Hi I am Josh a Friends of Lake Claremont (FOLC) Board Director and a Youth Board Member of Millennium Kids (MK) and I am engineering a new approach to caring for our precious places.
In theory, it’s easy given the right set of eagerness and talent, to engineer anything that obeys the laws of physics, to optimise the mechanisms that govern biology, and capture the beauty of the natural environment in an art form of any medium. However, social connection, a sense of community and genuine relationships sit in the adjacent fields in their level of difficulty to replicate. We can build better reticulation and energy storage systems, optimise the levels of ammonia in fertiliser to help our plants grow big and strong, but aside from the preferences of Tinder or the algorithms drawing you into the abyss on TikTok, you can’t manufacture social connection, a sense of community and genuine relationships from a blueprint.
Enter FOLC. My first interaction was on a rainy Perth morning, where the Morten Bay Figs shaded the volunteers working below. I was greeted by smiling faces with a mission ahead. This selfless group of people where exactly what I was looking. For a while it was me hanging out with the ‘oldies’ at FOLC. That’s fine – nothing wrong with a cup of wisdom, a shot of experience, sprinkled with their endless kindness. After a few years dabbling in an assortment of projects – bandicoot bungalows, cockatoo hollows, alongside the usual planting, weeding and mulching I’d come to understand what we did, but not how we did it. How could I be a leader without the training and lifetime of experience that seemingly many others in the group had? And where were all the young people?
This is how the collaboration between MK and the FOLC began. MK is awesome because when you want to fly to the moon, they don’t tell you how expensive jet fuel is but give you a jetpack to make change.The goal of our collaboration is to increase youth engagement to ensure FOLC has a succession plan and doesn’t go out like the dinosaurs.
MK enables young people to take action on issues that they care about. Joining MK through their GreenLab program meant I’d take an unexpected non-linear trajectory. Alongside young leaders, we were exposed to action learning (do to learn, not learn to do) skills in risk management, governance, understanding liquidity for an organisation, and first aid.
And now with all these new skills I am working with the FOLC, MK and Town of Claremont to create a WA Tree Festival event, ‘Young Locals Nature Sundowner’ on Saturday the 16th of May 3-7PM at Lake Claremont. Through a nature walk and sundowner, with amazing paella, we’re crafting an experience which has the goal of attracting young people (18+) who want social connection, to meet their community, and to have a good time.
Check out the comments for a link to tickets.
Photo: me sharing the FOLC love with our MK partners from Dompu.
Youth Voice in the Wheatbelt
In theory, it’s easy given the right set of eagerness and talent, to engineer anything that obeys the laws of physics, to optimise the mechanisms that govern biology, and capture the beauty of the natural environment in an art form of any medium. However, social connection, a sense of community and genuine relationships sit in the adjacent fields in their level of difficulty to replicate. We can build better reticulation and energy storage systems, optimise the levels of ammonia in fertiliser to help our plants grow big and strong, but aside from the preferences of Tinder or the algorithms drawing you into the abyss on TikTok, you can’t manufacture social connection, a sense of community and genuine relationships from a blueprint.
Enter FOLC. My first interaction was on a rainy Perth morning, where the Morten Bay Figs shaded the volunteers working below. I was greeted by smiling faces with a mission ahead. This selfless group of people where exactly what I was looking. For a while it was me hanging out with the ‘oldies’ at FOLC. That’s fine – nothing wrong with a cup of wisdom, a shot of experience, sprinkled with their endless kindness. After a few years dabbling in an assortment of projects – bandicoot bungalows, cockatoo hollows, alongside the usual planting, weeding and mulching I’d come to understand what we did, but not how we did it. How could I be a leader without the training and lifetime of experience that seemingly many others in the group had? And where were all the young people?
This is how the collaboration between MK and the FOLC began. MK is awesome because when you want to fly to the moon, they don’t tell you how expensive jet fuel is but give you a jetpack to make change.The goal of our collaboration is to increase youth engagement to ensure FOLC has a succession plan and doesn’t go out like the dinosaurs.
MK enables young people to take action on issues that they care about. Joining MK through their GreenLab program meant I’d take an unexpected non-linear trajectory. Alongside young leaders, we were exposed to action learning (do to learn, not learn to do) skills in risk management, governance, understanding liquidity for an organisation, and first aid.
And now with all these new skills I am working with the FOLC, MK and Town of Claremont to create a WA Tree Festival event, ‘Young Locals Nature Sundowner’ on Saturday the 16th of May 3-7PM at Lake Claremont. Through a nature walk and sundowner, with amazing paella, we’re crafting an experience which has the goal of attracting young people (18+) who want social connection, to meet their community, and to have a good time.
Check out the comments for a link to tickets.
Photo: me sharing the FOLC love with our MK partners from Dompu.