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Seen at Micah Projects’ 2013 Close The Gap Day event.
You’re invited to join local community organisation Micah Projects in celebrating Close The Gap Day in Boundary Street, West End, on Thursday 20th March, 2014 between 11 am and 2 pm.
There will be a range of informative and educational material highlighting the gap in life expectancy – and other benchmarks – between Indigenous people and the greater community.
Representatives from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) organisations will be on hand to answer your questions, and a Welcome to Country will be performed by a local Elder.
There will be kids’ activities and a hands-on art project where well-wishers will be invited to express their support visually for Closing the Gap. A petition will also be available for guests and passers by to sign.
Phil Dennis, indigenous Rugby League player and Captain of Souths RLFC, who recently featured prominently in the Goannas side, will be there.
Musical entertainment will be provided by Close the Gap Day stalwarts Rod Tyson, Jenny Pineapple and Dario Western, and the students of Mt Maria’s College will provide a healthy barbeque.
11am – 2pm
Peoples Park, Boundary Street
WEST END
More info: Gemma Stenner, The Hive Social Inclusion Team 3036 4440
You only need to watch a few TV ads to understand that Australia is somewhat segregated when it comes to gender — or so it seems. As many advertisers have seemingly made up their minds that the product they are spruiking will only attract a specific gender.
Some ads take it a step further. One ad that is for blokes and one ad that is for housewives (that is how they are stereotypically presented in the ads) — yet spruiking the same product.
It might not be fair to judge a country based on how gendered TV ads are there, but it is difficult not to.
Which is why I am sadly not shocked that March 8 seemingly went unnoticed here in Australia — apparently only treated as any other Saturday.
I’ve tried to find out if there were any big events around Australia that day, but I could only find information* about a Women’s Day Breakfast in the big cities.
An event hosted two days before the actual International Women’s Day. Conveniently — or maybe inconveniently is a better term — during a weekday when most people are either busy going to work or academia. At the price of $75 ($60 if you are eligible for a concession).
I am honestly not trying to be negative, but it’s difficult not to be. Such an important event should be hosted on the actual International Women’s Day and be accessible for everyone to attend.
While in Norway the annual International Women’s Day event had an impressive attendance in Oslo. About 10,000-15,000 people showed their support for equality. In a town with a population of about 634,463 and a country with only (as most Australian would put it) 5,136,700.
That is something I often hear Australians say, that Oslo is just a small town in a small country. Yet they managed to engage over ten times the amount of people that attended SlutWalk in Brisbane, a city with a population of about 2,189,878 in a country with 23,405,803.
I can’t for the life of me remember when that many people gathered for an event or protest in Brisbane recently.
The last time there was an event that had a 5-digit gathering in Brisbane we have to look all the way back to January 30 in 1920 — also known as Black Baton Friday.
Imagine if 10,000-15,000 people had flooded Brisbane CBD to take a stand for equality on March 8 — International Women’s Day. That would’ve been impressive.
Of course, that number is based on the population of Oslo.
To modify that number to fit with the population in Brisbane we should’ve had about 34,500-51,750 Brisbanites standing up for equality.
Now that would’ve been an impressive event that would’ve send out a loud message to Australia, and even the world, that we want equality — now!
Spiral Hub has been the heart of many West End community functions and organisations
With a SOLD sign on the Spiral Hub’s old premises in Boundary St, it’s time for Westender to catch up with co-founder Amelia Salmon and review the state of play. After all, the site has been home to Spiral Hub since 2000.
Amelia said that the move is in response to ongoing changes what social enterprises need.
“A decade ago it made sense to provide access to office space, a desk, printer, computer and phone. Nowadays we have all that sitting in a coffee shop with our phones.”
She said that infrastructure like kitchen and warehouse facilities are less readily available and more in demand. Providing that infrastructure was the major driver for rethinking the location of Spiral Hub. In the end it was a cost-benefit exercise.
“The cost of repurposing the building as we proposed was prohibitive. It just made more sense to move.”
To reach that decision, the hub organised community and stakeholder meetings over 2012 and 2013 to discuss future requirements. The notion of a Fair Food café, learning facilities and provision of support services to social enterprises all bubbled to the surface as a result. Many of these had been long term ambitions frustrated by the various limitations of the site.
“[Moving] was a really hard decision, though. There are a lot of emotional attachments and many interest groups involved.”
Amelia said there has been a shift in the business model as well. She said the group has become less dependent on government funding and is focused on learning and providing support through financial services such as loans.
She sees the shift away from a funded model as liberating.
“We had really good social outcomes for some of that funded work, but now we’re not so caught up with the funding, we can focus more on the social change.”
The Hub has exciting new plans for premises closer to “the action” that will be announced to stakeholders first, once this sale has gone through, the new premises are finalised and those plans locked in.
“The people who have been involved with the Hub over years deserve to find out first.”
Martin and the maid getting down to it in a Memphis motel room – Mountaintop
The immediacy of theatre gives it the capacity to draw you into the personal space of a good actor, and the great actors make that space unbelievably rich, complex and large.
Two actors in the single act Mountain Top take us on three separate journeys with an elegant simplicity that allows the audience to laugh, squirm and shout Amen with the direct engagement of a family dinner table.
The play by Memphis writer Katori Hall, launched in London in 2009 and surprised, impressed and moved audiences so it moved from a small playhouse to West End for a sell-out season. It subsequently picked up a swag of awards and a Broadway opening in 2011. Last year saw it play across America, including Memphis, where it is set.
Candy Bowers and Pacharo Mzembe play a maid and Martin Luther King Jr, spending the last night his life together at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The delightful, gritty characterisation of a weary Baptist preacher on the road with a pretty, naive girl in his motel room is funny, challenging and endearing.
Bowers plays the not-so-naïve maid with stunning finesse; deftly moving between flirtation, chaste admiration and womanly admonition. They discuss politics, sex, fidelity and smelly feet. She delivers a powerful footnote to history as a monologue that Martin Luther King Jr might have given had he the benefit of our hindsight.
And then the action changes pace remarkably. It would spoil your enjoyment to give away the detail, so I will keep my observations general.
In a virtual second act, King finds himself in serious trouble and their relationship moves to an altogether different level that confronts the big issues of mortality, purpose and achievement. The dialogue continues to flit between humour and philosophical depth with both actors finding their edge, and the audience’s, at different times.
The final section connects the ill-fated night in 1968 to our present, in a surreal journey which Candy Bowers carries with a simple but powerful rant that hovers somewhere between song, monologue and rap. The delicate staging unhinges our sense of space as the script telescopes time, reminding us how recent and connected that history is.
The play is clever, powerful and enjoyable. It’s central surprise annoyed some New York critics and excited others, but it was the performances that made this show for me.
Candy Bowers has complete command of her character and can turn from vamp to angel so subtly and simply you are simply connecting with a real human being. The play gives her some of the best lines and keeps her upstage of Pacharo Mzembe’s King for a surprisingly large chunk of the action.
Pacharo renders a very human but impressive King and carries the two components of his character comfortably. He is immensely likeable and calls up strong chemistry with Bowers in all the right places.
The production is seamless, with some simple but powerful effects used sparingly to drive home some of the more esoteric elements of the second part. The more dramatic effects of the final scene do a brilliant job of taken us on the journey into the mind of Preacher King. Not having seen the other productions I can only speculate on what the local production brings to the play, but that final scene has elements that resonate with other Honey Production performances and bring extra depth to that rendition of historical reality.
Given the significance and renewed relevance of King’s message, which is ultimately the plays’, it is unfortunate that it will mostly be seen by middle-class, middle-aged, white theatre goers, who are already largely sympathetic to the content and immune to its urgency.
In an attempt to redress this, QPAC is offering $40 tickets this Friday 7th March along with a free drink with Pach and Candy the Russell St bar after the show. Tell your friends to drop the codeword #THELATESHIFT when booking tix.
Rev Hellfire of the Kurilpa Poets has adjudged Scott Parsons the winner of the March Bent Books Poetry Prize.
According to the Rev: “Call me old-fashioned, but I like a well constructed poem. It doesn’t have to rhyme of course, but it should show signs of craftsmanship. And I like a poem that tells me a story or works though an idea, rather than gives just a pretty description.
“But I really like a sneaky poem that starts you thinking it’s about one thing, but then it takes you somewhere else, like this month’s winner, SEEKERS SONNET by Scott Parsons. {Ed: It’s also a fine example of that disappearing artform the iamic pentameter]
“Runners up were Paul Sherman’s fine poem Boy cries on the front page (like a grainy B&W photo from TimeLife Magazine in the sixties) and Tony Kneipp’s whimsical This poem is full of butterflies (Where would satire be without the rhyming couplet?)”
Honourable mentions:
Anthony J Longford- more poems but shorter please
I’m a winter person but Lisa Chin’s “Homesick” made me wish I was a mango
Marjorie Lewis-Jones’ “Pain is a Robber”and its chilling personification of pain impressed me
Thanks also for Andrew Coes’ mystic delvings into the Archetype and Debra Stars’ ethereal contributions like windchimes of words.
If you didn’t win or get mentioned this month don’t be disheartened; There were many poems I liked but I can only pick one winner a month and I don’t get enough space to mention everyone. So keep sending your poems in folks. Next month could be your month!
Big thanks to Bent Books and the Westender for supporting the Muse!
Bread, Roses and Poetry!
The Reverend Hellfire
SEEKERS SONNET
By Scott Parsons
Somewhere awash in oceans and beyond
Gathers the garbage drifting from our drains
Shifting snug in some smuggled nonchalance
Forming nation in its benign remains
Their vessel is of little consequence
Merely means of moving the problem on
Yet the ending is always tidal, thence
Cleansing the mind of morals, long since gone
Now waste extends to that of the person
Plunging policies see the seekers float
Slogans only make the debris worsen
No use, the refuse when stopping the boat
For when each carriage meets its fatal crash
They are people taken out with the trash
Amid a spate of press releases today – all announcing the manifold benefits of having millions of dollars dropped on us by world leaders attending the G20 Summit in November, Brisbane Marketing included an update on the new hotel rooms being created in River City. The press release carefully avoids pointing out that the headline development by Fraser’s Group will not be open in time for G20. But you get the general drift – Brisbane is open for business as Australia’s New World City.
Lord Mayor Graham Quirk has announced that Singaporean group Frasers Hospitality has been given development approval to convert a CBD office tower into a 239 room hotel.
The property, at 80 Albert St, was purchased mid last year and is the first Brisbane asset for Frasers Hospitality, which has 86 properties in 45 key gateway cities and more than 15,000 rooms worldwide.
Brisbane Marketing’s investment attraction team worked closely with Frasers Hospitality to develop a business case for converting the office tower into hotel accommodation.
“The project is another exciting development for our city and we expect it will help to transform a major stretch of Albert Street into a more vibrant environment,” Cr Quirk said.
“The 239 room project represents a major investment in our city and is a big vote of confidence in Brisbane’s booming business landscape.
“More hotels will increase Brisbane’s capacity to improve the city’s tourism potential and attract more major events and business conventions to the city- both of which bring us enormous economic benefits.
“Brisbane is a destination of choice for business, investment and major events.”
The existing 19-storey office building will be converted into a four or five star hotel, featuring a restaurant on the ground level and function rooms on the podium levels.
New hotel room supply and the upcoming G20 Leadership Summit in November is expected to further enhance Brisbane’s growing reputation as a tourism and convention destination and attract visitors from emerging markets, such as China.
Frasers Hospitality CEO Mr Choe Peng Sum said Capri by Fraser would be open in early 2015.
“Located right in the heart of the CBD, the design-led Capri by Fraser is aimed at the e-generation and we hope it will add to the colour and vibrancy of the city,” he said.
“We have to thank the Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, Councillor Amanda Cooper, Councillor Adrian Schrinner and CEO of Brisbane Marketing, Mr John Aitken, whose team provided us with much assistance from the time we started to look for a property in Brisbane, right through to the present renovation.”
Brisbane Marketing CEO John Aitken said Brisbane was a tightly-held market and Frasers were very keen to establish a presence in the city.
“This is a key win for Brisbane Marketing’s hotel investment team and we continue to work hard to promote the city as an attractive proposition for potential investors,” Mr Aitken said.
“We are currently collating updated data for the next edition of our Hotel Investment Guide, which we launched last year to show international investors the opportunities available in Brisbane.
“We are also very focused on the demand side of the equation, generating business events, conventions and growing our major events calendar.”
Hotel projects currently under construction in Brisbane include:
· SilverNeedle Hospitality is refurbishing and extending Brisbane’s Chifley Hotel, converting it from a 150 room to a 300 room hotel – one of the largest, recent hotel repositioning projects in Australia.
· The Wyndham Hotel Group’s TRYP hotel in Fortitude Valley will add a further 65 rooms to supply.
· Gambaro Hotel will open in May 2014, offering 69 rooms on Caxton Street.
· Another 48 rooms will be available at Mosaic Hotel in Fortitude Valley, when it opens towards the middle of the year.
· Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and Felicity Hotel opened a 246 room Four Points by Sheraton hotel in the Brisbane CBD on March 4, 2014.
