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Welcome all Friends!
Friends of Lady Forster Kindergarten is a large community group comprising parents, neighbours and supporters who all have one thing in common – we want this kindergarten to remain a traditional, independent, community run kindergarten in the best interests of children.
How can I join?
It’s easy, just download the Friends of Lady Forster Kindergarten form. You can print it out or complete it in MS Word and e-mail it to us. Please phone our kindergarten office if you need assistance.
Save Lady Forster Kindergarten
Friends of Lady Forster Kindergarten has launched Save Lady Forster Kindergarten – a campaign to protect the kindergarten from being swallowed up in a land grab by Port Phillip Council.
There is a solution – we can work in partnership with our new City of Port Phillip neighbours in an education precinct without becoming a powerless tenant on Council land. In this way we can maintain Lady Forster Kindergarten as a proud community asset and preserve the philosophy, programs and atmosphere we have offered to children and the community for many years.
Current information will be added to this site as it becomes available. Now available - a fact sheet that you can read online or download. Coming soon - links to recent media. We hope you will visit again soon to read the updates.
What are the facts?
Fact 1 - Lady Forster Kindergarten has been independent and self sufficient since it was established in 1924 as part of the Free Kindergarten Association to provide kindergarten education to children from families of all means. We are in a healthy financial position, have low staff turn-over – our teachers have been with us for many years and dedicate their lives to the children of this community – and we have an active, engaged and highly skilled parent committee.
Fact 2 - Lady Forster Kindergarten has been operating continuously and successfully on its present site since 1928.
Fact 3 - Lady Forster Kindergarten Committee of Management is the sole manager of our own Crown Land, reserved for the purposes of this kindergarten in 1926. Our land does not belong to the local council – it belongs to the children of Lady Forster kindergarten and we are under no obligation to make it available to any other user, including the City of Port Phillip, or the State or Federal governments. The Lady Forster Kindergarten Committee of Management will stand firm on this principle.
Fact 4 - Lady Forster Kindergarten has participated fully in all formal and informal dialogue with the City of Port Phillip, State Member for Albert Park Martin Foley and Federal Member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby, including being willing, active and continuing participants on the City of Port Phillip's Liardet St Family & Children’s Centre Steering Committee. The City of Port Phillip is the manager of the site next door to us at 85 Liardet Street. We have known for over 12 months of the Council’s plans to develop their site with State and Federal government assistance.
Fact 5 - In March this year when speaking to the Emerald Hill Weekly, the newly elected Port Phillip Mayor, Frank O’Connor, revealed government plans to use all of Lady Forster Kindergarten’s land in the Council development. At no stage prior to the publishing of this article did the new Mayor make any attempt to contact Lady Forster Kindergarten. In a subsequent meeting with us, the Mayor admitted that he had never been to Lady Forster Kindergarten and was unfamiliar with our set up.
Fact 6 - In December 2008 and January 2009 the City of Port Phillip sent surveyors onto our property under false pretences and without permission. We now know the purpose of these visits was to design with their architect a new council building on our land involving the demolition of our kindergarten. Thanks to Mayor Frank O’Connor’s candor with the Emerald Hill Weekly we are now aware of an assumption that we would be easily coerced into handing over all of our land for this development. Until this point, and in no stage during any dialogue that has taken place, was Lady Forster Kindergarten made aware of their plans to take all of our land.
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