Except from the speech I wrote for myself for the next presentation infront of the studio and Lentara CEOs detailing our plan :

“Our plan for Brimbank’s Men’s shed is to help the organisation to gain community awareness and hopefully aid the group in being able to present a proposal to potential corporate partners to attain funding.

To capture community and corporate attention, our group has designed several concepts across various platforms, such as a online documentary, and revamping the existing website. By modifying the Men’s Shed online presence, we hope to appeal to it’s consumers. The main target for this is to hopefully encourage consumers to donate to the struggling cause….

….our aim for awareness is that it is a link to get community support and funding…

…besides a revamped website and an online documentary, we planned to create two more short videos. The key here is that we don’t have to film tons and tons of footage, it comes down to how we edit the said footage that aids which model it is placed in…”

The models I was speaking about, was to make our client happy, our concept was to edit the footage that one final product is the online documentary, the other would be used as an almost Kickstarter type fundraiser video, and finally the last edit would be one that could be shown to corporate partners, to get their involvement.

After presenting our initial ideas to the studio, and Jeff Jones, he cautioned our team that are concept was  focusing too much on aiming for corporate support.

The idea of holding a community event was feasible at first, especially for me, as back in primary school, myself and another 10/11 year old girl, held a Breast Cancer awareness/fundraiser day at the school, packed with activities and supported by local companies, such as Coles supermarket.

Through more brainstorming and meetings our team finally decided to play with our strengths and produce a video production. Out of the five of us, none of us had no business past, but at least three of us had an extensive film practice. For the benefit of the shed and Lentara, it was better for our team to play with our strengths rather than take a blind gamble.

After the meeting with Casey O’Brien, our team began to brainstorm on what we could do to accomplish the company’s needs. It was obvious that the Sunshine Mission was desperate and was starting to run out of ideas as the funding began to decline at a high velocity, accompanied by the decline of patrons attending the Shed.

In our team of five, three of us had a previous filmography past, and the other two were graphic designers. The film/media students of the collective were, myself included, against the idea of producing a short film production to aid the company. I am to believe that this reason of not producing a short film was the concept that it was just another exhausted niche in our repertoire. We initially wanted to challenge ourselves.

The plan of action was to try an meet all the needs that Lentara required. Under some zany circumstances, our breakthrough idea from our brainstorming was to hold a community event that would also co-exist as a means to gain donations and funding. The community event was a la of that featured in Whoopi Goldberg’s Sister Act 2, where this event was used to tie the community together to help fund the struggling local high school.

Now was the plan of how to we actually make this event happen.

Now that we had a cause and an obvious our first initial response was to head over to the Sunshine shed and speak to the patrons and the coordinators in charge of this mission.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the excursion, and these are the notes I was given by my team members on the meeting with Casey O’Brien, the manger of the Lentara at the Sunshine Mission.

• The Sunshine mission is home to Brimbank’s Men’s Shed and workshop. The location also includes a church, a communal garden, a meeting room (available for hire), work offices and a food storage room with food provided by Foodbank, Aus Harvest and occasionally Woolworths.
• The Sunshine Mission is host to several people from Work For The Dole, including the waiter from the cafe.
• Funding of the Men’s Shed comes mainly from the Uniting Church congregation attached to the Sunshine Mission.
• The Sunshine Mission run 3 different activities: Tool Program (about 30 regulars involved), Socialisation (30 people) and Asylum Seeker program (10 people), which provides acclimation assistance to Asylum Seekers.
• People who go to the Men’s Shed are aged from 50 to 70
• The 3 main ways people find out about the Men’s Shed and the other programs are through referrals, word of mouth and website.
• Casey suggested that a three year investment with a corporate partner will sustain the mission’s programs for the next three years
• Casey also suggested that profile building would be beneficial in securing corporate partners and financial support.
• Casey describes the Sunshine Mission as “A goldmine”, believing it can eventually be self sufficient and it’s success can be a “Gateway to different things”
• Funding of the Shed goes towards publicity (i.e. brochures and organised events), employment of Co-ordinator, Anthony Lai and materials
• Casey emphasises Anthony’s importance to the shed, due to his experience, understanding and expertise
• Casey and Anthony previously visited a Men’s Shed in Glen Waverley and points that being an example of a successful Men’s Shed
• Heather, an employee we met indicated the communal justice program could also use a bit of attention.

Lentara as a studio subject was attractive to me on the basis that finally in this degree, I can experience working for an actual operating company, and aid them with whatever needs they require.

Entering this course late, I was nervous but was ready to accept any challenge presented to me. I was placed in to the Men’s Shed team. At first, as the late student, I believed that the team members did not trust me or my work ethic, but having a previous TAFE history with John Micheal helped to soothe the others’ concerns.

The aim for this team was to collaborate creatively to rebrand the Brimbank’s Men’s Shed, located in Sunshine, and promote the organization to gather a community  following and hopefully gain funding as the current funding was about to come to an end, resulting in a potential closure of the Shed.