Vale Gil Freeman
It’s late afternoon I park myself in the shade of a huge manna gum on a corner of the Merri Creek close to where I saw a Rakali (aka an Australian Otter) diving for freshwater snails and shellfish this time last week.
It’s Sunday and a stream of walkers, joggers, parents, prams, dogs, cyclists pass by. Further upstream a glint of red in the water catches my eye.
I walk up to find a young guy in a small red kayak fishing out an old couch seat cover caught on a snag, he stows it below his legs and expertly glides among drooping tree branches deftly picking out all the litter that has washed down in the weekend rains.
I’m blown away, I’ve never seen a kayak in the creek before, let alone one with a litter fairy onboard – it’s an “everyday miracle”, one of many that just seem to happen along this Creek.
Almost exactly fifty years ago in a May 1976 edition of The Brunswick Sentinel, a small article appeared promoting a guided walk along the Merri Creek, led by a young Gil Freeman, then chairman of the Brunswick Community Group.
The Merri Creek, which at the time was treated as an open sewer by local factories, was more or less inaccessible to the public – its banks were choked with fennel and boxthorn and littered with old car bodies and broken white goods.
The Sentinel article quotes a vision from the Group of how things could be different…
“Imagine if you can, parkland, walking tracks, bike paths and sports grounds all set alongside a crystal clear, rambling creek.”
It was this article and this walk that catalysed a group of people, including creek stalwarts, Ann and Bruce McGregor, who would come together to transform the neglected waterway into a living creek.
And it was Gil Freeman who would co-found and chair The Merri Creek Management Committee, the body that united local councils and friends’ groups around this vision for the beloved creek we know today.
Gil would go on with collaborators Chris Ryan, Neville Stern and many others to establish a community park that would host hands-on environmental education for schools, urban farming, alternative energy demonstrations and social and environmental employment programs.
It took the group four years’ work to secure a lease on the old tip site at the end of Stewart St in Brunswick East on the banks of the Merri Creek which would of course become CERES.
Gil Freeman served as chair at CERES for its first two years.
In November last year along with his fellow founders and elders Gil told stories about CERES’ early days of “Sunday Funday” working bees where hundreds came to help clean up and rehabilitate the old tip site.
Always a big picture person, Gil reminded his audience that the purpose of CERES back then was to look ahead at the things our community would need in 10 years, to be brave and bring them to life.
So many of those ideas, experiments and programs established by this group all those years ago have become mainstream and inspired so many other groups, communities and governments to take action of their own.
At CERES we often speak of big trees in our community, people who over years have provided the space, the nourishment and inspiration for those around them to grow and thrive.
Gil Freeman was one of those big trees at CERES, in Brunswick and more recently South Gippsland. Last Wednesday Gil Freeman died after a brief illness. He was 85 years old.
Gil Freeman (that’s him front row 4th from the left) was always a collaborator, a co-founder and a creator of coalitions.
Son of a Methodist minister, Gil grew up in a culture based around service and collective social activism.
It was in church halls, rather than churches, where he saw action happening – where community gathered, fundraised, organised care and brought youth together.
Early on Gil Freeman discovered the power of transforming unwanted places to create belonging and change. You can see this formula again and again;
– in an unused church hall in Brunswick – Sydney Road Community School
– in a dilapidated maternity hospital – The Compost – Intentional Community, Thornbury
– in a polluted and inaccessible creek – Merri Creek Management Committee
– in an old tipsite on the banks of the Merri Creek, CERES
– in an old cordial factory in Korumburra – Grow Lightly – Small Growers Food Co-op
The testament to his work is that so many of the organisations and projects that Gil and his collaborators began are still going decades later.
As a school principal, Gil Freeman was comfortable approaching officialdom and had a knack of bringing grassroots activists and the right people in local and state government together around a purpose.
He built coalitions of stakeholders and patiently created change in committees, building new relationships, opening up minds and spaces for practical action to follow.
“You’ve got to build up a range of people who are prepared to walk with you. If you’re by yourself, you’re really fighting against it”, he observed.
Gil Freeman loved music, painted water colours, wrote lists, carefully filed documents, was an eloquent storyteller and gave a great speech.
He also had a deeply silly and playful side and was above all dedicated to his lifelong partner and collaborator Meredith (Mem), his three sons and their families.
In 2023 Gil Freeman was recognised with an Order of Australia for service to conservation and the environment.
The length of his citation, which captures only part of his life’s work, says so much about his irrepressible nature and instinct to serve his community.
Gil Freeman we’ll miss you.
Chair, Brunswick Community Group, 1970s.
Chair, Brunswick Unemployment Group, 1970s.
Volunteer, Thornbury Compost 1970s
Founding Member, Merri Creek Action Group, 1976.
Co-Founder, Merri Creek Management Committee, 1976.
Chair, Founding Member, CERES.
Community Director, Moreland Energy Foundation, 2001-2003.
Founding Member, Prom Country Bushfood Association 1990s
Founding Member, Southern Bushfood Association, 1995.
Co-owner, Tarnuk Bush Food and Flowers, since 1998.
Co-Founder, Australian Native Food [Industry], 2004.
Co-Founder, Chair and Treasurer Grow Lightly 2010s
Have a great week
Chris
