About Us . . .
Where Are We?
The Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre main office is located on the first floor in the new Surry Hills Library and Community Centre at 405 Crown St. Designed for sustainablitiy Surry Hills Library and Community building has been recognized as a bench mark in public buildings and has won many awards. We work closely with City of Sydney Council (CoS) to maintain the premises to a high standard and ensure the service delivered by the Neighbourhood Centre to the community matches the ideal.
We are proud custodians of this community building and work hard to ensure the community has access to all the facilities. We remain grateful to City of Sydney for its generous support in providing the community and SHNC with this delightful building.
What does the SHNC do?
- We offer a positive, modern and state of the art community space to the Surry Hills Neighbourhood
- Provide a space which is both welcoming and comfortable
- The Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre works alongside the community in developing programmes and services that reflect the needs and wants that are specific to the Surry Hills Community
- The Surry Hill Neighbourhood Centre provides interesting, useful, social and fun activities and services for the community
- Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre use a variety of methods in our activities, such as, photography, cooking, arts and outings
- Listen and value the Surry Hills community through using feedback in our planning for the future
- Build relationships and work with key organizations and local business's in the Surry Hills area to assist us in running services to the best of our ability
- A drop in facility that provides relevant information and through which referrals can be made
- Host cultural events such as the Surry Hills Festival and the Surry Hills Markets
- Work with, train and support volunteers in contributing in a variety of ways in the Surry Hills neighbourhood centre
Where does our money come from?
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But, to pay our bills and provide essential community services, we have to supplement these resources by fund raising. |
Our major fund raising activities are the monthly Surry Hills Markets, and the annual Surry Hills Festival, supplemented by space rental and childcare surpluses. |
We are partly funded by the NSW Dept. of Community Services
We receive great support in the form of grants and services from
the Council of the City of SydneyLegally, we are:-
The Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre Incorporated Association which is:-
- A non-profit, non-government community based information and resource association incorporated under the Fair Trading Act (NSW) and providing services to the Surry Hills community.
- Run on a community management model with the management committee being elected annually by members.
- Dedicated to the community of Surry Hills, postcode 2010, and bounded roughly by Elizabeth St, Cleveland St, South Dowling St, Flinders St and Wentworth Avenue.
- A tenant of the Surry Hills Library and Community Centre which is owned by the City of Sydney.
Our objectives and philosophies...
- Listen too and respond to our community
- Work alongside the community to develop our existing programmes and to develop new programmes and services
- Play an active role in the community by building relationships with other community organizations
- For the Surry Hills Community Centre to be welcoming service to all that are involved
- Value all individuals within our organizations, from those who use the organization to staff and volunteers
- We respect difference and diversity within the community and respect people equally regardless of gender, age, race, religion, sexuality, politics, wealth and state of health. We will not accept intolerance of differences in the aforementioned. We require this of all our staff and volunteers and all our clients and service users.
What is the SHNC's History?
Read the article below by Enid Cook and learn how we got started . . .
Surry Hills from the late 60's and early 70s
Urban renewal and rejuvenation have once again become a subject for debate in the media and in State and Local Government. Developers, Real Estate agents, banks and residents are all involved. Surry Hills with its long and varied history as the "Backyard of the City" is caught up again in conflicting values.
In the late 1960s - early 1970s the area was saved from the Slum Clearance Policy destined for the whole of the Inner City from Paddington to Glebe and all Inner City areas. Amid intense upheaval against the police, developers and Government, the Builders Labourers Union led by Jack Munday placed Green Bans on all areas where residents and others asked for assistance, stopping the ruthless demolition of the Inner City. Surry Hills was spared the violence but was subject to intimidation by some very ugly "customers". Power to the People fuelled a period of energy and imaginative early experiments with the concept of community.
Briefly, the post-war immigration policy changed Surry Hills from the old working class area notorious for some of its colourful characters and fictionalised in "Harp in the South" (Ruth Park, 1974), migrants formed 70% of the population in addition to some Labour Party stalwarts and resident urbanites. Lack of housing attracted young Australians returning from overseas - educated, little money but through travel saw what city living was about. Town planning of bombed out cities, social planning was not confined to suburban living.
Resident Action in Surry Hills became Planning for People and directed attention to the need to inform migrants and others that social issues were vital. Government Departments needed to learn about these issues. The Shopfront Information Service was established in Crown Street near Cleveland Street. Volunteers with some assistance from the churches and some basic Government help began what was to become Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre.
At the same time Activists split into various areas of interest e.g. traffic, rat running motorists, dilapidated open spaces, Public Housing Department and its attitude and for all, the welfare of children.
Parents and workers approached Activists about problems concerning child care. Surry Hills had a long history of Welfare Services from churches and from philanthropic organizations that had served right through to the war years. After the war attitudes had changed and particularly for young people charity had become an obnoxious concept, patronising and moralising superiority. Young women with children and child care workers asked for assistance because any complaint or suggestion from them meant exclusion, loss of a job, victimisation real and imagined. The Women's Movement was gathering momentum so Activists wet about examining practical ways of making Surry Hills a family place again.
Where to begin? Small beginnings that would offer some alternatives, but most of all space to cater for an informal "get together" where parents and minders could organize themselves in suitable space that provided more freedom
than a terrace. The Boys Brigade in Riley Street was originally built by the Fairfax Newspaper Sydney Morning Herald for their newsboys and was not available on a regular basis. The Anglican Church, former landlord of property in Surry Hills, owned the Church Hall in Arthur Street but was not prepared to assist. It was sold to John Singleton Advertising. All schools were jammed pack with children some so young as four years of age - until the Education Department demanded birth certificates. So there remained Doherty Hall part of the Library building built in the 1950s and used for wedding receptions, modest affairs by migrants as young people settled in Surry Hills in cheap terrace housing and started families.
By the early 1970s the wedding receptions moved to more impressive venues and after some Council inquiries the letting rate had fallen to three or four per year, how after some trials around the area it seemed possible that a Play Group could begin. This was completely unknown but by that splendid system of "telawoman" the Skippitty Playgroup, fully insured, became a reality financed through the sale of cast-offs, bits and pieces and goodwill from many women. The initiative shown by the Community was to be the basis for Government funding for further development of Child Care.
Still it was difficult to move through the inevitable blockage of red-tape and often sheer bloody mindedness of men who believed "all women should be at home looking after their own kids". Encouraged by a splendid worker from Family Day Care, action was taken by two sympathetic Labour Party members - two stalwart MEN who listened to the needs of a changing society.
The basic concept of a Neighbourhood - Community Centre had been established in Victoria (where much pioneering work has been done) and at last the N.S.W. government saw that "there were votes in it" to quote a local alderman-councillor. Resident Activists saw that the local Library, schools, Bay Health Centre and personal assistance would help make the Immigration scheme work and encourage the bay boomer generation to stay in, and come to the inner city where family life was possible.
A group of residents took up the role of the Management Committee of Doherty Hall and employed a graduate to pioneer the key role of the Surry Hills Neighbourhood Centre. Two residents took themselves to Canberra to obtain a little finance from Gough Whitlam's Government of happy memory and to explain to a public servant some facts about putting ideas into practice at the community level. He was a good listener!
* See history of Surry Hills C. Keating
Enid Cook, July 2003
