Roxanne Gallacher started in her brand new role as Creative Learning Programs Co-ordinator of the Parkes Shire Council in December last year.
She believes there is a bubbling undercurrent of creativity in Parkes and the new Makerspace studio at the Parkes Cultural Centre will offer limitless possibilities to feed this artistic stream.
Roxanne Gallacher is very excited to be the new Creative Learning Programs Co-ordinator of the Parkes Shire Council where she is literally starting with a blank canvas to design programs, exhibitions, events and activities for people in the Parkes Shire.
“I am humbled by the opportunity to bring people in our community the same possibilities they would get in bigger centres,” said the former teacher who moved to Parkes five years ago to take a teaching position in Peak Hill.
“We have to see the arts on the same level playing field as sports, and with the new cultural centre and multi-purpose centre in Cooke park, the possibilities are just limitless.”
As Roxanne will be in charge of the utilisation of the Makerspace studio and Coventry Room, her first priority is to consult with the community to find out what they would like to see in these spaces. “I am very open to ideas. There is so much scope for collaboration and connection between sectors.”
Roxanne’s excitable nature has already generated countless ideas from Lego building exhibitions to STEAM projects, and she is grateful for her dream team partner Kerryn Jones (Manager Cultural, Education and Library Services) with her calming influence and great wealth of knowledge of community needs.
“We are thinking big and we want to make the Parkes Cultural Centre the place to be with a focus on lifelong and intergenerational learning.” This is exactly the focus of the upcoming Waste 2 Art competition and exhibition, and Roxanne’s first project.
“We might be a small community, but we do not have to be small-minded,” she said with a twinkle of excitement in her eye.
By Maggi Barnard