Tidy Towns and Friends of Cemeteries Groups: Enriching the CommunityTidy Towns and Friends of Cemeteries Groups: Enriching the Community At the heart of the Environmental Volunteer Program lie conservation groups, but it also embraces amenity groups known as “Tidy Towns” and “Friends of Cemeteries.” Tidy Towns Groups These groups strive to keep suburbs clean and inviting by: * Maintaining roads and parks, ensuring tidy surroundings * Creating attractive garden beds that benefit wildlife * Removing litter and graffiti to enhance the public environment Over the years, Tidy Towns groups have significantly impacted their communities, receiving numerous awards and accolades. Summerland Point/Gwandalan Neat Cities: Since the 1990s, this group has maintained lakeshore parks and roadsides, creating garden beds and combating graffiti. Mannering Park Tidy Cities: This long-standing group focuses on maintaining green verges and parks, welcoming visitors with vibrant flowering shrubs. San Remo Tidy Cities: Active since the 1990s, they have landscaped, mowed, and removed litter along Lake Munmorah, currently prioritizing litter cleanup. Chittaway Bay/Berkeley Vale Neat Cities: This group has created garden beds and regularly cleans up litter, contributing to the health of Tuggerah Lakes. Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia: Originally a veterans-only group, they now welcome all members. They have transformed a weedy lakeshore area into a serene spot with seating and a picnic table. Tidy Cities in Lakehaven: Inspired by other groups, this team focuses on litter cleanup, removing items ranging from shopping carts to televisions from the environment. Friends of Cemeteries Groups These groups preserve the cultural and heritage significance of cemeteries in Noraville and Jilliby: * Caring for lawns, ash walls, and garden areas * Documenting and photographing headstones and inscriptions * Creating garden mounds and planting low-growing species to maintain visibility The dedicated volunteers of these groups ensure that cemeteries remain dignified and inviting places of remembrance for the pioneers and community members buried there. To learn more about these groups and how to get involved, contact [email protected].
A large part of the focus through the Environmental Volunteer Program is on conservation groups, and these make up the majority of the groups in terms of numbers, but there are also 6 groups that we call our amenity groups. These are our volunteer groups ‘Tidy Towns’ and ‘Friends of Cemeteries’.
Tidy Towns Groups
The Tidy Towns groups meet regularly to keep the suburbs clean and tidy, carrying out maintenance work that ensures the neighbourhoods are pleasant places to live in and a welcoming environment for all who visit.
These groups aim to improve the aesthetics of public spaces through activities such as mowing and pruning to keep local roads and parks neat and tidy for the enjoyment of the public, creating garden beds that are not only attractive to look at but also provide habitat and food for bees, small birds and invertebrates, and removing litter and graffiti.
Over the years, these groups have provided tens of thousands of hours of volunteer work in their locations and have received numerous awards including Keep Australia Beautiful, the NSW Blue Star Awards, Volunteer of the Year, Senior Volunteer of the Year and the Central Coast Council Australia Day Awards to name a few.
Summerland Point/Gwandalan Neat Cities
This group meets weekly to work on the shores of Lake Macquarie and has been active since its inception in the 1990s.
In designated areas, teams of lawn mowers and brush cutters are working to keep the parks and roadsides in both suburbs neat and tidy.
In addition, there is a dedicated garden group that creates and maintains garden beds in the city.
Removing graffiti and litter is also an important focus for this group. They have worked tirelessly in recent years to limit the impact of this sometimes quite ugly object.
Mannering Park Tidy Cities
This group was founded over 10 years ago and also operates on the shores of Lake Macquarie.
This group meets weekly and functions as a well-oiled machine of volunteers who maintain the green verges and parks of their village, particularly the town entrance with flowering shrubs that have been planted over the years to welcome residents and visitors to the Mannering Park area.
San Remo Tidy Cities
One of the first volunteer groups established in the region started in the 1990s.
Over the years they have been active in mowing, landscaping and removing litter along the shores of Lake Munmorah.
This group currently meets twice a month and focuses primarily on cleaning up litter in their area.
Chittaway Bay/Berkeley Vale Neat Cities
This group has been meeting monthly for many years.
They have created garden beds in Chittaway Bay Park and Kurruba Oval.
This group is committed to removing litter from the shores of Tuggerah Lakes and thus plays an important role in improving the health of the lake system.
Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia
This group was originally founded in 2016 with an exclusive veteran membership. The meetings and workshops were a way to stay connected and support each other. The group now openly welcomes all new members.
Since the group was founded, an overgrown and very weedy area on the northern shore of Tuggerah Lake near Gorokan has been transformed into a lovely spot with seating and a picnic table where you can relax.
The group meets bi-weekly and if you are there you will see the Vietnam Veterans flag flying.
Tidy Cities in Lakehaven
This is another group that is busy cleaning up litter in the Gorokan/Lake Haven area. You will see them walking around in their reflective clothing, cleaning up large and small litter from shopping carts and TVs to take away items.
This group of volunteers were inspired when they visited other groups and saw the results and benefits of their efforts.
Friends of Cemeteries Groups
The Friends Of groups operate in the Noraville and Jilliby cemeteries, caring for the cultural and heritage values of the final resting places of those who lived and contributed to our region.
The Jilliby Cemetery on Hue Hue Road, Mt Alison, opened in 1896.
The Noraville Cemetery on Wilfred Barrett Drive, Noraville, opened in 1869.
Both cemeteries have a lot of local history, as the Wyong Family History Group Inc. has documented and photographed the locations, headstones and inscriptions of all the graves. They are the resting places for many pioneer families of the district.
The Friends of Jilliby Cemetery and Friends of Noraville Cemetery were both established in 2015 by enthusiastic residents interested in helping to preserve the cultural and heritage values of these sites by caring for the resting places of our pioneers and those who lived in and built our communities. Both have lawns in the cemetery, ash walls and garden areas, as well as the more historically significant listed graves. The care and attention that the volunteers give is evident in the overall appearance and the feedback they receive from those with families buried there.
Friends of Cemetery volunteers remove used tributes and keep graves clean and tidy, making our cemeteries pleasant and attractive for those visiting their loved ones.
Garden mounds have been created around both cemeteries using the excavated soil. The volunteers have planted the soil with low-growing species so that the view over the grounds is not obstructed.
For more information about any of our resource groups, including how to get involved, please contact us at [email protected]
This article was written by Penny Pinkess, Environmental Volunteer Officer
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