I have lived in Canberra for more years than the National Arboretum Canberra has been in the making: I had been driving past it twice every work day for a year, and I still hadn't heard of it until a dude mentioned that the opening day would be a good gig. This clearly wasn't a good enough idea at the time, as I ignored the plans until it was too late to work out how to get a bus up the hill (there wasn't much carparking on opening day). And that was that, I missed the first live day.
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For Canberra, it's a pretty good view. |
I finally found my way up a few weeks later, and had what is apparently a typical first reaction, after winding the car up the little hill, puzzling over the shapes of the buildings, driving over the back to park in the dust, paying for my carpark ticket, schlepping through the blustering breeze in the corridor that herds visitors to the front door: "How have I not heard about this place? The, the building... the view... that roof... the design... the way those plantings are laid out... the VIEW."
A few coffees and chats and maps and walks and visits later, I'd become a Friend and been invited to volunteer, to be a part of it. It drew me - I just had to help make something great of this place, albeit years after kickoff. A few months of life and work and training later, and I was mostly trained to guide people around the site. When the call was sent regarding helping with activities during school holidays, of course I was interested. I signed up, got my roster sorted, and showed up for the first time as a volunteer today. I had a GREAT day.
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Don't turn your back, lady |
Some nifty school holiday activities have been put together to keep schoolkids as entertained as they're ever likely to be without a console in their hands. Some vollies were needed to help with camel rides, craft activities, kite making, reptile displays, storytelling... and my role in 'general hosting' today was to just schlep around the site looking out for problems: lost kids, injuries, people in need of a shorter coffee queue, etc. Easy As. Toilets are just through the door there... Actually there is another exit from the playground... The wait for a camel ride is about thirty minutes at the moment... There are BBQs up in the Himalayan Cedars... The best place for a picnic today would probably be through the building here and through to the outdoor auditorium. Etc.
Volunteers get to do mostly what they feel like doing: I chose to wander around outside rather than to stay indoors catching people as they walked through the door: and when I felt like a break, I just wandered off to take some photos or to chat with people who seemed affable.
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They had a dragon to train |
I was very happy when some friends from work came by during the day: I don't usually have much to talk about when people at work ask what I'll be doing on the weekend, but this week I was able to manipulate them into coming on up to fly a kite, or bring the kids they have to look after this weekend, or just drop by for something different to do. I even got to dog-sit for them!
Lessons learned:
- This hat sucks. Get a bigger hat.
- The big rainbow sun umbrella I thought might be good for keeping my pasty skin pasty won't even come close to managing a very light wind making its way across the playground.
- Learn more stuff: be able to adapt a few possibly interesting factoids to a range of audiences.
So, I'll be using this blog to describe the NAC volunteer experience, and hopefully it will encourage somebody to give it a try. I also want to store some useful info and keep a record of how things change on the site: in particular, the forests as they grow. You see what has happened here: I've written this whole entry without actually mentioning the trees. There are trees at the arboretum. I want to watch how the 100 forests get along, and keep track, so I'll be plagiarising the material that has been produced about the plantings into the notes I'll be using to try to make my tours more interesting: and if it works out, I'll slowly build a little library of tour material - about the trees.
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