Hard Rock Gym is hosting a community consultation session next Tuesday, August 2nd, to gain information on the needs of their clients aged from babies to 24 years.

Zac’s Place Inc. Australia encourages people to drop into Hard Rock Gym between 3:30pm and 5:30pm for the community to give their opinions and ideas what to use their funding on, with afternoon tea also to be served during the session.

Zac’s Place charity will then relay these suggestions back to the NSW Government to try and achieve these goals. Ros Stewart from Zac’s Place and Hard Rock Gym spoke to the Times in lead up to the public meeting.

“Anyone that has an idea of what sort of community supports we need at Zac’s Place. This is to help those aged 0 to 24,” Ros said.

“People can drop in for 10 minutes if they like or stay and chat to facilitators about their ideas. There will be butchers’ paper, pens and topic ideas. One might be mental health or employment.

“Come and put your ideas down on the butchers paper so that we can collate and have a look at similarities and things that we haven’t thought about and just get the community’s ideas about what sorts of things that are needed and what would be helpful for that age group.

“Parents can bring their kids to do some colouring-in while they add ideas to the butchers paper.” Ros estimates that Zac’s Place are currently helping around 40 people across Harden and Yass.

“Once we get that feedback, we hoping to take that to the NSW Government as we look for where those types of supports might get funded from,” she said. “This is not just about getting everybody’s ideas and then dying in the water, we’re actively looking for funding to suit those different needs. “The 0-24 age bracket is called youth funding with the NSW Government.”

Some of the ideas that could be suggested are teenage mental health support groups, or an afternoon activity particularly for those suffering with depression, or a young mum’s get together that has different speakers and training around being a mum and employment.

“We also looking to fill the gap which people have to travel to get to and access and can’t because of transport issues.”

The Hard Rock Gym will have been operational for seven years in September this year and have some exciting announcements moving forward about the renovations and changes at the facility.

Tim Warren