Little passions, big ideas
Posted on 30 January 2013 by e-news
Welcome to this fortnight’s news. We focus on good local news stories, ways for you to take action, and some of the bigger picture issues that help put us in the ‘framework’.
It’s easy to look at gloom, but better to take one step, and then another step through it. Even if it’s the same step.
Our next e-news will be published on Wednesday, 13 February, so please get your contributions in to us then, by 11am. e-news@masg.org.au
Fun MASG slogan competition
Come up with a slogan for us! Mount Alexander Sustainability Group is descriptive all right, but it doesn’t roll so easily off the tongue. We’re not changing our name, but we’re keen to have a form of words that says something – recognisable, exciting, even – about us.
We can offer a great prize to the one who comes up with the winning words. We want it to be bright, about the future, (and not including big words like ‘sustainability’).
Are you the wordsmith we’re looking for? Send your entries, with your contact details, to e-news@masg.org.au by 28 February and you could be our lucky winner.
Focus on fundraising
MASG is opening this year, well, February, with a meeting to focus on our fundraising.
Thursday 7 February, 5.30-7.30pm at the Community House.
We will explore where we can best spend our energies to raise the income needed to support MASG and our core projects.
We’ll set directions from a list of possible fundraising activities and plan working groups for those we consider most important. This will be a great way to proceed with existing and new projects.
Natalie Moxham will facilitate and all MASG members – and your ideas – are welcome.
Sunny Side of our Street forum
This solar workshop will build on the success of MASG’s previous three programs, which helped many people in the shire put solar panels on our roofs. We are now exploring what else we can do.
Do people still need help putting solar panels on their roofs? Can we establish a community-owned solar park? What can the new developments in solar technology and much cheaper prices allow us to do?
Date: Sunday 3 February
Time: 3-5pm
Venue: Ray Bradfield Room
Community Planning process
Council has been funded over three years until May 2014, through the State Government’s Department of Planning and Community Development, to undertake the Mount Alexander Shire Local Community Planning Project (LCPP).
While it may sound dry, this is a great opportunity for you to get your views – sustainability, energy savings, water savings, waste minimisation – into a public forum, and to maybe make a difference in our shire for the future.
Find out more about public meetings in your area
Waste Workshop
Last Thursday we held a waste workshop, attended by close to 20 people, including two councillors (thanks Jess Howard and Christine Henderson) and at least one person who had driven a long way for it. It was an excellent forum, full of little passions and big ideas. It’s the beginning of a process so let’s keep the ball rolling!
Stay tuned and we’ll let you know how you can be involved.
WAW Trailer – Help!
Two tubs of glasses are missing – glasses and tubs – as well as some dinner plates. If you’ve hired it lately can you check in your cupboards, under your beds … We want to keep hiring it out but the cost of replacing lost items will take the edge off our own fundraising efforts. Thanks!
The Hub Plot Jottings:
Some of us have been meeting each Monday over the summer, mainly to water and attend to the worm farms and chooks. We’ve made a batch of compost – a special thanks to Jai’s family who turned the compost on two very hot Mondays. We’ve also gradually been adding to our stock of tools. Thanks to Lance who assembled the compost tumbler and the new wheel barrow.
Those plants lucky enough to be in our wicking beds are thriving. Unfortunately some of the garden is looking drab and unhappy from the sustained dry season. But our spiral wicking bed, which took quite a while to build and develop, is now looking terrific. Why not drop in and have a look?
We are starting to plan our workshops for the year so if you have any ideas please drop by on a Monday morning or email us at heather@box311.biz or katrina.mazurek@gmail.com
The Hub Plot
Each Mon 9am, with cuppa and produce exchange 11am @ The Hub Plot. All welcome.
For more info about The Hub Plot have a look at http://thehubplot.tumblr.com/
or call Heather on 0409 327791 or Peter at bundara@netcon.net.au or simply drop in on Monday mornings.
Grow what when around Castlemaine
The Hub Plot vegetable planting guide for Central Victoria
Based on over 30 years of local observations, the Guide helps gardeners be more successful at growing their own food in central Victoria.
The handy 24-page, A5 booklet includes a seasonal planting guide listing the planting times of a variety of vegetables and herbs.
Read about:
- planting methods
- how to make seed raising and potting mixes
- how to protect plants from the weather and invaders
- how to make compost successfully
- how to make worm farms and integrate worm farms into your vegetable garden
- year round planting notes.
All for only $20!
Getting ready for the harvest
Have you got fruit trees that are sighing under the weight of an abundant crop that you and all your neighbours can’t possibly eat? Let Growing the Harvest know about it. Here is how it works:
Let us know: by email: harvest@cch.org.au or phone: 5472 4842 about your trees, preferably well before the fruit is ripe.
- Call out: When the fruit is ripe, they will coordinate a time with you and the volunteer team to harvest the fruit
- Harvest: You get 1/3 of the fruit, volunteer harvesters get 1/3 and the remaining fruit goes to local organisations such as childcare centres and primary schools, or gets bottled. We also pick up any windfall to give to local chook farmers and prevent pest and disease build up.
- Prune: Growing Abundance will endeavour to come back in winter/spring to prune your trees.
- The Perks: As a Growing Abundance volunteer (harvesting, donating fruit etc) you get free access to some of their workshops, which include fruit tree pruning and natural pest control.
For more info contact Sas Allardice at the Castlemaine Community House on:
email: harvest@cch.org or phone: 5472 4842
100% Solar job vacancy
Campaigns Director
100% Renewable is Australia’s leading community organising campaign for renewable energy. Working with local communities around Australia we build public and political support for renewable energy and run campaigns that will move our country towards an entirely renewable energy future. The position is based in Sydney.
Contact: Lindsay Souter, National Campaign Coordinator, on 0411 098 853.
Applications open from 23 January 2013.
Last word
Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.
Christine Lagarde, managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, at a World Economic Forum recently.
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