Park Guardians: the first of many
by Shane Sody
A meeting on 9 December at the Box Factory Community Centre has led to the formation of a new team of “Park Guardians” who from 2025 will watch and report on many of the Open, Green, Public spaces of your Adelaide Park Lands.
Who are our Park Guardians?
They are volunteers who’ve each offered to keep an eye on one part of your Adelaide Park Lands:
take its photos
watch it change; and
share its stories with you.
We’re waiting to receive a few more personal pics, but here are nine of the initial eleven-member team:
Not pictured:
Judith Grimmett (Park 16 South); and
Jessie Lumb (Park 26 South, 27C and 21 West).
You’ll be hearing from these Park Guardians throughout 2025, as they each contribute photos and stories from the Park that they’ve claimed.
Join the team
You can also join the team, if you Love Your Park Lands and are prepared to help show others what’s happening in your favourite spot.
Look carefully at the map below. The Parks marked with a tick have been claimed by our 11 initial Park Guardians.
If you’d like to join the team, first select one of the Parks that doesn’t already have a tick on this map.
What’s involved?
The title “Park Guardian” gives you a flavour of the role. Put simply, after you choose a Park within your Park Lands, all that you need to do is:
Take its photos
Watch it change
Share its stories
Too easy?
Yes it’s easy, but the key is to maintain responsibility for “your” one Park on an ongoing, regular basis. Once you’ve chosen and been assigned a particular Park, you (and a friend, if you want to share the role) will be:
contributing at least one photo per month from "your" Park, for publication as the #adelaideparklands #picoftheday on our social media feeds;
writing and illustrating one story each six months about "your" Park to share its features with our readers on our blog and social media;
familiarising yourself with the Trail Guide for "your" Park; and taking responsibility for letting our webmaster know when it could/should be improved and/or updated. Trail Guides rarely need major changes, just occasional tweaking, but for “your” Park it will become, in effect, YOUR Trail Guide; and
providing back-up to a trained APA Tour Guide leader, who will be rostered to conduct and lead occasional Guided Walks, with your support, in "your" Park. There will be only one (or at most, two) per year in “your” Park. You and the rostered, trained Tour Guide leader will be a two-person team taking responsibility for these annual or semi-annual public tours.
Our Trail Guides can’t be static. They need occasional updates, from a Park Guardian who knows and loves the Park.
Find out more
If you have questions, please contact our Executive Officer, David Winderlich: executive@adelaide-parklands.asn.au
If you missed the first Park Guardian session on 9 December, rest assured we will be scheduling another information session in the first quarter of 2025, as we aim to get ticks all over your Park Lands map!
The author of this article, Shane Sody, is the President of the Adelaide Park Lands Association and the editor of the semi-monthly newsletter, "Open Green Public".
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