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For thirty five years, 'Life. Be in it.' has been offering active, fun and creative experiences that encourage people to "Live More Of Your Life and Be More Active". Our vision is to "Make Life Worthwhile" and our main aim is to promote healthy active lifestyles, leisure and recreational activities that promote the prevention and control of chronic disease and thereby improve the physical and emotional well being of all Australians through "Fun Raising Activities".
Introduction
The benefits that associating with 'Life. Be in it.' programs and events can provide include:
- Building community awareness, involvement and motivation to change behaviours
- Promotion of activities targetted towards the prevention of chronic disease
- A selection of programmes and promotions in the Sports For All, leisure and recreation area
- A new youth training and employment programme
- A variety of recreational and tourism programmes
- Popular and effective health promotion programmes
- Expertise in social marketing and social inclusion initiatives
- Researching how to prevent or reduce the impact of chronic disease
- Promoting Active Cities, Active Communities and Active Citizens to promote an Active World www.TAFISA.net
The main benefit of associating with 'Life. Be in it.' is the increased public awareness and the expansion of programmes and services in the community. Other potential benefits to the community include:
'Life. Be in it.' was established in 1975 by the Victorian Government and because of it's popularity and rapid rate of public awareness - was adopted by the Federal Government in 1978 and subsequently launched in the States from then on.
During inception, it was decided recreation needed to be promoted in positive, non-threatening ways. A working team from the Department of Youth, Sport and Recreation and an advertising agency was set up. As a result, a plan was developed to encourage everyone to become involved in some activity. This led to the creation of 'Norm', and the 'Life. Be in it.' family characters.
The Campaign raises awareness, involvement and motivation to change patterns of behaviour through advertising, public relations and publicity materials. The 'Life. Be in it.' programme was being constantly monitored and development of new phases relied on sound research. Attitudinal studies were undertaken at regular intervals throughout the campaign. The impact of the programme not only achieved an extremely high level of awareness of leisure activities, but also increased people's involvement in them.
In 1981 the Commonwealth Government withdrew funding support from 'Life. Be in it.' among other programmes to provide finance for elite sport through the Autralian Sports Commission. All Federal, State and Territory Governments combined to create 'Life. Be in it.' Australia Ltd as a self funded communitised company to support 'Norm' and carry on the health promotion campaigns.
The direction given to ‘Life. Be in it.’ requires it to act as a health promotion organisation that has a prime focus on healthy active lifestyles that contribute to prevention of diseases such as heart disease, cancer and stroke. It has developed a range of programmes, activities and services across the fields of health, nutrition, fitness, sports, the arts and leisure generally.
‘Life. Be in it.’ is very active in the health and fitness industry in the promotion of prevention and control initiatives and has the expertise to operate programmes in many fields, and to support other groups in promoting and managing the prevention and control of chronic disease.
This expertise is available to provide social marketing and social campaigns including:
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Proven ability and experience in running events, programmes and services
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Established publicity and promotional networks
- Infrastructure which can easily support added programmes
- Demonstrated ability to involve people in motivational programmes, projects and services
- Demonstrated a capacity to obtain sponsorships without involving cigarettes, alcohol or "unhealthy" food products
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Demonstrated ability to attract marketing and media support.
'Norm' was initially created as one of the 'Life. Be in it.' animated characters, along with the Family. He was designed to represent the 'Norm-al' man/woman and to reflect the problems inactivity, obesity and lethargy made prevalent in today's society. 'Norm's' popularity is quite remarkable. Perhaps it can in part be attributed to the fact that 'Norm' is so lifelike. All of us know a 'Norm'. We recognise 'Norm' in all shapes and sizes and in reality, there is probably a bit of 'Norm' in all of us. Another factor in 'Norm's' popularity lies in his sense of humour. His tongue-in-cheek asides help us identify with him. We smile at Norm because it is easy to relate to him. He is credible and, like a lot of Australians, communicates through humour, making his point in a light-hearted fashion. Recently, however, 'Life. Be in it' have had to reduce 'Norm's' media exposure and replace him with the family as it's key brand identity, as 'Norm' had become a bit counter productive and some people were emulating his "couch potato" position.
Part of the second phase was the introduction of 'Norm's' sister, 'Libby', a zany, fun-loving individual, a foil for her brother's slothful attitude to anything beyond changing TV channels or ripping the top off a tinnie. She is the antithesis of 'Norm', her vitality arising from active involvement in life. She exercises regularly, eats wisely, cares for her appearance and enjoys trying new activities. She often follows trends in exercise and body care, but also gains pleasure from joining in community-based activities. Her enthusiasm actively encourages others to become involved.
Today, we focus more on "The Family" as the source of a more active, healthy and enjoyable lifestyle.
Conclusion
'Life. Be in it.' operates in conjunction with other community and enterprise foundations to promote a community-based, not-for-profit, non-government organisational capability that has been in the business of adding value to life for more than thirty five years. 'Life. Be in it.' continues to grow, as many new and varied programmes are implemented. More importantly it is able to provide both the community and corporate sectors with recreation and leisure for people from all walks of life in learning and enjoyable environments. For the past three decades we have been creating initiatives, providing incentives and creating opportunities to encourage people to live fitter, happier and healthier lifestyles and encouraging them to eat the 'right' foods, be more active and enjoy more of their 'Life'. Our objective, is to help you, your family, corporations and the community at large to take some small steps toward lifestyle enhancement. 'Life. Be in it' has been recognised by the Australian Government as a charitable institution that satisfies the relevant requirements of a charitable institution.
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