Yesterday, Centennial Park was announced as a winner of an inaugural Green Flag Award, an international recognition as one of the world’s leading public parklands.

The prestigious Green Flag Award was awarded for the first time in Australia and New Zealand and, on the back of The Light Garden, caps off a wonderful start to the 125th Anniversary year for Centennial Park!

David Clarke, CEO of Parks Forum (the Green Flag accreditation agency), sent his congratulations and said that the Parklands should be considered alongside some of the world’s highest quality parks. He said: “We know that healthy, well managed parks mean healthier communities and the Green Flag Award shows us which parks are setting the standard.”

So, what is a Green Flag Award?

Centennial Park will shortly be able to fly its very own ‘Green Flag’ for 2013.

The Green Flag Award is an international award which assesses the quality of parks across a number of categories, including their safety, quality of the facilities, management of the environment, historical features, and as great places for people to play and recreate.

Originally a UK-based Award program, “[t]he scheme was set up in 1996 to recognise and reward green spaces in England and Wales that met the laid down high standards. It is also seen as a way of encouraging others to achieve the same high environmental standards, creating a benchmark of excellence in recreational green areas.” (ref: Wikipedia)

Each Green Flag Award application is judged against eight key criteria:

1. A welcoming place
2. Healthy, safe and secure
3. Well maintained and clean
4. Sustainability
5. Conservation and heritage
6. Community involvement
7. Marketing
8. Management

So, what now?

Parks Forum will send us our very own Green Flag to hoist up high for a year in honour of this recognition. We will shortly be raising this flag in Federation Valley.

Great timing?

Absolutely. With Centennial Park celebrating its 125th Anniversary, this Award confirms what we all pretty much know already – the Park is a world-class gem that we are so fortunate to have just moments from the Sydney CBD.

Australian author and Nobel Prize for Literature winner, Patrick White, once described Centennial Park as the “lungs of the city”. The Park is our park – “the People’s Park”. It’s a place that many generations have planned, created, maintained, fought and protested for, and provides an increasingly important service to the community every day.

As David Clarke said above: “healthy, well managed parks mean healthier communities”, and that is what this Award confirms. Centennial Park is an essential part of our global city. Essential for our health, essential for our environment, essential for the liveability of our city.

We don’t just want Centennial Park…we need it.

Simple as that.

- posted by Craig Easdown

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Here’s three slices of Centennial Park life to leave you with…

The People’s Park

The lungs of the city

Green Flag Award winner!

October is Mental Health Month across New South Wales. Much research from Australia and internationally has proven the links between a healthy environment and a healthy community – and this includes improvements in mental health.

Here at Centennial Parklands we take our social responsibilities seriously. We see the Parklands more than just grass, trees, buildings and wildlife. The Parklands is nothing without people, and it is scant relevant to people without providing a positive experience for those who visit.

With this in mind, we have been very supportive of an initiative that we believe will benefit many, and be a compatible and valuable community asset for many years to come – the Centennial Park Labyrinth.

But first, what is Mental Health Month about?

The Mental Health Association of NSW encapsulate it quite neatly:

“Just like your physical health and fitness, your mental health is worth taking care of and improving. This is true for people who haven’t experienced mental illness, as well as for people who have. Mental Health Month encourages all of us to think about our mental health. It’s an opportunity to ask if we are feeling good about ourselves and our lives, if we have good relationships with other people, and if we are engaging in activities that give us purpose and meaning.”

Now, what exactly is a Labyrinth?

A labyrinth is not a maze. A labyrinth is not (for fans of mid-1980s fantasy movies starring David Bowie!) a place that includes monsters and dungeons. A labyrinth is not exclusively a Christian or pagan concept.

Chartres Cathedral labyrinth design

In short, a labyrinth is a simple contemplative pathway.

Hmmmm….make sense? If not, you can listen to ABC Radio National presenter Fran Kelly’s interview with Robert Ferre and Emily Simpson to hear it from the perspective of two experts and labyrinth devotees.

Unlike a maze, which has several different pathways, a labyrinth has only one path and there are no dead ends, so you can’t get lost. A maze is an intellectual exercise and a labyrinth is a spiritual one.

There are many ways to describe a labyrinth – a path of prayer, a walking meditation or a watering hole for the spirit. It is a universal and non-denominational symbol, used by many different cultures over 4,000 years.

An article from the Sydney Morning Herald in 2010 gave a great insight into labyrinths. If you’re interested, further background can be found on Wikipedia or on the Labyrinthos website.

The Centennial Park Labyrinth

Our Trustees have approved the construction of a sandstone labyrinth in Centennial Park – dependent upon funding being raised from the community. The Labyrinth will be made of sandstone, and be located in a suitable and peaceful corner of the Park, open for all to enjoy and experience.

It will be based on the design of the medieval labyrinth in the Chartres Cathederal in France.

Here is an artist’s impression of how it may look:

Artist’s impression of Centennial Park Labyrinth

The Centennial Park Labyrinth will be the first major public labyrinth in Sydney – celebrating over a century of contributing to community health and well-being.

To generate interest and awareness of the project, a recent event was held in Centennial Park where the outline of the Labyrinth was painted temporarily on the grass and the community invited to take a walk (pics below)! Another opportunity will be coming up in December 2012 (keep an eye out on our What’s On for details).

Funding the Labyrinth requires community support

Although concept, design and location proposals have been approved in principle, the development and delivery of the eventual Labyrinth is contingent upon the necessary funds being raised to complete the project. The total cost of the project is $500,000 (as at the end of September 2012 approximately $320,000 had been raised).

All donations to the Centennial Park Labyrinth project are tax-deductible. If you feel you would like to contribute to this project, please make a confidential enquiry through project proponent Ms Emily Simpson, via the Sydney Labyrinth website.

A contemplative and peaceful place for the community

Just being in contact with nature can bring about a range of mental (and physical) health benefits for us all. Being in contact with nature – and having access to this labyrinth – is something which we here at Centennial Parklands are excited to offer and support. We believe it will become an asset for the community, and an iconic experience for Sydneysiders and visitors alike.

- posted by Craig Easdown

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Have you been to Chartres Cathedral in France? Have you walked a labyrinth somewhere around the world? Tell us about it here.

The Equinox Walk was an open event held recently in Centennial Park

Kids enjoying the Labyrinth as well

Playing outdoors improves children’s eyesight and reduces the risk of shortsightedness (myopia) – a condition that has been on the increase in Australian children for a number of years.

Another research project, this one by Queensland University of Technology, suggests that encouraging children out of the houes and away from the ‘screens’ (eg. computer, iPad, television, gaming consoles) lowers the risk of that child developing nearsightedness or myopia.  The work of the research team is outlined here.

Centennial Park's open spaces provide plenty of fun

In a similar story in 2009, the ABC described myopia as:

Myopia is the technical name for short-sightedness – a defect in vision that comes about when your eyes can’t focus light from distant objects correctly onto the back of your retina, the light-sensitive part of the back of the eye.

You can focus on close objects clearly, but distant objects are blurred. The focal point of the lens falls in front of the retina (or to put it another way, the axis of the eyeball is too long), and you have to wear corrective lenses to focus the image correctly on the retina.

The ABC article further outlines the causes of myopia increases and the corrections that are required.

The answer?

It seems that one things parents can do is encourage their children to play outside more, and become more exposed to natural sunlight. This is particularly important for children that grow up in apartments and high rise buildings that have no backyards.

This research is consistent with the aims and research of the Healthy Parks Healthy People initiative which demonstrates the ongoing physical and mental health benefits of spending more time outdoors and in parks and public spaces.

Stuck for ideas of what to do with the kids?

The children's playgrounds in Centennial Parklands are some of the most popularly used in Sydney

Be stuck no more! The Healthy Kids website has an enormous number of ideas and Centennial Parklands is perfectly placed to help with this challenge. Open play spaces, sports, kids activities - check out our regular What’s On in Centennial Parklands calendar for all the information.

We also have some of the most popularly used playgrounds in Sydney, wonderful nature walks and offer horse riding, bike hire  (including a kids cycle track) and all sorts of kids-based fun at the nearby Entertainment Quarter.

We’ve just released our new winter ‘What’s On’ calendar. You can download this in PDF right here. We’re now taking bookings. You can do this by phoning the Parklands Office on (02) 9339 6699.

So there is certainly no excuse at not getting outdoors in Centennial Parklands this winter.

It’s good for your child’s eyesight!