Celebrate Your Place - Local Neighbourhood Picnic

Reynolds Park, Toongabbie 12 July 2007

Following the North West Community Spirit Forum held in April 2007, interested residents attended a number of “local neighbourhood” meetings. Through these meetings, local residents worked alongside Parramatta City Council and local service providers to plan the inaugural Local Neighbourhood Picnic held in Reynolds Park in Toongabbie during the July school holidays.

The event was a great success, attracting many local families, with around 200 people attending throughout the day. The picnic provided a range of fun and safe activities for children, and also an opportunity for adults to socialise and communicate with neighbours, and build on the local ‘community spirit” in Toongabbie.

Local children enthusiastically participated in a range of activities reminiscent of times gone by, such as egg and spoon races, three legged race, captain ball and tunnel ball. The wonderful face-painter, Kim Mooney, transformed local children into princesses, tigers, Superman, fairies and other exciting characters. Through the course of the event, the park filled with children proudly displaying the beautiful artwork on their faces, and ribbons pinned to their chests displaying their success in the games and races.

Council’s Community Capacity Building (CCB) Team also used this event as an opportunity to talk with local residents about the skills, knowledge and strengths within their local community and also their dreams for the future of their neighbourhood. A number of face-to-face surveys were conducted with local residents and of these around 20 people expressed an interest to working with Council and its community partners to develop positive local solutions to locally-identified issues and to generate opportunities for ‘community spirit’ activities in the area.

If you would like to be involved in future ‘Celebrate Your Place’ activities, or ‘Neighbourhood Group’ meetings, please contact the Community Place Development Officer for the Toongabbie area, Jane Lowe, on 9806 5116 or email jlowe@parracity.nsw.gov.au