It Takes a Village to Move a Community

Your Move at St As has many mini projects running simultaneously. Many hands work together to keep the momentum going in each of the projects. While I am a genuine volunteer who co-ordinators the Your Move program at St Augustines, it should not be ignored that many of the people who undertake YM activities under the banner of their paid work are consistently going above and beyond their paid duties to encourage our community to increase and celebrate active travel. I originally wrote this story for National Volunteer Week, but it has taken me longer than expected to gather together the pictures to celebrate our amazing team.

Our Principal, Adriana and I meet often to discuss the progress of our two major projects, our Double Platinum Connecting Schools Grant funded Bike Shelter and our School Crossing Guard application.

For our regular events, active travel excursions and other ad hoc YM activities, I liaise with the Your Move Staff Coordinators who job share the role Mon-Wed and Th&Fri. This week I sent emails about WSTSD plans, our upcoming Constable Care excursion, Super Boosted Bike Ed and request for a Student Team OneNote. I’ll usually touch base at least once a week with each of them about these topics when we see each other around the school grounds.

For our Bike Club the main staff contact is Mr Breen our Phys Ed Coordinator. We have been in contact regarding the interschool mountainbiking events and coaching. I also keep in regular contact with the Bike Club parents to keep them informed of Bike Club activities.

In the front office, Claire signs me in and out each time I attend the school and helps with printing, collating and announcements. She is the brains behind all of our social media posts, in which Your Move activities are often shared. She also generally knows where everyone is and what everyone is doing which is super helpful.

For all financial Your Move concerns like grant aquittals and invoices, Mr Lee, our Finance Officer is the go to guy, but he is shy and didn't want his photo taken.

Mrs McCafferty our gardener helps to make sure event days run smoothly, setting up from the moment the gates open.

Our P&F Association support Your Move wholeheatedly - especially by providing air time on the P&F facebook page (one of our best avenues for parent communication) for the many YM announcements.

I liaise with stakeholders such as the City of Belmont officers, Councillors and builders regularly throughout the year to arrange activities, funding, excursions and local infrastructure upgrades. Below are two of our West Ward Councillors, Deborah Sessions and Robert Rossi who are dedicated advocates for safe active travel in our local community.

Then there is the YM team, Carol-Ann, Dave, Piotr, Sam, James, Emma, Trevor and the Hatch’d crew and all the other YM champions who help inspire further activity and story sharing.

Without the extra efforts that go above and beyond from each member of this team, the Your Move program at St Augustine's would not be as strong as it is today and there would be far fewer walkers, riders and scooters on the footpaths and a lot more cars on our roads.