Our Club has had many great
projects in the past and some of them are still ongoing. In
some cases, these well established ongoing projects are not well
known to our newer members. This is, of course, not by design
... there is no intention to keep this information from newer
members. I think this is a good opportunity to remind all of
us what some of our projects involve.
For example, many of our members
have signed up for the Hanover/Maslow BBQ, and it is one of our
Club's great hands-on projects.
The Hanover/Maslow BBQ began by a
group who called themselves the Maslow Group, so named after a
psychologist who believed in a system of human needs where food is
one of the most basic need. The
Hanover Welfare Service
provides a range of services for people experiencing homelessness or
housing crisis. It has a number of accommodation centres, one
of them is in Southbank, Haig Street. Hanover Southbank
provides temporary accommodation to those experiencing homelessness
or about to experience homelessness.
The Maslow Group provides a BBQ to
the residents of Hanover Southbank twice a week - every Friday and
Sunday. The reason it is not provided every day is that the
residents are encouraged to be self-reliant; the BBQs are intended
to be moral support for the residents - that people in the community
do care about them. Those interested in helping with the BBQ
can start with letting me know of your interest in the project.
I'll forward your information to the Maslow group and you will be
asked to do fill in a form to join as a volunteer. This
includes a police check. You will also need to have a working
with children card before you can start the BBQ as sometimes
families with young children reside at Hanover and volunteers may be
in contact with them. Once these are completed, you can be
scheduled on the next quarterly roster. Once on the roster,
you will remain on the circulation list but you can decide whether
to be on the roster for the next quarter.
On average, a volunteer goes to the
BBQ once a month. When opting to be on a roster, you can
decide if, for example, you only want to help on Fridays. You
will also be asked if you are prepared to be the shopper. The
shopper is the person who brings all the food to Hanover for the
BBQ. There are 2 types of Shoppers, one is the market shopper
(who collects the donated food from the South Melbourne market and
buy other supplies not needed. The other is a supermarket
shopper (who buys all the food from a supermarket). The
shopper is reimbursed at the Hanover reception on presentation of
the receipts.
The BBQ starts at 6 pm when the
volunteers (usually the shopper plus 3 others) arrive at Hanover and
start preparing the food. The food includes sausages, burgers,
a salad, vegie burgers, bread, cooked onions and soft drinks.
The volunteers cook the food, serve the food and clean up. In
most cases, volunteers can leave by about 7.30 pm. It is a
great way to do some hands on community service and to meet other
volunteers outside of our Club.
Well, that's it for now, we'll talk
about another Southbank project next week!
