Silence, and the powerful reflection from Barb Joyce from Strathewen, a poem, from the poetry tree. A place that I know well.

A fabulous range of speakers. Evonne Miller from QUT, Jen   Rae from Fair, Share, Fair, Scotia Monkivitch, from Creative Recovery Network, and Barbara Joyce from Strathewen.

Maree Grenfell from   Resilient Melbourne opened with: Arts: Why this, why now. Arts can help by reimaging th way we do things, building and rebuilding communities, creating memorials, sharing stories, allowing people to give, acknowledgeing and connecting with each other despite fdiffernece, improving health outcome bringing order from disorder.

Jen Rae, is a lead artist with the Refuge project and fair share fare. Her starting question is: What do you know that you don’t you know tat we all might need to know in a disaster. Its about future proofing, and about future blindness. Fair share fare the use of food, and

Food is our most powerful narrative: 30% of greenhouse emissions comes from food production.

Future proof survival guide is being developed  from story telling. Look forward to it!

Evonne Miller introduced poetic inquiry into older people’s experiences. Interviews with 10 older adults, with a range of experiences. Some had experience of the 74 floods, some were out of their homes for up to the year. They decided to use a technique called, research poetry, is taking the words from a research interview, and creating poetry.  The approach she used, she termed, was ICCEE. Immerse in the poem, create it, (Critical Reflection)check if its OK, (ethics)c heck with the person, and engage with it.

Barbara Joyce described the days and weeks after Strathewen, the devastation and loneliness of the Black Saturday fires. She was driving home, and saw a note on the tree by the bridge. Thinking it was a coroners note, she stopped to read it, it was a note from a neighbour, about her sister coming home from hospital. Barb went home and wrote a poem, and pinned it on the tree. More poems and notes appeared, the tree became renowned. Some poems fell off, the ephermeral memorial is a reminder that nothing is permanent. She then described the development of the memorial, a project close to my heart. What was so wonderfl was to see how the memorial is being used to educate the kids from the primary school about the fires, in such a creative way.

SCotia Monkivitch introduced the creative recovery network, with a wonderful film describing the work of the network. The strength of the organisation is around capacity building and advocacy, and understanding the context in which they are working. They are also now embedded in the Victorian emergency management arrangements