SPAIDS

Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves - Part 1

This land is part of the territory of the Cadigal clan, Eora Aboriginal people of the Dharug Nation.

Click on to each section below to visit all SPAIDS and HIV/AIDS web pages:

Australian AIDS Quilt Web Site

World AIDS Day Australia

HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 1
HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 2
HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 3
HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 4

This was the first t-shirt designed by Ken Lovett for the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Grove Project, as it was originally called, in early 1995. Photo by Mannie De Saxe, September 2007

This was the second t-shirt designed by Ken Lovett for the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Grove Project, as it was originally called, in early 1995. Photo by Mannie De Saxe, September 2007

This t-shirt, designed by Ken Lovett for the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Grove Project, was produced commercially as a fund-raiser for the Project in August 1995. Photo by Mannie De Saxe, September 2007

The first use of SPAIDS on a t-shirt, designed by Ken Lovett, was in 1997. Photo by Mannie De Saxe in 2007

The Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves Tree Planting Project (SPAIDS) had, by the end of 2006, completed its thirty-second tree planting day at Sydney Park. Co-convenor Mannie De Saxe tells of the long haul from idea to the reality which is now the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves. South Sydney City Council Parks Department in 1996 erected signage in the park, designating the area as ''SYDNEY PARK COMMUNITY TREE PLANTING PROJECT - AIDS MEMORIAL GROVES.''

Photos of the Groves

Dates of Plantings

Photos of the Groves in 2004 and a few historic comparisons

It all started in 1992, when I became a carer with Community Support Network (CSN). This group trains volunteers to care for people with AIDS who want to stay in their own homes, where possible, and not have to be in hospital.

My first client and I became very friendly, as inevitably occurs in such situations, and I cared for him for about six months from when I first went to him, until he died.

For me this was a new experience, and a very traumatic one. I had not been in such a situation before, and it took me a long time to come to terms with his death.

At that stage I had read about some tree planting projects relating to people who had died from AIDS. I made some inquiries and discovered there were at least two such projects, one in Washington,DC, and one in the Blue Mountains.

I managed to make contact with the Blue Mountains group - Medlow Bath Park is where they have their grove - and some of the people involved gave me some ideas as to how to go about establishing such a project in Sydney.

I discovered that Sydney Park, in the South Sydney City Council area, which had been a brickworks and later a garbage dump, had been taken over by Council in 1989 in a deplorable state - an area so polluted that nothing would grow in it.

By 1990/91, a great deal of the pollution had been eliminated, gases such as methane had ceased to be given off from the garbage, and Council started laying out the area as a park and planting trees and grass.

In 1993, I started making inquiries about the possibility of establishing AIDS memorial groves in the park. I had discovered that Council was encouraging community groups to take part in planting trees there with the hope of establishing a park as a large recreation area in that part of Sydney.

Negotiations with Council began in 1993, and it wasn't until the end of that year and the beginning of 1994 that the project seemed likely to get off the ground.

I was initially a one-person ''committee'' and gained some moral support from CSN (Community Support Network) who wrote to me agreeing it was a good idea, and they would give me support to assist in negotiating with Council as an official AIDS body supporting the project.

My partner had finally retired from work and was now free to give me assistance so that we became a two-person organising group.

Council notified us that a planting would take place on 15 May 1994. Trees would be supplied free by Council and the site would be laid out and prepared for us for the day. Council also provided spades and drums of water so that we could plant the little trees and water them once they had been planted.

Our next problem was publicity, and in this respect we had quite a battle. We had to prepare flyers, decide where they were to be given out, attempt to get the community papers to support the project by giving us a bit of publicity, and generally to get the information into the concerned and interested community.

Finally the great day dawned bright and clear and warm, and from 10am till 4pm we had a fairly steady stream of visitors arriving to plant trees.

People came from as far as Queensland and South Australia for the ''ceremony''. Council had advised us that we were not able to put little commemorative plaques next to each tree and so we decided to record names alphabetically in a file.

Sisters of the Order of Perpetual Indulgence came around midday and performed a tree-blessing ceremony in memory of those who had died from AIDS, and they gave support to lovers, friends, families such as parents, brothers sisters, children, whoever felt that planting trees in memory of their departed was a good way to help to keep their memories alive.

Support from the Council that day was limited to the provision of the site, the trees, the spades and the water.

What a long way we have come since that first planting!

On Sunday 2 AUGUST 2009 we had our 35th planting at Sydney Park.

Council now provides us with umbrellas to shelter under from rain or shine, tables and chairs, barbecue food and drinks around lunchtime, a portable toilet nearby, and as much assistance as possible, visiting us on and off during the day to find out how we are getting on and to see if we have any other requirements.

Although we still have battles with publicity, we feel that we are, at last, gaining some community recognition, and hope to continue the work in the years to come.

To date we estimate that we have planted about 8000 trees, and our groves are becoming a reality as the trees grow taller and the Council's signage demarcates the area. There are also benches for people to sit on and relax and grieve or contemplate the loved ones they have lost or just to sit and enjoy the peace surrounding them in the quietness of the park.

SPAIDS plantings have recently been extended to include lesbians and gays who have died as the result of violence, the Nazi Holocaust, and as another memorial alternative to the Quilt and Candlelight.

South Sydney City Council has now built a focal point in the Groves where future tree planting groups will be able to assemble. It may also serve as a meeting place for such community events as Candlelight rallies and AIDS-related ceremonies on World AIDS Day as well as other memorial events throughout the year.

SPAIDS has available at each tree-planting day a loose-leaf file for people to write names in. The pages in the file provide for people to write the name of the person being commemorated, any message about the person, and the name of the person leaving the message. To date, as at the end of 2009, we have collected about 1,200 names, which represent about 20 per cent of the people who have died of HIV/AIDS in Australia since 1983.

The names are typed up alphabetically and kept in a file. Our record files are always available at tree-planting days in Sydney on the last Sunday in July every year. The names in the file are not put onto our SPAIDS web pages for privacy reasons, as there are people who have requested the names recorded be not made public.

LINOCUT BY LENORE BASSAN FOR SPAIDS CO-COORDINATORS AND PRESENTED TO THEM BY LENORE AT THE 32ND PLANTING ON 30 JULY 2006

The Groves are now nearing completion, and further plantings will involve back-planting to replace trees which have died during the last 12 years, since the start of the Project.

South Sydney City Council has been absorbed into Sydney City Council. In 2004 we were informed that there would only be one planting at the park each year and it was likely to continue to be on National Tree Day - which is usually towards the end of July.

Look on our SPAIDS date page for the latest information.

7 JANUARY 2008

Background history and development

The Brickworks at the bottom of King Street Newtown in Sydney’s inner west ceased being a brickworks somewhere around the middle of the 1980s.

The site then became a garbage dump and became rather polluted with all the waste deposited there.

Ownership of the site had changed from private to public and by 1990 the area was under the control of South Sydney City Council. Council started cleaning up the site and ridding it of pollution and soon afterwards started grading and laying out the site for a large park to be called Sydney Park.

In the initial stages Council, which had its own nursery established on the site, planted trees to demarcate different parts of the Park. By 1992 Council was inviting community groups to plant trees in the Park to help it to become established.

At around this period, when many young people were dying from the AIDS epidemic, some members of the gay community, who had become carers for people with AIDS, approached South Sydney City Council with the request that they be considered as a community group in order to plant trees to commemorate people who had died of AIDS.

Similar groups had established memorial groves overseas and in Australia, and it was hoped that Council would be sympathetic to the request.

After about 18 months of negotiation, Council agreed to this community group being permitted to plant trees for commemoration purposes, and it was supposed that this would end up being a one-off event. The first planting by the AIDS Memorial Groves group took place on 15 May 1994. Council decided, in order to help establish the Park, to have three plantings a year and was inviting assistance from community groups.

By 1996 the AIDS Memorial Groves group had planted on 8 occasions and found a name for the Groves – SPAIDS – Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves. Plantings continued to take place three times a year under the auspices of South Sydney City Council until that council was merged with Sydney City Council who continued with the establishment of the Park and community plantings.

SPAIDS has continued to be part of the Park and in 2001, while still under the auspices of South Sydney City Council, a Reflection Area with a permanent stone sculpture and circular surround was built by Council as part of the development of the Park.

The Park was beginning to show signs of being fully laid out with trees grown to full height by about 2002, and soon afterwards it was decided to have only one community planting a year and that to take place on National Tree Day which is usually the last Sunday in July.

By the end of 2007 about 8,000 trees had been planted, and 1,200 names recorded of those who have died of AIDS. This figure represents about 20 per cent of AIDS recorded deaths in Australia.

JULY 2008

Some time ago I wished to place an article in Wikipedia on the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves of which I am the originator and co-coordinator. My entry was refused by Wikipedia on the grounds that I was not able to provide confirmation of my source material.

As I was the founder of the project I did not have confirmation sources available but Wikipedia would have been able to confirm the information from such sources as Sydney City Council which administers Sydney Park if they had bothered to try. However they chose to refuse my entry and I chose to decide that I would have nothing more to do with Wikipedia.

I was mortally offended that an open-source site would treat me in this manner. The only reason I saw the appeal for funding support was because a friend sent us information about a particular item in Wikipedia. I make it a matter of principle not to look at anything there otherwise.

24 MARCH 2010

In an article in Wikipedia on Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital in Melbourne there is a section on the Fairfield AIDS Memorial Garden.

In the article there is a reference and link to our web page on Fairfield AIDS Memorial Garden - uncredited.

In view of the fact that a few years ago I submitted an article for publication to Wikipedia on the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves of which my partner and I were the co-founders, Wikipedia informed us that as there was no confirmation of information contained in the article, they were unable to publish it, yet you have the chutzpah to publish the web page we put together about Fairfield, without crediting us at all.

This is quite disgusting and it ought either to be credited or removed.

24 MARCH 2010

I am sorry you have been so offended and angered by Wikipedia. However, Wikimedia Australia is not responsible for Wikipedia and you will have to contact the Wikipedia volunteers at the Wikimedia Foundation’s email address: info-en@wikimedia.org if you are having problems or have concerns with Wikipedia. I did have a look at the article you refer to and the link I presume you're talking about on the Fairfield article (http://www.zipworld.com.au/%7Ejosken/fairfiel.htm) is the credit. Wikipedia only reports what has already been published elsewhere by reliable, verifiable published sources and the verifiability policy is similar to academic plagiarism rules and requires that contributors cite the source of their information. The contributors who added that section to the article apparently found your website to be a useful source and thus cited it so that future readers can go to your site and verify the information and read more about the subject.

It's important to understand that Wikipedia articles are not written by Wikipedia as such or by the Wikimedia Foundation. Articles are entirely "user generated" and purely written by interested volunteer contributors from around the world. Likewise, new articles are not approved by Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation but by volunteers. So it wasn't the foundation or even Wikipedia who deleted your article, but a volunteer administrator. The administrator who deleted the article and the contributor who added the information to the Fairfield article and cited your website are two unrelated people working in completely different areas of the project and the contributor had no possible way of knowing anything about your deleted article when they added that information and used your website as a source. So there was definitely no “chutzpah” or any offense intended by any of the volunteers.

I had a look at the deleted article on the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves. It was problematic for a number of reasons - it did not explain how or why this park was notable and it appears it was written from firsthand knowledge. All article subjects need to meet a certain level of notability to be included in the encyclopedia, which is generally assessed by the availability of significant coverage in verifiable reliable published sources which are independent from the subject itself (such as newspaper and journal articles etc). Additionally, you wrote on the uploaded article “Copyright Mannie De Saxe and Ken Lovett ". Wikipedia does not accept any material under copyright. Wikipedia is a project to build an unrestricted copyright free encyclopedia and all material needs to be released under a compatible free license or it cannot be accepted. The copyright notice you wrote on the page automatically disqualified it from inclusion. However, it's unlikely it would have been accepted in that form anyway due to the fact that it did not cite any independent published sources and did not explain how or why the memorial meets the inclusion criteria.

You are welcome to write to the volunteers regarding the Fairfield article, but it is unlikely the reference to your website will be removed because the contributors are using the link to give your site credit for information in the section, which is required under Wikipedia policy.

12 APRIL 2010

Thank you for taking the trouble to send me a lengthy and detailed response to my complaints.

However there are many items in your letter which need to be addressed.

If our Fairfield web pages were used, you would be aware that all our web pages state from the "Mannie and Kendall's Web Page" index page that there is a copyright statement at the bottom.

Now the mere fact that we put items on our web pages means that they are available to www and anybody who want to make use of the material will do so. As you would be aware, these copyrights are observed in the breach by everybody around the world, and our web pages would be no exception.

Under these circumstances, wouldn't it indicate that our Fairfield site was also subject to the same copyright.

Another matter which needs clarification concerns my submission of our SPAIDS article to be listed in wikipedia. Wouldn't it stand to reason that if it was copyright then it would not be acceptable for publication, yet we sent it in for that purpose.

Now considering that we are the founders and co-coordinators of the SPAIDS project it stands to reason that there are no other organisations which in effect are responsible for what we submit about the Sydney Park AIDS Memorial Groves. The fact that the Groves are in a public park which is run and maintained by Sydney City Council would seem to suggest that this is some sort of confirmation about the existence of the Groves.

As for the volunteers who scrutinise and approve or otherwise articles which have been submitted, there have been many complaints over the years of the autheniticity and accuracy of many of the articles, but, as we have noticed over time, many of the articles are still there, a glaring example being one about an organisation in Sydney called Pride, which has gone through many reincarnations and rebirths.

It seems to us we have been excluded because we are not a vast organisation with vast networks of people who can vouch for the material, and assuredly copyright has been ignored on possibly as much as 90 per cent of submissions.

I am fairly computer literate but found that the problems I was confronted by when making our SPAIDS submission made it impossible to try again, particularly as nobody bothered to communicate with us to check on our article and help us with making it available to everybody. We have counters on all our web pages and people from around the world look at items we have. I have also just checked the article I submitted and was unable to find the copyright on it which you say is there. As far as I know the only copyright notice is on our index page, as I have aready stated.

Wikipedia has not helped their image by some of their actions and I for one have ceased to worry about them. However it was from a counter on our Fairfield page that we came across the wikipedia article with the reference to our web page.

I am obviously aware of how wikipedia articles come into existence and believed that I was also able to contribute to an open source encyclopaedia of this nature, but ended up sadly disillusioned.

Thanks again for your response but I think some further clarifications are needed about wikimedia and wikipedia and how they do - or don't operate!

This bag was made by Julie Daley for the 75th birthday of SPAIDS co-convenor Mannie De Saxe in 2001

BLESSING OF THE TREES

The National AIDS Memorial Grove San Francisco, California and other pages about the same project AIDS Memorial Grove San Francisco, California AIDS Living Memorial Grove San Luis Obispo, California Photos: Homosexual Memorials from Florida Center for Instructional Technology Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial Part 1: Green Park, Darlinghurst Photos (by Ken Lovett) of Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial, Green Park, Darlinghurst Gay and Lesbian Holocaust Memorial - PART 2: Dedication, Green Park, Sydney, on 27 February 2001 GAY AND LESBIAN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL - PART 3: LAUNCH PHOTOS BY PHOTOGRAPHER AS YET UNIDENTIFIED, 27 FEBRUARY 2001 AIDS Memorials online: Carrington Community Memorial Park (Newcastle NSW) Fairfield AIDS Memorial Garden John Hunter Hospital (Newcastle) AIDS Memorial Garden Other memorials in Australia - not online : Fairfield House AIDS Memorial Fountain & Garden Medlow Bath (AIDS) Memorial Park West Australian AIDS Memorial If you would like your project listed here, please send the details to Mannie. Please note that these links are direct to the project's page, not the home page of the relevant group. And they are in no particular order, except that those sites referring to the same project are grouped. Photos of the Groves Dates of Plantings Obituaries Photos of the Groves in 2004 and a few historic comparisons Order of Perpetual Indulgence web page of SPAIDS 2006 AIDS Memorial Groves SYDNEY PARK St Peters NSW PO Box 1675 Preston South Vic 3072 Australia e-mail to: josken_at_zipworld_com_au : Mannie De Saxe SPAIDS PART 1 - SYDNEY PARK AIDS MEMORIAL GROVES HOME PAGE SPAIDS PART 2 - SYDNEY PARK - DEVELOPMENT PLANS - SPAIDS PROMINENCE SPAIDS PART 3 - SPAIDS SIGNAGE SPAIDS PART 4 - PLANTING DATES SPAIDS PART 5a - OBITUARIES SPAIDS PART 5b - OBITUARIES SPAIDS PART 6 - PHOTOGRAPHS SPAIDS PART 7 - PHOTOS AFTER 10 YEARS AT THE 30TH PLANTING, 25 JULY 2004 AND INCLUDING PHOTOS TAKEN EARLIER AND LATER SPAIDS PART 8 - NATIONAL HERITAGE LISTING APPLICATION SPAIDS PART 9 - A PICTORIAL HISTORY - FROM INCEPTION DATE 15 MAY 1994 SPAIDS PART 10 - WORLD AIDS DAY WALKS Australian AIDS Quilt Web Site World AIDS Day Australia HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 1 HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 2 HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 3 HIV/AIDS ISSUES PART 4 Mannie & Kendall's Home Page Mannie also has a personal web site, which may be found by clicking on the link: RED JOS Mannie's blogs may be accessed by clicking on to the following links: MannieBlog (from 1 August 2003 to 31 December 2005) ACTIVIST KICKS BACKS - AKB (from December 2005 onwards) RED JOS BLOGSPOT (from January 2009 onwards) This page last updated 3 AUGUST 2010