It was an idea sparked by a viral video on YouTube, and it is turning out to be a catalyst for community conversation and contribution.
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Seventh Day Adventist Church minister, Pastor Graham Stewart watched a video of a blackboard in a street of New York, inviting passers-by to anonymously write down their biggest regret. Later they were given an eraser to ‘wipe out’ their regrets, leaving a ‘clean slate’.
The video touched Graham’s heart, and his mind immediately went to an old blackboard he knew of that wasn’t being used and was going to be thrown away.
He put the blackboard up on the front of the church on Cowper Street on November 16, 2016 for a trial run, to see how it would go. The only word written on it was ‘Eternity’. Graham says they got a huge response with people contributing to the board.
One instance that stands out for Graham is when church members wrote a slogan from a community member’s funeral, “We’ll see you in the morning”. Graham reports that they got some beautiful reactions on that board to the simple sentence.
The responses to (and on) the blackboard have largely been positive. A couple travelling from Byron Bay to Sydney were spied having a look at the board. When approached, they congratulated Graham, said they had never seen anything like it before and it was a great idea.
Of course, leaving out a blackboard with chalk invites the bad with the good. Graham says they do occasionally get ‘bad’ words written on the board, mostly by children.
Community members are taking a collaborative ownership of the board, and often wipe out the ‘bad’ words when walking past the board themselves.
“Putting bad words up doesn’t bother us,” Graham says. “It’s all part of trying to connect with people.”
Whether it’s writing down the good words, or wiping out the bad words, Graham says "it is beautiful to see people reacting and contributing”.
However, the original blackboard has been so well used it has had to be decommissioned.
“The poor old blackboard fell apart!” Graham says.
Last week a new blackboard was made of marine ply, to withstand the weather. Two Aboriginal church members will be painting a border in an Aboriginal design around the blackboard.
The Seventh Day Adventist Church is on the corner of Cowper and Gibbs Streets, Taree.