May 27, 2025 • 9 mins
Deputy Mayor from Moonee Valley, Fran Cosgriff, chats with Peter Greco about their Inclusive Moonee Valley competition. Already some amazing entries have been submitted.
More info: Inclusive Moonee Valley Competition
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
S1 (00:04):
But a very proactive Moonee Valley City Council are doing
some great things. I've just about to conclude a competition
which has involved inclusiveness. Let's chat about it with the
Deputy Mayor, Fran Cosgrove. Fran, lovely to meet you and
thank you so much for your time.
S2 (00:19):
Oh thank you Peter. Lovely to be here.
S1 (00:21):
Now the competition is getting towards the end, so maybe
give us a bit of background on it. How, how
and why have you done this?
S2 (00:28):
Well, we're trying um, it's part of our accessibility and
inclusion program to see how we're going in Rincon Valley
and what we can be doing better. Um, so we
really wanted to just put the call out to people
in Moonee Valley to tell us what an inclusive Moonee
Valley looks like to them, what you know, what we're
(00:48):
doing well, or what they could see us doing better
in the future.
S1 (00:52):
And using a kind of an art sort of focus
or through the eyes of an artist, if I can
put it that way.
S2 (00:58):
Yeah, we've set it up so that you can kind
of make contributions in a few different ways. Um, and
some of those say, photographs or drawings, or it can
be verbal messages or a written submission. And some of
the photos and drawings that have been coming through up
until by the team are really wonderful. So that's been, yeah,
(01:21):
a really exciting way to get information from people.
S1 (01:24):
And I don't know if you know, but across the
age range, I assume.
S2 (01:28):
Certainly open for people right across, you know, the lifespan. Um,
I haven't had any feedback from the team about what
that looks like at the moment, but I'm sure if
we're missing anyone, they'll be trying to target those audiences,
because we definitely want to hear from the whole, you know,
from the start of life to the end, how.
S1 (01:47):
We can do better. Start from the start to the
end and also in the middle. What about in terms
of the response? Uh, did you get good numbers? I
guess it's one thing to sort of say, well, here
we are. What do you think? It's another thing for
the public to kind of respond and react to your invitation.
S2 (02:03):
Yeah. Numbers have been really good. So the team, like
a well-oiled machine at getting it out on our social
media and reaching out to different community groups to to
to make sure we've spread the word as wide and
far as possible. And really excitingly, we've had lots of
people get back to us. It probably helps that, yeah,
(02:25):
it's a competition. So we've got some prizes on offer
as well. Yeah. So a good and it's not quite
over I should say. I think it's closing um, tomorrow,
Sunday the 25th of May. So it's still a little
bit of time. If anyone's got an idea.
S1 (02:40):
Well, I guess in this day and age, you don't
have to rely on Australia Post to get your entry in,
do you? You can, uh, enter in all sorts of
ways that will get to you very, very quickly and, uh,
sort of avoid any, uh, any postal delays. Has there
been a theme that's kind of emerged or anything that
perhaps you think, oh, actually, we hadn't thought of it
that way or something along those lines.
S2 (03:00):
Ooh, great question. I think that's yet to be seen.
For me at least the team might have a bit
more of an idea they have. I know that there's
quite a range, so we've got people talking about kind
of health and wellbeing activities. And then there's things about
kind of fairness and um, like, you know, leisure, just
getting out to the shops or the sporting clubs are like.
(03:21):
So it's been a really broad range of submissions, but
I'll have to ask if there are any that surprised
the team. Certainly we'll, you know, we'll put together a
collation of all of them and some fine. So.
S1 (03:34):
You know, you've kind of gone out and asked for it.
I you know, we as people in the community don't
expect you to know everything. I guess more it's have
you thought about this and then how you react to it.
That's kind of the the critical thing in a sense,
isn't it?
S2 (03:47):
Yeah, absolutely. And that's so valuable. You know we don't
know what we don't know.
S1 (03:52):
Yeah that's right.
S2 (03:53):
Yeah. And people, you know, living with disability or neurodivergence
or who care for people, you know, they they have
their own lives and they face all sorts of challenges
that we might not recognize. And there are all sorts
of strengths that they would like to be better able to,
you know, contribute to the community. So it'll be exciting
(04:14):
to find out what we don't know yet.
S1 (04:15):
But I think that's a really good point about the
fact that people are really busy. You know, you're kind
of flat out, you know, living your life day to day.
So if people feel strongly about something like this and
they've gone to the trouble to put in an entry,
if I can put it that way. But that says
a lot. I mean, they're obviously very passionate about whatever
they're putting in to go to the effort to do
that both the time and the effort and the sort
(04:38):
of creativity of it. If they've chosen that sort of
format that says a lot about, you know, how they
feel about the particular topic or area that they've covered.
S2 (04:47):
Yeah, you're so right, Peter. And we're so now I'm
so grateful. And I think I can speak on behalf
of all the staff as well for people who have
taken the time to. Yeah, I suppose put in an
entry or give us some feedback or tell us a
little bit about, you know, what their life looks like
in many Valley in terms of inclusivity. Like, it's such a, um,
(05:08):
such rich, valuable information, and we're so grateful to everyone
who's taken the time to contribute.
S1 (05:14):
And no pressure, Fran. But I guess when you when
you're in a city council or sort of a smaller
part of government, if you like, than, you know, the,
the states and federal et-cetera, you kind of maybe got
a little bit more scope to sort of act because, uh,
you know, you're sort of close to the people. Would
that be kind of a fair assumption on my part?
S2 (05:33):
Yeah. I would say that we have, um, a good
ability to be targeted, perhaps. You know, we certainly don't
have as much as much money as the other levels have,
of course, but because we're local, we can be a bit, um, yeah,
targeted or more responsive to the specific needs of, you know,
(05:53):
our community and what's going on as opposed to really
broad brush approach. And that's really special. And people really,
you know, I think appreciate that and respond well to
it when we do it. Right. And we're listening. And,
you know, people are really generous in giving them, giving
us their feedback on what we can do better and locally.
And then, um, yeah, we're really keen to do our
(06:14):
best to try and deliver that.
S1 (06:15):
Well, people can identify with that a lot more as well,
can't they? I mean, if you're thinking, you know, a
federal or a state government initiative or something, you'd like
to see change at that level, that's probably going to
take more time, more effort, you know, jump through a
lot more hoops that, uh, the sort of local government level,
as I say, you kind of almost well, you literally
reach out and touch it.
S2 (06:35):
Yes. Yeah. And I mean, that's what I love about
local government is, um, you can have such immediate contact
with the community. I mean, you're part of the community usually. Yeah. And, um,
it'd be nice if we could be slightly more nimble.
We still. It feels like still being in government. You get, um,
slow down. But being close to the community, we have
(06:56):
really good relationships with lots of community groups, and they're
certainly very nimble and dynamic and, you know, have the
most brilliant ideas. And so I guess the the best
thing I think we often do is in supporting them,
you know, helping them bring their ideas to life.
S1 (07:13):
And there's things that people get involved with very much
on a day to day basis on the weekend or
sort of after school, after work, those sort of activities,
those sort of facilities that they might use that you know,
they kind of, you know, I'm repeating myself again in
a sense, but they're kind of things that people can
very easily identify with.
S2 (07:31):
Yeah, exactly. I hope so, certainly when we're doing it
well and and the community feel like they've got places
to be involved, then I think you're right. It's people
feel very strongly about them and have lots of ideas
and feel quite involved.
S1 (07:47):
Now we've got a link to our people can put
in their submission in the last maybe 24 or 36 hours,
maybe till midnight on Sunday the 25th. We've got a
link which we can put up with our show notes,
and people can go there to check it out. But
congratulations on the initiative. I had a great chat to
your mayor over earlier in the year, so it certainly
sounds like the Moonee Valley City Council are doing a
(08:09):
lot of work and this is inclusiveness area, which is
so important, particularly given what's on in other parts of
the world. But you don't have to comment on that
part of it. Fran.
S2 (08:18):
Thanks, Peter. And I'm certainly very keen on it. And
Rudy Vallee, everyone who's a part of our community makes
it stronger. And yes, thank you for putting up the link.
We're certainly keen to get any last submissions, photos or
drawings or in writing. It's just on our website.
S1 (08:34):
Yeah. Put yourself in for running for a prize as well.
S2 (08:37):
Yes. Yeah. We'll be giving away local gift vouchers for people.
S1 (08:40):
Making a difference. And also, you know, being rewarded for
it as well. So win win.
S2 (08:45):
Yeah, absolutely. I'm very keen to see what people are
telling us.
S1 (08:48):
And the community wins as well. Fran keep up the
great work. Lovely to talk to you.
S2 (08:52):
Thanks, Peter. You as well. Lovely to talk.
S1 (08:55):
That's friend who's the deputy mayor for the Moonee Valley
City Council. All those details up on our show notes.
But you can also go to the website and try
to work out where your say is and put in
an entry. And you never know, your entry might make
a lot of difference. Will make a lot of difference.
But a very proactive Moonee Valley City Council are doing
some great things. I've just about to conclude a competition
which has involved inclusiveness. Let's chat about it with the
Deputy Mayor, Fran Cosgrove. Fran, lovely to meet you and
thank you so much for your time.
S2 (00:19):
Oh thank you Peter. Lovely to be here.
S1 (00:21):
Now the competition is getting towards the end, so maybe
give us a bit of background on it. How, how
and why have you done this?
S2 (00:28):
Well, we're trying um, it's part of our accessibility and
inclusion program to see how we're going in Rincon Valley
and what we can be doing better. Um, so we
really wanted to just put the call out to people
in Moonee Valley to tell us what an inclusive Moonee
Valley looks like to them, what you know, what we're
(00:48):
doing well, or what they could see us doing better
in the future.
S1 (00:52):
And using a kind of an art sort of focus
or through the eyes of an artist, if I can
put it that way.
S2 (00:58):
Yeah, we've set it up so that you can kind
of make contributions in a few different ways. Um, and
some of those say, photographs or drawings, or it can
be verbal messages or a written submission. And some of
the photos and drawings that have been coming through up
until by the team are really wonderful. So that's been, yeah,
(01:21):
a really exciting way to get information from people.
S1 (01:24):
And I don't know if you know, but across the
age range, I assume.
S2 (01:28):
Certainly open for people right across, you know, the lifespan. Um,
I haven't had any feedback from the team about what
that looks like at the moment, but I'm sure if
we're missing anyone, they'll be trying to target those audiences,
because we definitely want to hear from the whole, you know,
from the start of life to the end, how.
S1 (01:47):
We can do better. Start from the start to the
end and also in the middle. What about in terms
of the response? Uh, did you get good numbers? I
guess it's one thing to sort of say, well, here
we are. What do you think? It's another thing for
the public to kind of respond and react to your invitation.
S2 (02:03):
Yeah. Numbers have been really good. So the team, like
a well-oiled machine at getting it out on our social
media and reaching out to different community groups to to
to make sure we've spread the word as wide and
far as possible. And really excitingly, we've had lots of
people get back to us. It probably helps that, yeah,
(02:25):
it's a competition. So we've got some prizes on offer
as well. Yeah. So a good and it's not quite
over I should say. I think it's closing um, tomorrow,
Sunday the 25th of May. So it's still a little
bit of time. If anyone's got an idea.
S1 (02:40):
Well, I guess in this day and age, you don't
have to rely on Australia Post to get your entry in,
do you? You can, uh, enter in all sorts of
ways that will get to you very, very quickly and, uh,
sort of avoid any, uh, any postal delays. Has there
been a theme that's kind of emerged or anything that
perhaps you think, oh, actually, we hadn't thought of it
that way or something along those lines.
S2 (03:00):
Ooh, great question. I think that's yet to be seen.
For me at least the team might have a bit
more of an idea they have. I know that there's
quite a range, so we've got people talking about kind
of health and wellbeing activities. And then there's things about
kind of fairness and um, like, you know, leisure, just
getting out to the shops or the sporting clubs are like.
(03:21):
So it's been a really broad range of submissions, but
I'll have to ask if there are any that surprised
the team. Certainly we'll, you know, we'll put together a
collation of all of them and some fine. So.
S1 (03:34):
You know, you've kind of gone out and asked for it.
I you know, we as people in the community don't
expect you to know everything. I guess more it's have
you thought about this and then how you react to it.
That's kind of the the critical thing in a sense,
isn't it?
S2 (03:47):
Yeah, absolutely. And that's so valuable. You know we don't
know what we don't know.
S1 (03:52):
Yeah that's right.
S2 (03:53):
Yeah. And people, you know, living with disability or neurodivergence
or who care for people, you know, they they have
their own lives and they face all sorts of challenges
that we might not recognize. And there are all sorts
of strengths that they would like to be better able to,
you know, contribute to the community. So it'll be exciting
(04:14):
to find out what we don't know yet.
S1 (04:15):
But I think that's a really good point about the
fact that people are really busy. You know, you're kind
of flat out, you know, living your life day to day.
So if people feel strongly about something like this and
they've gone to the trouble to put in an entry,
if I can put it that way. But that says
a lot. I mean, they're obviously very passionate about whatever
they're putting in to go to the effort to do
that both the time and the effort and the sort
(04:38):
of creativity of it. If they've chosen that sort of
format that says a lot about, you know, how they
feel about the particular topic or area that they've covered.
S2 (04:47):
Yeah, you're so right, Peter. And we're so now I'm
so grateful. And I think I can speak on behalf
of all the staff as well for people who have
taken the time to. Yeah, I suppose put in an
entry or give us some feedback or tell us a
little bit about, you know, what their life looks like
in many Valley in terms of inclusivity. Like, it's such a, um,
(05:08):
such rich, valuable information, and we're so grateful to everyone
who's taken the time to contribute.
S1 (05:14):
And no pressure, Fran. But I guess when you when
you're in a city council or sort of a smaller
part of government, if you like, than, you know, the,
the states and federal et-cetera, you kind of maybe got
a little bit more scope to sort of act because, uh,
you know, you're sort of close to the people. Would
that be kind of a fair assumption on my part?
S2 (05:33):
Yeah. I would say that we have, um, a good
ability to be targeted, perhaps. You know, we certainly don't
have as much as much money as the other levels have,
of course, but because we're local, we can be a bit, um, yeah,
targeted or more responsive to the specific needs of, you know,
(05:53):
our community and what's going on as opposed to really
broad brush approach. And that's really special. And people really,
you know, I think appreciate that and respond well to
it when we do it. Right. And we're listening. And,
you know, people are really generous in giving them, giving
us their feedback on what we can do better and locally.
And then, um, yeah, we're really keen to do our
(06:14):
best to try and deliver that.
S1 (06:15):
Well, people can identify with that a lot more as well,
can't they? I mean, if you're thinking, you know, a
federal or a state government initiative or something, you'd like
to see change at that level, that's probably going to
take more time, more effort, you know, jump through a
lot more hoops that, uh, the sort of local government level,
as I say, you kind of almost well, you literally
reach out and touch it.
S2 (06:35):
Yes. Yeah. And I mean, that's what I love about
local government is, um, you can have such immediate contact
with the community. I mean, you're part of the community usually. Yeah. And, um,
it'd be nice if we could be slightly more nimble.
We still. It feels like still being in government. You get, um,
slow down. But being close to the community, we have
(06:56):
really good relationships with lots of community groups, and they're
certainly very nimble and dynamic and, you know, have the
most brilliant ideas. And so I guess the the best
thing I think we often do is in supporting them,
you know, helping them bring their ideas to life.
S1 (07:13):
And there's things that people get involved with very much
on a day to day basis on the weekend or
sort of after school, after work, those sort of activities,
those sort of facilities that they might use that you know,
they kind of, you know, I'm repeating myself again in
a sense, but they're kind of things that people can
very easily identify with.
S2 (07:31):
Yeah, exactly. I hope so, certainly when we're doing it
well and and the community feel like they've got places
to be involved, then I think you're right. It's people
feel very strongly about them and have lots of ideas
and feel quite involved.
S1 (07:47):
Now we've got a link to our people can put
in their submission in the last maybe 24 or 36 hours,
maybe till midnight on Sunday the 25th. We've got a
link which we can put up with our show notes,
and people can go there to check it out. But
congratulations on the initiative. I had a great chat to
your mayor over earlier in the year, so it certainly
sounds like the Moonee Valley City Council are doing a
(08:09):
lot of work and this is inclusiveness area, which is
so important, particularly given what's on in other parts of
the world. But you don't have to comment on that
part of it. Fran.
S2 (08:18):
Thanks, Peter. And I'm certainly very keen on it. And
Rudy Vallee, everyone who's a part of our community makes
it stronger. And yes, thank you for putting up the link.
We're certainly keen to get any last submissions, photos or
drawings or in writing. It's just on our website.
S1 (08:34):
Yeah. Put yourself in for running for a prize as well.
S2 (08:37):
Yes. Yeah. We'll be giving away local gift vouchers for people.
S1 (08:40):
Making a difference. And also, you know, being rewarded for
it as well. So win win.
S2 (08:45):
Yeah, absolutely. I'm very keen to see what people are
telling us.
S1 (08:48):
And the community wins as well. Fran keep up the
great work. Lovely to talk to you.
S2 (08:52):
Thanks, Peter. You as well. Lovely to talk.
S1 (08:55):
That's friend who's the deputy mayor for the Moonee Valley
City Council. All those details up on our show notes.
But you can also go to the website and try
to work out where your say is and put in
an entry. And you never know, your entry might make
a lot of difference. Will make a lot of difference.
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