P2P

YOUR COMMUNITY NEWS • JUNE/JULY 2016 PAGE

Grafters graffiti removal

In 2004, the Grafters were formed. They are a hardworking

team of council volunteers who work continually in the

fight against graffiti vandalism. Last year alone they removed

16,837m2 of graffiti in our city over a total of 2,629 man hours.

The Grafters are made up of four volunteers per day, who

operate three days per week. They use paint, scrapers, high

pressure hoses, scrubbing and chemicals (where required)

to remove graffiti around the City of Port Adelaide Enfield

(excluding the rail corridor which is owned by Adelaide Metro).

They have their own custom-built trailer featuring a range of

tools to reach any area. The trailer even features an advanced

environmentally-friendly suction system to stop water and

chemicals from running off into storm water.

Doug was one of the original volunteers. He joined after

retirement as he was looking for something to keep him busy

that would give back to the local community whilst getting him

out of the house, “I was getting bored hanging around at home

so I wanted to get outside and do something valuable. I’ve

always hated graffiti so this was a perfect fit for me.”

He has now spent over 12 years operating with the crew and

is proud of their achievements, "Back at the start graffiti was

everywhere and it was a daunting task for us to take on. Slowly

but surely we tackled the problem," said Doug.

"As a proud local I want to make sure that we have a good

looking and pleasant city for residents and visitors alike"

Thanks to their rapid response, the amount of graffiti across

the City of Port Adelaide Enfield is minimal. A priority case

is removed within 24hours and most other graffiti is removed

within four days.

Removal requests can be submitted online via councils website

using our Online services tool or by phoning 8405 6600. Job

requests are then sent out to the teams on the road via their

iPads. When they have run out of jobs they get proactive and

go out searching for graffiti which is something unique to our

Council area.

Vandalism and graffiti cost ratepayers $459,359 in the 14/15

financial year and council greatly appreciates the work that

volunteers provide in the clean-up. The Grafters love receiving

positive feedback from the community so if you see them out

and about please take a moment to stop and say thank you!

Local history preserved

There is a hidden part of the library service staffed by six

dedicated volunteers who work tirelessly to ensure that our vast

collection of local history is sorted, catalogued and preserved.

As well as the work they do to maintain and improve the

collection, they also provide research assistance to the general

public both locally and interstate.

With each volunteer specialising in their unique area of

expertise, our local history section thrives.

Jeanne was born in Port Adelaide and has lived in the area for

most of her life. For the past five years, her primary focus is

assisting with research which is aided greatly by her vast first-

hand knowledge of the area.

Meredith and Margaret work on sorting historical documents

and archiving them in the best possible way. Their work is vital

in ensuring that things are sorted sensibly and can be found by

the public and historical researchers.

Jo assists with typing up and indexing information to capture

historical details and transfer written documents into digital

form. This includes sorting photos and collections into suburb

and categories making them easy for the public to search.

Willi sorts the vast library of photos and ensures they are

correctly archived and captioned. This assists greatly in the

digitisation of images for projects such as the publically

accessible "Passengers in History" database created by the

Maritime Museum.

Claire focusses on scrapbooking and preservation. She can

generally be found with a pair of scissors in her hands, looking

through the newspapers and cutting articles ready to be added

to the collection. When not clipping articles and photos,

Claire spends her time preserving historical items.

John primarily works on World War One research which

includes war history and ensuring the capture of service records

of local residents. He does this with the help of the local RSL.

Sue spends her time carefully repairing and restoring books and

other historical items to ensure they are preserved for future

generations to access. The dedication of our volunteers allows

the local history department of the library to achieve things

that simply wouldn't be possible without their help.