What's this thing called Community?

It has taken two years, and many nights sitting around the kitchen table  to finally devise a plan of the direction  it would take us to get to Mars, but finally we are making head way. Along the way we have picked up a few pieces for people in the community and we have made a difference – quietly and unobtrusively.  Now we are prepared to make a little more noise, not a lot, for the objectives of MARSS are about making a difference without too much fan fare - to work in the background knowing that we are all linked in this community.  

The kitchen table conferences taught us that we don’t have the answers, but that if we listen and we work with the community we can all make a difference. 

Community, Community, Community – we hear the word all the time, but what is it?

Defining what a community is can be messy. With at least seven definitions in the dictionary - finding the one that fits isn’t easy – there in lays a problem!

The key part of the word, “Common” is not what makes community, for the last thing anyone wants is to be just like everyone else. We all have unique qualities and attributes and we all have something to offer to the human existence but what we need and how we go about getting and giving it are often very vast.

Though we may all live in the same location, we don’t all live in the same house, the same room, the same skin. What creates each of us is unique. There is never “One size fits all”.

Though we may share common interests or a common heritage we get to where we are as people on different roads. However one thing is certain, we inhabit a common environment and we need to interact with others. It is part of the human condition to need to belong.

Morgan Scott Peck an American psychiatrist who wrote the book The Road Less Travelled stated, "There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.”

There are times when we are all vulnerable, there are times when we all need a hand, a shoulder, a word, a smile or a couple of dollars in our pocket! Without connecting with each other and taking the time to find the commonality of all of our existences – we are nothing.  

Perhaps it would be easier to say, that what we at MARSS are seeking and striving towards is Social Cohesion.  

The thinking that got us to where we are is not the thinking that will get us to where we want to be. ~ Albert Einstein

Welcome to MARSS

One day a group of friends were sitting around a kitchen table discussing what was wrong with the world or more specifically what was wrong with living in a small rural community. The list grew:

•  Lack of services for the disabled, the aged, youth.
•  Lack of employment choices for the aged, the disabled the youth,
• Lack of activities for the youth, the disabled, the aged.
• Lack of educational opportunities for the disabled, the aged, the youth.
• Lack of housing for the aged, the disabled, the youth.
• Lack of support and advocacy for the youth, aged and disabled.

 The word disenfranchised was bantered around. Those people who are the fringe dwellers of the community - the isolated, the marginalised, those who often don’t have a voice.

It is ok to sit around and talk about problems, bemoan something that seems unfixable but it is another issue altogether to actually do something about it.

As one person at the table said, “It’s pie in the sky – like trying to reach for the stars – it ain’t gonna happen.”

A small voice added… “Then let’s just reach for Mars.”  

And that is how we got our name. MARSS – Maranoa and Regional Support Services. Of course The Department of Fair Trade added the Inc.

MARSS is a non for profit organisation classified as a Public Benevolent Institution currently upgrading to a direct charity.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. Ayn Rand