After my Heritage Week talk at Liverpool Library, a lot of the discussion centred around what needs to be done to get the community involved a lot more in the life of the town.
The interesting thing about Liverpool is that it is organically growing despite lacklustre leadership for many years.
Its location is probably its best asset but the bottom line is that without a vibrant community life it has next to nothing.
Having served on its bicentennial committee for a few years and seeing many of our suggestions junked I know first hand that would be one of the changes I would make.
Everyone in the room where I delivered my talk obviously cares about Liverpool and what’s happened to it, but at the same time many despaired that things would never change.
Which was the conclusion of my talk, that the more things change the more they stay the same in Liverpool.
One fellow even suggested the solution may include getting rid of the name Liverpool and starting all over again with a brand new moniker.
An interesting, if radical suggestion. What would be a suitable new name, do you think?
Maybe one of the well known suburbs such as Casula could be a suitable name for the whole place?
Here’s my Top 5 things to maybe make Liverpool great:
Number 1. Banish political parties from council for the next 20 years.
Number 2. Form a Committee for Liverpool, whose members come from Liverpool and who care about Liverpool, unlike the one established by a former mayor that was a total waste of time.
Number 3. Task the Committee for Liverpool with coming up with real answers to five problems in the first year and council to follow through.
Number 4. Establish an annual festival celebrating Liverpool history and all of its current ethnic tribes to put pride back into the town. Use the Georges River as much as possible. A regatta anyone?
Number 5. Encourage regular community events such as charity fundraisers to further bolster community life.
