For over 40 years, Helen Smith has been an integral part of Upper Beaconsfield community, in the same way the community has been an integral part of her life. Her volunteer work has been influenced by her children, her husband and the lasting effects of the Ash Wednesday fires. SHELBY BROOKS caught up with her for a chat.
Earlier this month, Helen Smith was awarded the Stan Henwood Award at the annual Mayoral Volunteer Reception as part of the National Volunteer Week.
The award recognises achievements in community service and volunteering.
“Someone nominated me, maybe from the Upper Beaconsfield Association,” Helen said.
“I was a bit horrified because I don’t like a fuss.”
Helen’s contributions extend beyond membership of many local committees, and she has been described as someone who energises committees, demonstrates initiative, is a team player and ’the backbone of community life’.
She has also initiated multiple successful grant applications for community projects from Cardinia Shire Council.
Growing up in Pakenham Upper, it was just a hop, skip and a jump away from where she would eventually raise her family with her late husband Barry.
In 1974 they moved into a house they built in Upper Beaconsfield.
“I like living up in the hills,” she said.
“I like the bush and the trees, the friendly community.”
She and her husband tried living in Pakenham, but decided it wasn’t for them.
“We did live in Pakenham for a short while but didn’t like the open spaces,” she said.
“It’s funny isn’t it, what you’re used to.
“But some people might not like all the trees around if they lived up here.”
She was a geography and history teacher at Pakenham High School before having her first child.
“I got to know quite a few teachers there and some of the teachers ended up living in Upper Beaconsfield anyway so I still know them from those days,” Helen said.
It was when her children started kindergarten and school when Helen began volunteering on various committees in the area.
“It’s the thing you did. My family and my husband’s family lived in small communities and they got involved in the local community, that’s just what you did,” she said.
“When your kids go to school or kinder you join in the committee and make a contribution.
“So, it developed from there and I gradually got more involved with the community and you get to know people.”
The social aspect of volunteering was an important part of it for Helen.
“It’s nice to be able to walk around and you see people you know and you can catch up even when it’s lockdown you can bump into people you know as long as you stay at a distance,” she said.
“But it is also nice to be part of a group that works towards something.
“I live on my own now, I lost my husband 11 years ago. I just decided rather than sitting home and feeling sorry for myself, I had to stay involved. After he died I needed a good reason to get up in the morning to go and do things with the community groups.”
Helen said the best way to get involved in your local community is to begin where your children are involved.
“Sports clubs, Scouts, school and kinders always need parents to support them and it just makes your life more rewarding when you know local people,” she said.
“I just can’t stand the thought of living down in the suburbs and your neighbours not talking to each other- I just don’t understand it at all.”
Looking at the list of groups Helen has volunteered for, it looks like she’s taken every possible opportunity in Upper Beaconsfield.
“Not quite, not the CFA,” Helen said, laughing.
Her prominent local contributions have been with the Upper Beaconsfield Association, of which she has been secretary for a long time.
“That’s quite an interesting organisation to belong to, its being going for a long time, since the 1970s but I didn’t join until my youngest was in secondary school,” she said.
“With the Upper Beaconsfield Association, we discuss local issues and have a pretty good connection with council.”
She also volunteers at the Green Circle Plant Nursery, growing native indigenous plants.
“It’s a great little group of people,” she said.
“We produce all these tube plants for people to come buy and re-vegetate their properties.”
She is also on the Upper Beaconsfield Community Complex Buildings and Grounds Committee and helps with the annual Village Festival.
Helen and her husband Barry won the Upper Beaconsfield Association’s 1994 Citizen of the Year award.
“My husband and I were both involved in community groups so we were nominated back then,” she said.
“He was involved in Scouts and the Recreation Reserve.”
But Helen’s real passion is for community newspapers, a passion which sprung in the aftermath of Ash Wednesday.
“When Ash Wednesday came along in 1983, Upper Beaconsfield’s community paper, the Village Bell was published right through the disaster and after the disaster to help the local people keep in touch with what was going on,” Helen said.
“We didn’t have computers in those days and no Facebook or anything, it’s amazing to think about.”
Today, Helen helps produce and edit the Village Bell and she is also on the committee of the Community Newspaper Association of Victoria which represents over 70 community publications in the state.
“It’s a resilience thing. They keep our communities connected and strong,” Helen said.
“Previously, when there wasn’t Facebook you couldn’t find out a lot about what went on and a lot of things and history of local people wasn’t mentioned much in other papers so it’s good for local communities.
“Some of our members only represent a few hundred distribution copies, while some suburban have 10,000 copies. Some are based in schools, neighbourhood houses and community associations like the Village Bell.”
Helen said it was a vital time for community publications to stay afloat with the rise in commercial newspapers and local TV stations closing down.
“Local communities are finding a way around, they are soldiering on because their overheads are small,” she said.
Helen’s experience during Ash Wednesday solidified her desire to get involved in local publishing.
“The Village Bell kept going with newsletter updates and people could pick it up to find out what was going on,” Helen said.
“It was very scary and everyone had different experiences it’s amazing really, everyone has a different story.
“Living through Ash Wednesday, that was the sort of thing that was a life-changing and really makes you realise how import your community is.”
Helen was alone with her three young children when the front hit Upper Beaconsfield, with Barry stuck at the highway in Berwick, unable to get through.
“I threw the kids and the dog in the car and ended up at Elephant Rock and parked right next to it,” she said.
The big parking area between Emerald and Upper Beaconsfield had no trees around it so people felt safe there, Helen said.
“That’s where we were when the front came through. That whole car park was full of cars all the neighbours had done the same,” Helen said.
“You couldn’t see anything when the fire came through, it was all just smoke and heat.”
Her daughter was 10 months old and slept through the whole thing.
After a couple of hours, some neighbours went back to have a look and came back with news that Helen’s house was still standing.
Others weren’t so lucky.
“Several neighbour’s houses were burnt down, people lost their lives, it was awful,” Helen said.
“I felt relatively untouched by it but the whole thing was massive for Upper Beaconsfield.
“It’s like an attitude of ‘before the fire’ and ‘after the fire’.
“It was a defining moment in everyone’s life.”
