Projectyoursay's Blog

Participation at an All Time Low

projectyoursay — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:56:49 +0000

This blogging experiment has reaffirmed to me that it is extremely difficult to encourage and get other young people engaged in participarting in pretty much anything that might turn out to be remotely useful. This an issue I have struggled with for many years now within my local community. I have been a member of various community and leadership groups of young people in the Wingecarribee Shire for about 6 years now and by far the biggest issue faced by the groups is raising the participation levels of other young people who may not be as motivated. There have been a number of occasions where these groups have organised youth concerts, bands nights, art competitions and dance nights only to have a very small number of entrants or audience members show up. This can be extremely dissapoint to the young people involved in the organisation and can sometimes lower morale. This lack of participation is not to say that we haven’t tried but there is only so much you can say and only so many steps you can take in order to get people involved.

So knowing this why did I try to create an interactive youth blog? To be honest, I chose the project as it fitted in with my existing interests and if it was successful, I would look to possibly continue with it into the future in order to promote youth issues and participation, as well as use it as a promotional tool for the community groups I am a member of. Sadly, this experiment was not successful in my eyes. I could not get one other young person to write a blog nor comment on ones that I had written myself. I tried following a nucleus of people on twitter from both The Southern Highlands and Illawarra (it must be noted that it seems Twitter has not really taken off with the young people of The Highlands as Southern Highlands tweeters seem to be few and far between). From the nearly 100 people I followed at the beginning, only 20 people decided to follow me back. It makes me think how hard is it just to click a button and follow me back. I’m not asking much. I also tried directly addressing my follower with questions such as ‘what grinds your gears?’ and didn’t receive one @reply. My initial plan was to keep my identity hidden, but after getting frustrated with getting no feedback, I decide to go public on my personal Facebook page, appealing to my 400 odd friends to wirte a blog about something they are passionate about. A couple (meaning literally 2 people) commented, but no blogs.

I thought this project would be more likely to get young people involved than say being involved in community groups because a) its not like people had to contribute much other than a couple of hundred words and i’m not forcing people to leave their houses and b) basically because young people seem to like whinging. While ideally I would have liked to have been able to write more blogs and spend more time chasing people on Twitter, I was restricted timewise being a full-time uni student, casual worker and active community member, so I acknowledge that I may have achieved a higher participation rate if I had more time. However, it is time for young people to open their eyes and realise that participation is the key to getting things done and moving foward. You must follow you

Let’s Blame it on the P-Platers

projectyoursay — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:53:09 +0000

his year has really opened my eyes to the amount of poor drivers on our roads and just how frequently people take stupid risks. 2009 has seen me travelling 3 to 4 days a week down to Wollongong from the Highlands to attend classes at the university. Before this I rarely drove outside of the Highlands because I really had no reason to do so. My first observation is that there are far too many drivers of all ages (not just P-Platers who seem to get stuck with the worst reputation) who speed. Speed limits seem to be just a suggestion. It’s so common to drive 10-15km/h over the speed limit that it’s almost acceptable to do so. What annoys me more is people who take ridiculous risks while speeding, such as speeding on wet roads and cutting off other drivers especially trucks. Speeding to me seems completely unecessary. I would prefer to arrive somewhere late than to not arrive at all. “Baby on Board” signs grind my gears when I see them on cars speeding past. I acknowledge that the purpose of those signs is so people who attend a car accident site can check the back seat of the car for an infant, but if you really care that much about the safety of your baby, then why are speeding and driving recklessly? Another pet hate on the roads, are people who drive 4WDs or large utes and think that they are king s#*t. Just because your car is bigger than mine does not give you the right to drive like a moron and force smaller cars off the road in order to avoid you. And besides aren’t those vehicles designed to be the ones driving off the road? Finally – tailgaters be warned. If I ever catch a tailgater behind me I will tap my breaks and deliberately drive just below the speed limit just to piss you off.

Is this the Southern Highlands?

projectyoursay — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:17:11 +0000

Here is a video I found on YouTube where a number of young people are expressing their views on the Highlands. Do you agree?

Hang Up!

projectyoursay — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:13:36 +0000

One of the most interesting signs I ever saw inside a shop was compelling in both its simplicity and its appeal. It simply said: ‘We are unable to serve you if you are on a mobile phone.’ This is fair enough. It also goes to the root of the problem. Why is it that we need a sign to remind us to demonstrate simple courtesy to fellow human beings. If you need to make a phone call or otherwise use your mobile while being served by somebody, why is it that you can’t simply put the phone down for a while, or at least take it away from your head and make eye contact with the salesperson, or even respond to what they are saying? The argument is really quite simple – show some level of civility to those around you. Most often the person behind the counter is a young person, and society then chooses to blame young people for the evils of the world. But seriously, what respect are we being taught by those who should know better? This does not excuse rudeness or otherwise poor behaviour on the part of the salesperson, nor does it give you an excuse to show similar poor form to somebody else just because you have been treated this way. It is simply a reminder to be nice and show respect. Is that really to hard in today’s world?

Parking at UOW.. A Headache and a half!

projectyoursay — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 07:51:22 +0000

This blog was sparked from a report on WIN Television last Friday night about the traffic congestion around the University of Wollongong each morning and afternoon and how the RTA and the university are looking into ways to fix the problem. It was clear from the start that this report was just time filler.

As a UOW student I am sick to death of being told we need to find alternative means of transport to the uni. Well I’m sorry that we don’t really have a viable alternative. If I could catch the train or bus to uni I would. And while I think the uni has started recognise this with the introduction of the car pooling scheme, there are some problems with its setup. The university claims that since the introduction of the scheme that the number of university students carpooling has increased. The only thing that has increased is the number of university students being picked up by other university students whom they’ve never met before along Northfields Avenue and Robsons Road. Another issue with the car pooling is if all the car spaces allotted to carpooling are all gone, then even if you do have 3 people in the car, you still have to pay for your parking, that is if you can actually get a car park on campus. This is especially hard to swallow if you have gone out of your way to pick somebody up, as I often do.

So what are some alternatives? Well I suppose we could make the move from where I have a job, friends and other commitments, to Wollongong so we could walk to uni or use the public transport available here, thus putting more the Wollongong housing market and pushing up rates of unemployment. Its fine, I’m sure I could afford to pay rent without a job.

As the university keeps expanding, this issue is only going to get worse. My solution: make Western a multi-story car park. Parking woes would disappear, well for the next couple of years at least. I’m not saying that this would ease congestion around the university, but it would ease the headache of having to try to find a parking space.

Now I know that parking at UOW is never going to problem free. Problems are just a fact of life, but a few more initiatives need to be implemented in the not too distant future or congestion and the number of road-raged students will increase.