Mood:  lyrical

Adios General Manager Ian Laird, overall good job

Ian resigned last Wed 12/9. On his watch of 18 months we noticed:

- new water tanks (4)

- new access paths (2) and crossings (2)

- new ute, no more unregistered dodgies on site

- functional website for the ARC – google ‘Addison Rd Centre’

- new computer server

- normalising lease rentals on pro rata area basis

- new pocket gardens

- mulching and more mulching and more …

- new anchor tenancy Children’s Services Central

But perhaps best of all the weakening of the ‘old boy culture’ as one female tenant implied last week while TC trawled the compost.

ARC still needs a sense of humus

There’s a new composter at ARC near hut 28 and Conservation Volunteers.  Hooray.  It’s a 2.5m long, 1.5m wide brute. Bring it on eg bay 2 and 3. Be proud of your compost. Embrace the inner compost. ARC has lost top soil for decades. Time to stop, nay reverse this sadness with mulch and other measures like better gutters, swales (bumps) to slow run off, new turf blah blah.

Fruit and veg dumpers … we know where you live

Last Sunday rotting fruit and veg was dumped at ARC. Dumping is not composting which requires layering and covering. If we catch you we will have to compost you. But worse it rotted for 4 days. Hello, grounds staff? 15 minute job on a Monday do yer think?

Market visitors – ‘you vill separate your waste’

Okay so the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Let’s ignore that and get our own market waste on track while enjoying great food and coffee and fun stuff. TC is going to guide and advise visitors to SEPARATE THEIR WASTE this Sunday at the market. God be merciful.

Did you know?

The ARC is not owned by Marrickville Council. It’s a state govt lease of some 3.4ha for 50 years with 42 tenants with a community board. Yes it does have an MC rep and 2 MC tenants but it’s only a strand of many. ARC is also the epitome of parish pump, aspirant pollies like moths to the flame, lovable, and disgraceful can of worms, Sometimes all at once. It also belongs to YOU dear reader.

ARC governance – always a moving feast

Some hotties

- Are the Board meeting minutes online and available to the public like Local Councils do? If not why not?

- Who indeed is the editor of the ARC website these days? Name, rank, serial number? Any history with ARC at all?

- Who will malcontents and crazies have to beat up now stabiliser Ian Laird has taken his bat and ball to greener fields? May God be with you new GM.

- who is/ not paying rent? Fair trade for social capital? Who decides?

- Who really decides what goes on the big street sign?

AGM season is approaching again, don’t you worry about that, chook.

We hear it's in October sometime but how would you know? Who will have the conch in 2008? The Don and his Ethnic Praetorian guard? The Meredith Burgman All Stars? The Struggling Greens? The Maddies at TC. Or the fixers and straights? Ain’t democracy grand.

ARC needs a café weekdays

The ARC needs a café. We have studied the question for years. It should be open from 11 till 2, Tues-Fri as a trial. It could be a mobile cart, or even the old tool shed. Visitors want a refreshment and sit down neutral space. All the tenants have their own kitchenette so they don’t mix, share, synthesise or time out as much as they could/should for greater effectiveness. So obvious, like composting but a hurdle still. We remember no lines in the carpark was normal once too.

Memo PM Howard – ‘let me have fat and sleek men around me, Cassius has a lean and hungry look’

Got a cute story?

Call us on  0410 558838 and you can contribute to next month’s compost pile.

Posted by editor at 8:29 AM NZT

Updated: Monday, 17 September 2007 8:50 PM NZT

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