RECONCILIATION ACTION PLAN

Workers Lifestyle Group have embarked on the Reflect stage of our Reconciliation Action Plan or RAP. The purpose of creating a RAP is to recognise and celebrate the history of Blacktown, to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which our clubs operate, the Darug people, and to ensure that we are actively working towards improving the lives of First Nations people in our community.

Indigenous culture has always been a part of the DNA of the Blacktown Workers Club, as evident with the original club logo that dates to our inception in the 1960s. Blacktown also has the largest urban Aboriginal and/ or Torres Strait Islander population in New South Wales with 9,530 people making up 2.6% of our population (2016 ABS Census).

Many of the key activities within the reflect stage of the RAP have involved celebrating our connection to the tradition owners through arts and culture.

In 2022, we conducted a branding relaunch to change the organisations logo to Workers Lifestyle Group and our club logos to a more modern Workers logo. In doing this, we maintained our original Blacktown Workers Club logo from 1961 which is an emblem that features an indigenous warrior, holding a spear in one hand and a boomerang in the other. The warrior has been depicted on a large sign as well as a sculpture. The origins of how the indigenous warrior came to be on a Workers Club logo has become an urban legend, with the story involving a real-life character in Blacktown in the early 50s. The legend goes that he was the first Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander to be allowed to join the club and was a regular guest at a time when Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders were banned from entering clubs. Thus, the logo and sculpture were created in his honour.

Since May 2021, and now at all major events, including the Children’s Charity Christmas Party in 2022, we invite an elder to do the Welcome to Country, while other speakers do an Acknowledgement to Country whenever they are making a speech.

With the completion of the renovations at 55 Campbell Street, there were two Grand Opening Ceremonies held at different stages of completion from December 2021. In addition to the elder conducting the Welcome to Country, we invited the Nulungu Dreaming Dancers to perform a blessing dance as our acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the land on which our club is built.

We are also embracing art! We support the local Indigenous community through sponsorship of the Indigenous art prize at the Blacktown City Art Centre, and have done so for many years. Our administration area is decorated with legitimate Indigenous art from a local Darug artist, Leanne Watson. The collection features four artworks, and add to our collection of Indigenous art that commenced with our acquisition of artwork by well-known Blacktown treasure, Uncle Danny Eastwood that has been in our possession since the early 2000s. Within our Parklane Airbridge, we have installed an Indigenous artwork installation from local artist, Leanne Mulgo Watson in February 2023. The artwork covers the roof of the airbridge and provides members and guests with an immersive experience of the artwork. The installation also features the ‘story’ of both the artwork and the artist.

The project has developed organically since we commenced the RAP journey in January 2021. With the mindset focused on celebrating our history of Blacktown and of our flagship club, it become easy to identify opportunities to embrace the traditions of the original owners of the land.

The focus in 2023, is to have the RAP working group complete a RAP document that will be available for all to view. One aim is to continue to grow our collection of Indigenous and local artwork as the Board of Directors has committed funding to increase our collection. This collection will be available to view within our clubs as we aim to raise awareness amongst our community.

There has been an ongoing interest and enthusiasm throughout time to support Indigenous arts and culture as demonstrated by the acquisition of Uncle Danny’s painting. In the past few years, this interest has been developed into a Board level strategic initiative with the introduction of the RAP, the introduction of the Welcome to Country / Acknowledgement to Country at our events, as well as the funding support.

We are now allocating specific time, money and human resources to the development and implementation of the RAP. It is important to Workers Lifestyle Group to do this as one of our key values is to put people and community first, and this includes all parts of our community. The addition of these arts and cultural initiatives has had a positive impact on our staff, members, and local community.