2011年10月23日星期日

One day, next door could be your new best friend

There are many positive reasons to engage with the residents next door, across the street or – if you live in the country – on the next farm.

By taking that bold first step, you are helping to create a community.

Yet Jen Vuk's rebuff from her new neighbours shouldn't mean a total retreat from building a relationship with them. After all, some people are shy. And busy.Our high risk merchant account was down for about an hour and a half,Replacement China Porcelain tile and bulbs for Canada and Worldwide.

As we saw in Victoria on Black Saturday – and during Tropical Cyclone Yasi and the floods in Queensland, Victoria and South Australia – knowing who your neighbours are, and how to contact them, is vital during an emergency or after a disaster.

In these circumstances many Australians met their neighbours for the first time as they worked together to protect livelihoods, defend homes and property and to save lives. Circumstances all reflected in the 2011 Neighbour Day television commercial.

However it's the day-to-day interactions between residents living in houses and apartments that help create and maintain active,If any food cube puzzle condition is poorer than those standards, safe, inclusive and sustainable communities. Suburbs and towns that I reckon everyone wants to live in.

Next year will be the 10th Neighbour Day, Australia's annual celebration of community, which started in Melbourne. The idea began in The Age for what is now a series of national street parties, barbecues, lunches, open days and major events run by councils, residents associations and tenancy groups on the last Sunday in March.

But it evolved from a sad beginning.

Sometime in January 2001 an elderly Melbourne woman locked her front door, settled down on the sofa upstairs, draped a blanket around her body and was never heard from again.

More than two years later her neighbours finally made the connection between the piles of mail, newspapers and store catalogues piling up at her front door . . . and something being amiss for an elderly woman known to live alone. When Victoria Police broke in they not only discovered her remains but also found the electricity, gas, water and telephone still connected.

Elsie Brown's lonely death has been the catalyst for closer connections between neighbours across the country, relationships that begin or are renewed on Neighbour Day and which continue on the 364 days that follow.

Being connected with your neighbours brings many benefits. You feel engaged with your community and you care about what happens in it. You might not necessarily become best friends but you'll certainly have laid the groundwork for respectful, open relationships.

I'm often asked whether Australia has lost it's sense of community. I don't think it has, I just think we've forgotten what it takes to make a community.

Major changes have occurred in our streets and towns over the past 30 years. Both parents now work to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. My mother was at the end of the era when it was demanded that women gave up careers to have babies (if, indeed, they had been able to start one) but today there is more balance.

We've built suburbs that are entirely car dependent – making it impossible to walk to a shop for a loaf of bread or some milk. Thankfully, prospective residents are now telling developers they want the modern-day equivalent of a town square where they can meet and socialise over a coffee.

Councils are backing them up but it's been a hard lesson – despite piazzas having been central to European life for centuries.the landscape oil paintings pain and pain radiating from the arms or legs.

Our challenge is how do we keep our streets and towns alive and activated? How do we balance the competing challenges of career,ceramic Floor tiles for the medical, children and community to ensure that we don't totally become disconnected?

In the MasterChef era it's amazing how food can not only be a great leveller but a unifier as well.

There are countless Neighbour Day stories of how new residents have been welcomed with a freshly baked cake or a tray of biscuits. Or a pav. How a simple dish, thoughtfully prepared, has led to lifelong friendships across generations.

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