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Location: Mt Ommaney | Centenary Community Connections
Where did we come from?
In a time when demands on people are extreme, two members of the Centenary community got together in 2000 and hatched the Centenary Community Connections.
Simon Cox and Belinda Karnaghan’s idea came from a discussion about how community groups could achieve more through sharing resources and avoiding conflicting school fundraising dates. They hosted a meeting with principals and P&C representatives to discuss these ideas and what could be achieved if groups pooled resources to benefit the local community and schools.
Seven schools were invited to join the Centenary Combined Schools Forum with Centenary State High School, Jindalee State School, Jamboree Heights State School, Middle Park State School, Lutheran and Mt Ommaney Special School taking advantage of this great idea.
Many issues were raised during this meeting and one of these issues of concern to most parents was youth and drugs in the community. Another meeting was organised with interested community members including the police, politicians, principals, P & Cs, service clubs such as Lions and Apex, neighbourhood watch groups, churches and youth workers to further discuss this issue.
Over 50 people attended this meeting! This meeting spawned a number of workshops and seminars where guest speakers provided insight into ways that we could combat this growing problem. It is no good just the adults talking, so a youth forum was also held in November 2000 giving young people a voice to air their opinions, and specific wants and needs.
These community meetings started by two concerned locals gave birth to Centenary Community Connections (CCC), The CCC was formally established in November 2000. The next few months saw a flurry of activity as the philosophy of the CCC was penned, more youth forums established, and funding opportunities sourced.
The CCC’s achievements over the past six years are numerous. We have set this community-based website that allows community groups, clubs, schools a link to inform the community on what is going on in the community. The site has a calendar of events, information about the Centenary Rocks festival, community news, forum topics to discuss from the DFO construction to Sustainable Jamboree and photo album pages – check out the previous festivals, the car show, Dogs breakfast and Drum Circle.
The CCC have held family seminars -- Understanding your teenager and Understanding your parents-- hosted several successful youth activities such as the Forum Theatre, break dance workshops and the first of the youth concert days Wicked Day Out held in August 2001.
The first Centenary festival was held at Centenary State High School in October 2003. But, once the Rocks Riverside Park opened, the Centenary Rocks! festival (held the last weekend of July) found a permanent home.
In 2006, we brought the Santa Sleigh back to our streets and raised $1000 for Zoe’s Place from community donations.
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Where did CCC come from?
