Community dinner, funding success and e-scooters

Trees with colourful autumn leaves aren’t too common in Parkville Gardens, but every year those we have brighten up the neighbourhood with vivid displays of yellow and red foliage. They cheer us on our way towards the chilly months of winter.

We’re in a more serious mode now, with Easter holidays slipping into the past, schools powering their way through Term Two, and the AFL ladder taking clearer shape.

It’s the perfect time for a festive celebration! Local residents are warmly invited to a family-friendly community dinner on the night of Thursday, May 23 … that’s soon!  Put it in your diary now. Here are the details …

The venue is the Reggio Calabria Club. Arrive at 6.45pm for a 7pm start. Thanks to funding from the City of Melbourne, the cost is very modest indeed – $20 a head for Parkville Gardens residents, $10 for paid-up Parkville Gardens Residents’ Association (PGRA) members, and just $5 for kids.

A highlight of the night will be a short presentation on safety and neighbourhood policing by neighbourhood policing coordinator for Victoria Police Acting Sergeant Nick Parissis. This should be of interest to everyone concerned with keeping Parkville Gardens a safe place to live and with minimising petty crime in the area.

Book in now – just scan the QR code and register with Eventbrite. We look forward to seeing you there! You can become a PGRA member on the night.

There’s fresh, good news from the City of Melbourne: we’ve just been informed that our application for a community events grant for 2024-25 has been successful. That means we can now confidently plan more community-building activities in the upcoming financial year. A huge thank you to the council and its grants team!

And, there’s more … our council neighbourhood partner, Nas Mohamud, has told us that we should soon have a new noticeboard installed near the Galada Reserve barbecues and children’s playground.

We’re delighted with this development. That spot is the most frequently used site in the area, so it will help us get our news and announcements out to everybody.

We’re also looking forward to getting feedback from the neighbourhood surveys that were conducted back in March. First reports suggest that traffic congestion, climate change and local safety have appeared as top issues. Hopefully there’ll be more to report next month.

One constant agenda item at the two-monthly meetings of the Presidents of Residents Associations with the Lord Mayor, Deputy Lord Mayor and the council’s staff is e-scooters.

The trial period for the two commercial firms has been extended again by the state government so there’s opportunity for further feedback. Please let me know your thoughts. Do you welcome them? Do you have concerns about them? What are the pros and cons as you see them?

Don’t delay – send me your feedback. •