Renew Australia
Melbourne based, national organisation
You have heard by now that Renew Newcastle has been the inspiration for empty space revitalisation schemes across the country, like Renew Adelaide, Renew Townsville, Made in Geelong and Pop-up Parramatta.
The demand for us to share our Newcastle experiences with people wanting to start similar initiatives in their towns and cities is such that our Creative Director Marcus Westbury is launching the Renew Australia organisation to provide a a support, consultancy and training services to communities around Australia and the owners of empty properties.
Renew Australia is a new national social enterprise designed to catalyse community renewal, economic development, the arts and creative industries across Australia. Renew Australia works with communities and property owners to take otherwise empty shops, offices, commercial and public buildings and use them available to incubate short-term use by artists, creative projects and community initiatives.
The development of the Renew Australia organisation has been supported by The Australian Centre for Social Innovation, and through investment from The Crunch by Social Traders.
Show your support for the Renew Australia initiative by liking the facebook page.
Workshop @ Renew Adelaide
Brush & Press Studio @ Renew Townsville
Make Space @ Renew Newcastle
Renewers L-R: Marni Jackson, Donna Sutherland, Ianto Ware, Lara Torr, Marcus Westbury
Background
Renew Australia is based on the intellectual property, experience, and case study pioneered by Renew Newcastle. In 2008 Renew Newcastle was established as a low cost, low budget DIY urban renewal scheme that has proved highly successful and generated significant media and community interest locally, nationally and internationally. Through a simple strategy based on the temporary and low cost creative activation of some of the more than 150 empty buildings in the Newcastle CBD significant parts of Newcastle have been transformed. Less than two years later as the direct result of Renew Newcastle’s activities more than 70 new businesses and initiatives had been seeded and Newcastle was hailed by Lonely Planet as one of the top 10 cities in the world to visit in 2011 due to the exciting, eclectic creative community that had been seeded there.
Renew Initiatives Australia Limited is a not for profit company limited by guarantee that trades as a social enterprise. It will provide fee-for-service based training, consultancy, research and other services to councils, state and federal government, economic development professionals, developers and property owners. Revenue made from this will allow Renew Australia to meet operational expenses and to subsidise services and offer seed funding and support for artists and community groups, and to offer free and subsidised training for community builders.
Launch
Renew Australia will launch in Newcastle on Saturday 1 October 2011 (subscribe to the Renew Newcastle e-newsletter to get your invitation to the launch), but ahead of that Renew Australia needs to grow its team, and is advertising a paid full time General Manager role.
Advertised Position: General Manager Renew Australia
A paid full time position based in Melbourne (Brunswick) Victoria, as the key full time staff member who will oversee the operations of the new organisation and hold a business development role in this start-up social enterprise.
Applications close: Monday 26 September 2011. If this sounds perfect for you or someone you know, read the full Position Description below:
