compatabilies and contribute to the activity according to their own individual capacities, being free to locate their own individual interests and determine how best these might best be served within any particular activity.

GWI member representation is ensured from the outset of any new project requiring a project leader & deputy to join the GWI Management Committee to represent the project's needs by relaying feedback from individual informal project focussed membership to ensure strong communication, thereby contributing to GWI's overall operation. Consensus decisions are pursued at all meetings, and across all levels of the organisation. All committee members are elected at the Annual General Meeting after being installed by Management Committee.

GWI maintains an objective of self-sustainable growth for all projects by undertaking a succession strategy which begins with specific member activities as small enterprises within existing projects (eg: WEST WALL MURAL activity within project DOWLING ). These are then encouraged when successful activities can be demonstrated suggesting wider potential and interest for the activity to take a larger role in the community ( eg: the emergence of the GRAFF WORKSHOP activity from within project DOWLING ). This enabling participation inspires volunteers to develop skills and confidence through mutual cooperation towards a future by inspires community interest and participation to support further projects, thereby encouraging the development and rejuvenation of community capital through individual participation.

Carl D KNEIPP,
Founder, GWI