ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The JNC acknowledges the traditional custodians of the lands on which we work, the Gadigal and Bidjigal People of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that these lands always were and always will be Aboriginal lands. We celebrate First Nations Peoples’ connection to the land and recognise the importance of Indigenous voices and culture. We would like to advise that there may be images or videos on this website of people who have since passed.

Family Fun Day at Matraville

poster for family fun day at Matraville 2019 showing children setting off to race on noodles

Just one more week to Family Fun Day at Matraville!

Making it ten out of ten

On Friday 25 October we will be welcoming the whole community to Memorial Park in Matraville, offering everyone the chance to have fun, meet others in the community, and access local support services. And we’re celebrating in a special week – it’s Children’s Week!

See you there from 3-6pm at Memorial Reserve, Anzac Parade cr Beauchamp Road, Matraville

Ten-plus things to do!

Here are ten of the great things on offer:

  1. climbing wall & other crazy rides
  2. lots of art and craft activities – use your imagination!
  3. a BBQ and other free food and giveaways
  4. an interactive sensory stall
  5. wild community games
  6. Hallowe’en stall …
  7. library techno van – more than just books!
  8. CPR challenge
  9. stalls run by local support services, with giveaways & games
  10. the Matraville’s Got Talent! show

And much more …

This Family Fun Day at Matraville “Ten and the best ever”

In this special 10th year, we invited Thor Blomfield, who’s been involved from day one in the Family Fun Day at Matraville, to share some of the history of the day. Here’s what he has to say:

The story of Family Fun Day at Matraville started over ten years ago when a group called “Working From the Ground Up” made up of local services and universities were trying to find out what people in Matraville, Maroubra and La Perouse wanted for their community. Over 300 people were interviewed and one thing that came back was that they wanted more live events. I was a community worker when the results came out and my job was to make some live events.

So I formed a committee of local services and local people to plan an annual community event. Key members of the committee were representatives from JNC, Weave, Barnardo’s and Randwick Council. We called the event the Matraville Family Fun Day and the first one was in 2009 in Memorial Park at the corner of Anzac Parade and Beauchamp Rd. It is a big empty park with a few trees and a lot of grass.

When we first started, we spread all the stalls and the activities over the whole park. This led to a feeling of everything being separate and people having to walk a long way to reach each section. We also didn’t have a lot of activities that involved everybody interacting together.  After a couple of years we started to plan more events that involved everyone doing something together on the day.

It started by changing the layout of the day. Instead of being spread across the whole park, we made a circle of stalls in one section of the park. Suddenly everyone was forced to be closer together and interact with each other.

The next challenge was to come up with a way to get parents, kids, teenagers, and older people involved in some way. We wanted to make sure that everyone had some way of connecting with each other.

We started by creating a community café under the trees where everyone could relax, have a free cup of tea and biccy and chat with someone.

Next up we wanted to find some way to get everyone focused on one activity. And so the idea of community games was born.

We got a bunch of colourful pool noodles and handed them out to groups of people. We told them they had to use their pool noodle like a horse. The races were so silly and fun to watch that everyone got involved in cheering on their horses.

It brought everyone together around one activity. After the success of Noodle Racing we started to come up with new ways to get everyone involved. Over the years we have done all sorts of activities from tug-a-wars, building castles out of cardboard boxes, parachute games, performances and a giant water fight.

image of big bubble and climbing wall at past Family Fun Day at Matraville

This year the committee decided we needed to come up with a new way to involve everyone. We came up with the idea of the “Matraville’s Got Talent” show. It’s a chance for local people with a talent to show off their stuff. The acts will compete on the main stage to win the inaugural Matraville’s Got Talent Trophy.

2019 is our tenth anniversary and it promises to be the best MFFD ever.

You’ll make it a ten

What we need to make Family Fun Day at Matraville a 10/10 event is participation from our community. Please come along to enjoy the day!

Event partners

Be sure to drop in and say hello to the organisations from your community who partnered to bring you Family Fun Day at Matraville in 2019.

 The JNC

Randwick Council 

WEAVE Youth and Community Services and WEAVE’s Kool Kids Club

The Benevolent Society’s  program The Shack

The Department of Housing and South Eastern Sydney Local Health District

Welcoming other organisations

Together with our event partners, we welcome the participation in the Family Fun Day of other services that support people in our community. Here are this year’s Family Fun Day supporting organisations. It’s a great line-up, covering support and fun for everyone.

Ten out of ten to our local paper

We thank the Southern Courier once again for helping more children to have fun in Children’s Week by promoting Family Fun Day at Matraville to the community.

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