St Michael’s is Listening to the Heart
A highly engaged group of St Michael’s people took up the opportunity earlier this year to form the Listen to Heart group to talk about the voice to Parliament referendum later this year.
The Listen to Heart group is now meeting monthly – usually the third Sunday of the month – straight after the Sunday 10am service. It is an informal forum for people to share information, useful resources and ideas over the next months in the lead up to the referendum. No official membership required – people can turn up as they wish.
We recognise people both inside and outside St Michael’s have different views about the approaching Referendum, and that there is much information – and misinformation – doing the rounds in the community and media.
Over the next months, the group will promote events and opportunities for information sharing.
If you would like more information or would like to get involved in any of the above on the roadmap, please contact the church office.
Nicola’s new fund-raiser
I’ve just launched my ‘Nicola’s Walk for TogetherYes Campaign’, which will be on the Chuffed Fundraiser platform. Specifically I’ll be raising funds to help translate TogetherYes resources into 11 different languages. It costs $1,000 for each language translation.
My target is $5,000. All donations over $2 are tax deductible. Donations are accepted by credit card and donor are issued a tax receipt on donation. I’ll be walking 350km over 21 days, starting September 15, in Loyola and finishing on October 7th in Barcelona.
The link to the campaign is here:
https://chuffed.org/project/nicolatogetheryes
Together Yes Information Sessions:
This video is from the Together Yes website encouraging people to attend info sessions and thinking about hosting Kitchen Table sessions. Start thinking if you’d be interested in hosting a session. Full information packs will be available. More information soon.
The Parish Council decided to encourage people to consider voting “Yes” in the 2023 national referendum, and a banner (below) was approved to be hung on the perimeter fence of the church site to encourage members of the local community to do the same.
Common Grace resources for their Listen to the Heart Campaign helping us to respond to the coming referendum on the Voice to Parliament.
A very useful resource from the ABC Video Lab: Everything you need to know about the Indigenous Voice Referendum.
New book by Thomas Mayo and journalist Kerry O’Brien The Voice to Parliament Handbook: All the Detail You Need which offers a clear and simple guide to the Uluru Statement and background reading in the lead up to the Voice to Parliament Referendum. Available at all good bookstores for around $17.
The Australian Electoral Commission has a detailed information section explaining how referendums work and specifically explaining the 2023 Voice to Parliament referendum mechanics. Details located here:
https://www.aec.gov.au/referendums/
The 2000 word cases for both the Yes and No campaigns have been launched on the Australian Electoral Commission website, located here:
https://www.aec.gov.au/referendums/pamphlet.htm
Guardian Fact Check on each of the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ pamphlets: