In the wake of physical distancing brought on by COVID-19, there are many examples of individuals, community groups and organisations who are pitching in to offer help and support to their neighbours. Although I am fairly certain much of this will drop off once the crisis has passed, it is nonetheless heartening to see. Churches are among those making these efforts. While some are fairly focussed on how to use technology to keep ‘gathering’, others are emphasising enabling people to help their neighbours. Of course, churches can do both, and many are.

What is our church doing in Long Gully? First, we’ve adapted our People’s Pantry food program to make it as safe as possible without cutting off an important source of food for locals. Second, we’ve set up a local neighbourhood sharing group on Facebook for residents to offer support, and request help (either for themselves or others). We’ve also set up a Gather My Crew site to collate ‘offline’ requests: for people not on Facebook, they can call the church for help and this request goes out to a bank of volunteers. We’ve done a letterbox drop of the neighbourhood alerting people to this.

There is a point of interest so far in relation to the Facebook group and Gather My Crew site. Neither has attracted many requests for help. In fact, at this point in time we have only received 1 request; for cooked meals in response to the letterbox drop. The Facebook group has received no requests, even when I offered for people to send me requests that I could post without giving people’s names. On the other hand, we’ve received lots of offers to help: cook meals, run errands etc.

What does this lack of requests for help mean? A few things are going on:

Possibly, people are not desperate enough yet, socially or financially.
Related to this: Long Gully is generally an economically disadvantaged neighbourhood. Of course, this could mean people have casual jobs that keep their heads just above water, and the current crisis will really tip them over. However, it may also mean that people are quite used to surviving on a tight budget and not being able to get exactly what they want. Therefore, the current crisis is more “business as usual” than for the middle-class people who are losing their jobs.
Lastly, I think the shame of asking for help is very real. When we set up the People’s Pantry, we did a community survey and found that if we charged a small amount to join the Pantry and mandated volunteer contribution, more people would join. The shame of asking for help, combined with the need to contribute, is strong – which is why the Facebook group is garnering more offers of help than requests.

If you’re involved in a community group that is supporting people at this time, what are your particular challenges?

Categories: Youth & Community Work

Tagged: bendigo, covid, long gully

Bendigo MTB – Trail Log

Dave Fagg

Posted on October 17, 2019

Had a blast at Race 1 of the summer season of the Bendigo Mountain Bike Club this last Tuesday. But first, as I am wont to do, a short historical detour…

I used to mountain bike a fair bit when I was a teenager – Dad probably has some photos of me circa 1993 toiling away on my cool Repco Kakadu. This beast was bought with insurance payout on dodgy racer thankfully nicked by a kind thief at Nunawading Train Station. I bought some cheap SPDs and with the Schijf boys, would take any opportunity to take the train to the Dandenongs or ride the 15kms to the The 100 Acres Reserve where I’d have a whale of time skidding, dropping off, crashing etc etc etc. But, as most fitness activities tended as I got older, I stopped doing it. I’ve tipped my toe in every now and then with a duathlon at the You Yangs MTB Inc. and a race in Bendigo a couple of years ago thanks to club stalwart Jason Carter.

Recently, in my quest to complete the TreX Goldfields in late November, I bought a relatively cheap secondhand Specialized Carve 29″ (cheap when you consider that mountain bike’s can go for up to and over $10K), and signed up for the Summer Season of Racing with Bendigo Mountain Bike Club to actually get myself out there. Last Tuesday was the first race.
I was in the “Sport” group: which means I kinda know what I’m doing on a mountain bike, but not too fast and not too technical thank you very much. It also means, “I value unbroken skin and bones and do not enjoy hospital visits”. I put myself in the slow cohort and gingerly got going. The Sprint group was doing 45 minutes on the Green loop – which seriously, guys, is an unfair name…it kinda lulls you into a fall sense of security…luscious grass, softness, slow summer evenings…that kind of thing.

The Green loop is 4.5KM circuit which starts from the great shelter opposite sponsor’s One Tree Hill Hotel, in Spring Gully. The track starts with a relatively flat section, and then starts separating the fit from the not with a series of uphill switchbacks with just enough technical features to keep you concentrating. With no rain for a long time, the track is rocky in parts and several riders were seen dejectedly changing tubes mid-race. I managed getting up this hill without being totally exhausted – I reckon my calves had gotten some tone from my adventures 2 weeks before on the Southern Cross Trail at Mt Taylor Mountain Bike Park near Bairnsdale, which has a similar but more punishing structure. And like Mt Taylor, the Spring Gully track rewards your effort with an exhilarating downhill for 2km all the way to the finish – it’s singletrack all the way, and not too steep so you don’t feel like you are riding off a cliff. Perfect for the post-beginner rider, as I like to call myself. I managed 3 laps of the course, and loved it :).

(I had one nasty surprise. When the 45 minutes was up, I was halfway through a lap. I dismounted and started to walk back, only for a marshal to tell me that I needed to complete the lap in order to officially finish. Aargh!)

So thanks to the organisers who did a fantastic job catering for a very wide range of abilities! I’ll be back.

Categories: Local, Uncategorized

Coffee at Post

Dave Fagg

Posted on September 12, 2019

This blog was a Facebook post that I wrote a while back, and it also sparked some positive media for Long Gully. The cafe is now well and truly up and running. Get along 🙂

Bit of a good news story for you all, involving a few of my favourite things: my neighbourhood of Long Gully, coffee, creative community action.

Many of my Long Gully neighbours will know Gar, who runs the Long Gully post office. He is a gentleman, and very helpful to all his customers. Late last year, Gar was seriously injured in a violent hold-up of the post office. He was attacked with a steel bar, and spent a few days in hospital. Not good. Worse, the attacker was a regular customer.

When this happened, I thought Gar would sell the business and move out. Who wants to be bashed at their place of work, by one of your customers?! But no; Gar and his wife Shen are made of sterner stuff. I had a chat with them a few months ago, and they had asked themselves “What would make us feel safer at the post office?” More people in the shop was their answer. But how to do that?

Then, at a community networking event last month (held at St Matthew’s), I was lamenting the lack of a coffee shop in Long Gully. This is a pet whinge of mine, and I’ve lived in hope for the last 10 years that one will open – just a little one…doesn’t need to be a hipster one with stupidly-named lunch options. Just a place to get a coffee. It never has. I got my hopes up 3 years ago when a shop across the road was renovated as a cafe, then never opened. Anyway, Gar piped up and announced that he and Shen were opening a cafe at the post office. That was their answer to feeling safer in their community – do something that the community needs, and also meets theirs. Win win!

Categories: Local

Tagged: community, long gully

Playing viola for the cause

Dave Fagg

Posted on September 30, 2015

My local public secondary school happened to be a specialist music school. New students could sign up to learn an instrument from one of the teachers; for no cost. Of course, every Year 7 wanted to learn the saxophone, of which the school had about five. About 50 of my peers signed up for saxophone. The saxophone teacher herded us into a room and told us the bad news; the good news being that our parents could buy a saxophone for a cool $800. My parents didn’t see the good news.

Mum dragged her grant-aunt’s viola from the cupboard, and marched me to the office of Geoff Conrau, string teacher extraordinaire (Geoff is also an amazing magician, and a pyrotechnician). I was not happy about being relegated from the wailing glory of the saxophone. Bloody hell, it wasn’t even a violin! But Geoff is a skilled teacher, and I came to love the humble viola, and it’s dedicated genre of jokes.

The viola, compared to the violin, warms the heart with its timbre, and is the instrument closest to the human voice in pitch and tone. The slightly larger and fuller body of the viola gives it a fuller sound and its C-string is a joy to play. Composers like Dvorak, Mozart and Britten were all viola players, like the Australia composer/player Brett Dean and John Cale of the Velvet Underground.

As a half-decent viola player, I played in lots of orchestra and string ensembles over my high school years. Over time, the viola affected my personality, and I’ve reflected on this many times as I became involved in various movements and organisations (youth, Christian, political). The viola is now a symbol of how I seek to operate in movements and organisations.

Lesson 1: The viola supports others

The viola, particularly in a string ensemble, sits (literally often) between the violin and the cello. It provides the ‘centre’ to the music, the middle fiddle, without which the cellos succumb to growls and the violins to screechiness. When it stops playing, you realise it was there.

I’m not saying that I naturally support others, but playing the viola taught me the essential part of the supporter.In an orchestra, the brilliant violinist or flautist can take a bow at the finale, but without the violas (and other more humble instruments), they sound tinny, hollow, and lost. Similarly, in churches, community groups and movements, the charismatic leader gets the glory, but without those who play other parts, they’d fall flat on their face.

As a community leader, I can’t escape the upfront and public aspects of that role. But I try to find ways to support others in their leadership, by offering to help someone nut out an idea they have, or training people to lead, or simply offering to help out in someone else’s venture.

Lesson 2: It’s nice to be anonymous sometimes

For the out and out extravert, anonymity would be a curse, but the viola has shown me the joys of anonymity. In an orchestra, a viola has a chance to shine, but much of the time it is providing atmosphere and (as above) the ‘centre’ of the music. The viola player is not ‘on’ all the time. We are physically obscured between violins and cellos, and behind the conductor.

In contrast, the violinist is always on – as I observed them, it looked like they could never relax. They are often carrying the melody and the bulk of the sound. I could sit back sometimes and scrape back and forth on the one string while the violins exercised their tortuous brilliance.

Put me in a community, church or movement, and I love to have my voice heard (see below) as much as the next person and feel that sense of belonging that comes with recognition. But I also love to sit back and watch someone else rise up to take the lead.

Yuri Bashmet – Viola Legend

Lesson 3: It has its own beautiful voice; just listen

The viola’s sound is deeply affecting but, to the untrained ear unused to picking its sound, is often unheard or ignored. Because its pitch is moderate, it does not stand out among the powerful cellos and piercing violins. You need to listen to a viola solo, and then its voice shines through when listening in an ensemble, and you wonder how you missed it.

Here is the Guardian newspaper singing its praises:

The viola is the plangent heart of the string section. A modest instrument, it tends to cede glamour and virtuosity to the showier violin and cello. But that is deceptive: in a string quartet, the viola holds the music’s centre, often moving it through the most complex of harmonies, or expressing its most melancholy moods.The viola is the plangent heart of the string section. A modest instrument, it tends to cede glamour and virtuosity to the showier violin and cello.

This definitely applies to me, particularly early on as I worked out my distinctive voice, and realised it wasn’t overpowering and didn’t shout ‘look at me’ like the cello. The viola has helped me to look out for the voice of others whose pitch and tone don’t seem suited to the podium.

Lesson 4: Work with what you’re given

The last lesson I want to talk about is: working with what you’ve been given. I mean this in a leadership or membership sense. I didn’t like the idea of learning an instrument whose purpose was to hide. But it grew on me, and as I spent time with it, I grew to love it. We are all given gifts of leadership and membership, which express themselves in different ways. It’s tempting to look at the models of leadership that are lauded and applauded in church or community circles: it’s pretty clear that the preferred ideal is charismatic, extraverted and articulate.

If you’re not these things, or you feel like you’re gifts are ignored in favour of others, then it’s easy to feel inadequate. When you do, remember the viola.

Categories: Read All

Tagged: church, community, leadership, movement, viola

Working with the dead

Dave Fagg

Posted on April 14, 2015

…The mind
is broken by the thousand
calling voices it is always too late
to answer, and that is why it yearns
for some hard task, lifelong, longer
than life, to concentrate it
and to make it whole.
(Wendell Berry, “This Day”, 1987: I)

In ‘Without weapon or tool‘, I wrote about ‘calling’ and ‘purpose’ as the two factors that define our distinctive ‘work’. Instead of being consumed with our role and the activities that describe it (the ‘thousand calling voices’), we can connect deeply with our work as something distinctively personal and purposeful.

There is a downside to this: our culture constantly pushes any personal thing to an individualist expression. This becomes all about MY calling, MY work, MY purpose in life. Sure, it’s better to be clear about your ‘work’ rather than your ‘career’, but there is something missing. The missing factor is our communion with those who have died, who have also shared in the work. Wendell Berry’s poem punches home 3 truths: work that satisfies as a calling is hard, it is longer than our life, and these combine to make life whole. I want to look at the ‘longer than life’ bit.

Calling contains a paradox: the work to which we are called is longer than our life yet that very fact makes our work whole. This paradox only rings true if (1) a human person is fundamentally and inescapably part of other people and (2) our work is such that it can be shared across time with those people who are now dead.

Is a person inescapably part of other people? This is the question that really grinds against the individualist culture of most Westerners. I would answer with a little ‘no’ and a big ‘yes’. No, I am a unique person, with a mind and soul and body that cannot be matched to any other. Yes, without others I would be literally nothing – there would be no ‘I’. Every dimension of my life is not just affected by, but bound to, others: what I eat, my thoughts, my feelings, my choice of job, spouse, home, whether to have children, what friends I am drawn to, and so on. It is common, when we think about these connections with others, to imagine living people. The farmer who grows the food that sustains us, the spouse that sleeps beside us. But dead people are people too.

Calling contains a paradox: the work to which we are called is longer than our life yet that very fact makes our work whole.

Can work be shared across time with others who have died? If we see our work as (say) ‘building a house’ then no, it cannot be shared across time. The house is completed and that is that (unless the builder unexpectedly dies). But if the builder sees their work as the good use of strength, materials and tools (rather than the product of a house), then yes, that work can be shared with those who have died. Good use of strength, materials and tools is work that has been attempted by many builders over centuries, never perfectly but always sincerely.

Another example is that of parenting. One of my ‘works’ is the good parenting of Shane. I cannot complete this work myself because my parenting is itself shaped by the parenting I received, and my parents by their parents, and so on back through the generations who have died yet share in the parenting of Shane.

Work that is worth anything recognises the communion we have with ‘the departed’ who did our work. That is why teachers revere past teachers, religious people the saints, gardeners the ‘heirloom’ seeds passed down over decades. We see in their work the contours of our own. •

Categories: Read All

Tagged: communion, sabbatical, work

Voting in Bendigo

Dave Fagg

Posted on August 29, 2013

I’ve had some frivoulous fun in the last few weeks asking people “Who are you voting for?” Even in our over-sharing world, many respond with embarrassment, and that’s before they’ve told me “Australian Christians”. I really don’t have a problem with discussing religion and politics publicly – it’s fun, interesting, connects with people’s hearts etc etc etc. Why would I not want to discuss these things?

So, here is my voting intention, which won’t change in essence unless a candidate turns up to the “Really Useful Working Bee” and changes my mind with their weeding technique.

I’ll start from the bottom up. My basic voting decisions are based on a mix of desire for loving justice and a desire that certain candidates not get their deposit back.

13. Ewen MacDonald (Australia Christians)
12. Sandra Caddy (Rise Up Australia)

These parties have either an explicit or ‘just below the surface bubbling up when they’re not careful” Christian basis. Of course, I don’t have a problem with Christianity, but political parties based on a religion are not a good idea. They earn my ire for presenting a distorted view of Jesus.

///

11. Rod Leunig (Country Alliance): I like the focus on regional and rural issues, but the random despising of ‘urban greenies’ I just can’t take.
10. Anita Donlon (Palmer United Party): It’s a circus party with only Clive as its attraction.
9. Charlie Crutchfield (Sex Party): a party whose signature policy is regulation of marijuana? Get serious.

///

From here on in, we get the parties and independents that (a) I think have something to say and/or (b) have a chance of winning.

8. Greg Bickley (Liberal): Despite the endless paper propaganda landing in my letterbox, the motorbike-driven trailers with his image on them, and the massive billboard on my stress, I will not be voting for Greg Bickley. I don’t really know who the target voter was in this overspend. It annoyed me.

7. Alan Howard (Family First): many policies I’m on the same page with, but their creationist/anti-climate change position is silly. They are only here to extend the distance between Lisa Chesters (who I think will get my vote after preferences), and Greg Bickley, for whom a win would contribute to an Abbott government.

6. Sarah Sheedy (Nationals): Bendigo is not really a “country” party area. Unsure why they ran a candidate as it would seem to split the conservative vote.

5. Stephen John Stingel (Katter’s Australian Party): suffers a little from the same problem as the ‘Christian’ parties, but in general pretty impressive, despite Stingel being listed as the candidate for Ballarat – I guess it’s a long way from QLD. Opposes the Intervention in the NT, cautiously affirms climate change, and I like his hat (Katter’s not Stephen’s).

4. Lisa Chesters (Labor): After preferences are distributed, Lisa gets my vote. Even though I think the Coalition would win, I would rather have a hard-working opposition representative in Canberra.

3. Matine Rahmani (Independent): One of the few candidates able to string a sentence together that didn’t have me bashing the steering wheel. He also had the good sense to leave Clive Palmer’s party.

2. Lachlan Slade (Greens): well, not much to say here. There is a bunch of stuff I don’t like about the Greens, but they are the only serious voice in mainstream politics that I trust to say something good about asylum seekers and climate change.

1. Daniel Abikhair (Save the Planet): I know the bloke, so I trust him. I don’t want him to win, because I think the system would beat the good out of him, but I like the image of Bushy in his flanny and beard fronting up to the suits.

Categories: Local, Read All

Churches serving their neighbourhoods in COVID-19

Dave Fagg

Posted on April 7, 2020

Bendigo MTB – Trail Log

Dave Fagg

Posted on October 17, 2019

Coffee at Post

Dave Fagg

Posted on September 12, 2019

Playing viola for the cause

Dave Fagg

Posted on September 30, 2015

Lesson 1: The viola supports others

Lesson 2: It’s nice to be anonymous sometimes

Lesson 3: It has its own beautiful voice; just listen

Lesson 4: Work with what you’re given

Working with the dead

Dave Fagg

Posted on April 14, 2015

Calling contains a paradox: the work to which we are called is longer than our life yet that very fact makes our work whole.

Voting in Bendigo

Dave Fagg

Posted on August 29, 2013

Posted on April 17, 2020

Posted on April 7, 2020

Posted on October 17, 2019

Posted on September 12, 2019

Posted on September 30, 2015

Lesson 1: The viola supports others

Lesson 2: It’s nice to be anonymous sometimes

Lesson 3: It has its own beautiful voice; just listen

Lesson 4: Work with what you’re given

Posted on April 14, 2015

Calling contains a paradox: the work to which we are called is longer than our life yet that very fact makes our work whole.

Posted on August 29, 2013