JJ Barrett
The Noojee Noticeboard’s role in connecting people points towards a physical place for shared, practical and local learning.
An article linking the community connections built through the Noojee Noticeboard with NNEST’s vision for the former school as a modern bush school and lifelong learning hub.
For around seven years, one of the simplest pieces of community infrastructure in Noojee has been our local noticeboard.
It may not sound revolutionary.
But shared information matters.
Knowing what is happening.
Knowing where to find help.
Knowing about local events and opportunities.
Understanding what agencies are doing.
Hearing different perspectives.
Knowing who to contact when something goes wrong.
All of those things make a community easier to navigate.
And over time, the noticeboard taught us something.
Connection does not always begin with a major project.
Sometimes it begins with helping people find one another.
That thinking sits behind much of what we are now trying to build through NNEST.
The former Noojee Primary School gives us the opportunity to take some of what has happened through the noticeboard and create a physical version of it.
A place where people can meet.
Learn.
Share knowledge.
Try something new.
Ask questions.
Teach practical skills.
Connect with organisations and experts.
Our approach is essentially:
Reach in. Reach out.
Reach in first.
Understand what already exists within the community.
Who has skills?
Who has knowledge?
What are people interested in?
What resources do we already have?
What do people want to learn?
Where are the gaps?
Then reach out.
Connect with the businesses, educators, agencies, researchers, tradespeople, community organisations and knowledge holders who can help fill those gaps.
NNEST does not need to pretend to be the expert in everything.
In fact, that would completely miss the point.
The strength is in connection.
Helping the right people find each other.
That might mean CFA sharing fire preparedness knowledge.
Landcare leading citizen science.
Tradespeople teaching practical skills.
Local knowledge holders sharing what they know about the forest and seasons.
External educators running workshops.
Researchers learning from the community while sharing their own expertise.
Community members teaching one another.
The former school site could become a place where all of those things meet.
A modern bush school, not in the sense of going backwards, but in remembering that some of the most important things we learn are practical, local and shared.
How to live here.
How to prepare.
How to care for a place.
How to look after one another.
And how to keep learning throughout life.
Perhaps the noticeboard was never just a noticeboard.
Perhaps it was the beginning of a much bigger idea.
