NEXT OVAN COMMUNITY MEETING:

Sunday 17th August, 3-5pm
Exodus Community Centre, 273 Liberty Pde
Heidelberg West.
All welcome! Find out more about our organisation and how to get involved.

To OLC members and neighbours,

We hope everyone has been keeping warm during these cold winter days. We had a productive and inspiring Community Meeting on Sun 20th July, where the groundwork was set for the three working groups. We’ve also had a meeting with multiple Council stakeholders (including CEO Allison Beckwith) to explore collaboration moving forward.

There is potential, but also a number of challenges and unanswered questions as we move closer to decommissioning of current aquatics at Olympic Leisure Centre (OLC), especially for those most at risk. The workload is outstripping our capacity as a committee, and we are actively seeking community members to get more involved. If that sounds like you, please reach out!

Until our next meeting on Sun 17th August (3-5pm), we welcome any feedback, suggestions, or ideas to add into the mix. Please take care.

Dr. Aiden Varan, on behalf of the OVAN Committee

Help us continue our vital work by making a donation to OVAN. Every contribution supports advocacy, events, printing and organising efforts to help us fight for our community. All donations are warmly welcomed as we are currently unfunded.
Please note that donations are unfortunately not tax deductable.

On Tuesday 29th July, OVAN members Aiden, Alex, Jean, Nina and Harry and Avril attended a meeting with key Council stakeholders to better understand the council’s consultation plans as they close the aquatics at OLC and open the library service.

Council attendees included Allison Beckwith (CEO, Banyule City Council), Joseph Tabacco (Director, Community Wellbeing), Nicole Maslin (Manager, Healthy and Active Communities), Wes Hurrey (Manager, Banyule Leisure), as well as Cr. Mary O’Kane (Olympia Ward) and Robyn Ellard (Executive Manager, Public Participation, Yarra Plenty Regional Library).

The forthcoming decommissioning of aquatic facilities at the OLC is heartbreaking. However, as OVAN, we see the necessity for a successful revitalisation. Ultimately, we want a comprehensive redevelopment of the OLC to better meet the community’s needs, including local aquatic facilities.

Banyule Council must promote authentic community engagement and transparency during this process. If the community feels trusted and listened to, and has a strong sense of guardianship and emotional stake in the facility, it will be a success.

OVAN could never hope to represent all voices in the community. Instead, we are trying to bring individual and collective perspectives to the table, with a particular focus in our three priority domains (underpinned by our three working groups).

Overall, the meeting was a chance to understand Council’s progress in the revitalisation, ask points of clarification, and explore means of collaboration. Of note:

• Aquatics: Consultation on a new home for women’s-only aquatics is ongoing, particularly in exploring La Trobe University swimming pool as an option.

• Library service: Planning for the library service is in a preliminary phase. We are organising a specific followup meeting with YPRL to seek clarification on next steps.

• Impact of closure: We pushed for greater detail and depth in assessing the impact of OLC aquatic closure and shared preliminary proposals from our Working Group 3 leads Sarah and Michael (see below).

If you have additional information or questions regarding these issues, please reach out to us - we would be happy to share or direct you to relevant contacts. We look forward to ongoing meetings with Banyule City Council and relevant stakeholders to promote a better outcome for the future of the OLC and Olympic Village more broadly.

Our most recent OVAN Community Meeting on Sunday 20th July was a small group session focused on building foundations in each of the three working groups. It was an energtic and lively breakout discussion, and a heartening example of the skill and passion in our community. We are very grateful to everyone who participated!

If you are interested to participate in any of these working groups moving forward, please let us know!

Goals: Advocating for meaningful, honest, collaborative, community-led consultation into the future of the OLC and Olympic Village, including future aquatics.

Working Group Leads: Alex Childs

Key discussion points:

Through the working group discussion, two sub-themes emerged:

[I] Working with the offer at hand to activate the OLC

1. How can we direct Council, through their current committed funding ($1.8M), to make an interim OLC relevant and useful for our community?

   1. Risk of further service downgrading or removal altogether if revitalisation fails

   2. Working with multiple divisions across Council (e.g., capital works versus community wellbeing)

   3. Need for broad stakeholder engagement - Holstep Health, Barrbunin Beek, primary schools, childcare centres, cultural and religious leaders, sporting groups and local businesses

   4. Challenges of diverse and changing user base with aquatic decommissioning and library service introduction (peak usage times, gender and age composition)

   5. Challenges of proposed floorplan (e.g., toilet/shower infrastructure and configuration for gym vs library; moving around facility with different subsections having different operating hours)

   6. Currently unclear how staffed library hours will be distributed across week

   7. Considering programming that community would be interested to participate in.

   8. Who is currently being left out, and who risks now being left out?

   9. Broader social needs in Olympic Village (e.g., bring in youth social worker into library space)

2. Revitalising the Olympic Village Green

   1. Envisioning a friendly, safe, active, inviting space.

   2. Considering setting up pop-up shop in Olympic Village Shops in one of vacant lots (15-17 Moresby Ct) to activate community by community. Ideas floated include artist in residency, concerts, group meetings, other events, subsidised veggie co-op.

   3. Mobilising current shop owners in Olympic Village Green shops to establish Traders Association

   4. Hosting special events in Olympic Village with community or local/Federal/State grant funding (with focus on e.g., food security; youth outreach; reviving historic twilight markets; special religious/cultural events eg. Eid, Diwali, Lunar New Year)

[II] Shaping the future OLC master plan

1. Setting foundations now for future consultation

   1. Start to push for next round of codesign to create a Master Plan to pitch to State and Federal government.

   2. Envisioning aquatic reintroduction as part of a ‘health hub’ - e.g., targeted linkage with Holstep Health and Austin Health for a hydrotherapy space

   3. Longitudinal data collection and analysis

   4. Harnessing community expertise (e.g., local architects, engineers, strategists, researchers, health professionals, visual artists, gym junkies, sports management); linkages with La Trobe University

Goals: celebrate our community by capturing stories, memories, and history of the OLC before decommissioning of the current aquatic facilities, as a means of fostering connection as well as advocacy for unmet community needs.

Working Group Leads: Edwina Entwisle, Julie Gill

Key discussion points: 

• A vision was put forward to collect stories from OLC users, especially those who had previously spoken at Cr. O’Kane’s emergency meeting at Shop 48 prior to the vote on Resolution C2025/77. A tentative date for 22nd August was proposed.

• Initially discussions included video interviews to create a short video/documentary, but logistically this proved too complex. We decided to focus on spoken words and photography.

Goals: Advocate on behalf of priority groups and vulnerable community members who are detrimentally impacted by the decommissioning of current aquatic facilities at OLC.

Working Group Leads: Michael Smith, Sarah Carter

Key discussion points:

• Challenges of terminology - ‘Serving the Vulnerable’ giving wrong connotation; emphasis on individuals experiencing hardship and priority groups

• Limited faith in Council’s willingness to comprehensively look at impact of aquatic closure on those most affected, and need for independent data collection.

• Holstep as a critical partner in this work (data storage/management plus linkages to relevant social/health services)

• Considered provisional data metrics to include in a survey to assess impact

Until next time, stay safe and keep speaking up for our community.

===

Dr. Aiden Varan, MD, MPH, BSc(Hons)
Paediatric registrar &
President, Olympic Village Action Network
On behalf of the Olympic Village Action Network Incorporated Association Committee
[email protected]
https://ovan.org.au
https://ovan.beehiiv.com

We acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands upon which the Olympic Village is situated, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Kulin nations, and pay our respects to elders past, present, and emerging. Soverignty over these lands was never ceded; always was, and always will be, Aboriginal country. We aim to work in collaboration with our First Nations partners to create a better future for our community.