I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday and a safe and happy new year celebration - and that you're all full of determination for a sustainable 2008!

Catching the Tail for Charity
Last weekend we had a super-short-notice tomato pick at Horvath Hydroponics. Dean, his mum and one of our BMRG friends all stepped up to the plate (I had to work!) and Dean took several buckets of ripe tomatoes to Meals on Wheels just in time for the new year. It would appear that there is a regular opportunity for us to explore here... the crop "tail." This is the end of the growing season when the crop has slowed down and the quality isn't as consistent. There's still a vast amount of produce, but it's not feasible for the farmer to pay someone to pick and sort it all- and as such a great deal goes to waste. The various crops have staggered tails throughout the year - it's a normal occurence, so volunteers can organise regular picks every few weeks to "catch the tail" of whatever crop is ending to ensure that less goes to waste and that it goes to a good cause. However, here was some discussion on the weekend about whether or not this is actually legal- something to look into, unless anyone on the list knows?

Movie Nights
We're tentatively scheduled to have a movie night on Tuesday January 15 to watch "The Story of Stuff" and "There's No Such Thing as Away. We want to do some more work on the "Away" video however, and need to check to see if a burned copy of "Stuff" will play in the DVD player at the School of Arts - however, these things take time, which is a tight commodity, so we're not putting the movie night on the calendar just yet. We may have to concentrate on doing it at the end of January instead. There are literally dozens of movies we could show at future movie nights, ranging from documentaries about community & school gardens to cooperatives to short films produced by other relocalisation groups. Let's talk about what we want to see!

The SustainaBundy Guide
Thanks to the joint efforts of Dean, Jacqui and Carol we've received commitments from advertisers totalling $2020, $20 more than our goal! Assuming all committed advertisers come through (we've received $315 of it so far), this will cover half of our printing costs! If we are successful in selling all 1000 copies at $2/apiece, we will break even on the project. If additionally we receive the funding for which we've applied, we will actually have money in the bank for future projects! I'm still working on layout and editing (who knew 96 pages of content could be so time consuming?!) but we're on track for release in March after the council amalgamations.

Other things on the boil...
- We have the ink, now I just need to send off the logo and order the screen so we can screenprint the SustainaBundy shirts!
- Garage Sale Parties! Anyone want to host a back to school GSP?
- YouTube, MySpace, Facebook - if you're a member of any of them, don't forget to make us a friend, leave a comment, spread the word!

Major future brainstorm
While the multicultural festival got the ball rolling, I think there's room for expansion on the idea of promoting local food. With all the contacts we've made, both in the way of growers and chefs, I had the idea of holding a local food expo - it could be similar to the Renaissance of Local expo held in September in Boulder, Colorado, but perhaps on a smaller scale. We could coordinate growers to provide a wide range of their produce, and coordinate a group of chefs to use the produce to make delectable dishes. It would celebrate both the food and chefsmanship of Bundaberg while highlighting how tasty sustainability can be! The opportunities for involvement from the council, tourism, and local business people would be huge. Definitely worth considering - perhaps at this early stage in our existence it'd be more feasible to look at getting a booth at an existing event (the multicultural fest, AgroTrend, etc), but I think there's plenty of potential for an expo of our own!

That's it for now. Let's make 2008 the Year of SustainaBundy!

Andi Hazelwood
Vice President, SustainaBundy Inc.