Positive lunch!
Today I went over to Andi and Dean's place for an expertly-cooked chicken caesar salad (thanks Dean!). The meeting was very successful, with us enthusiastically discussing goings-on and ideas for the future of SustainaBundy. I'm so inspired by how far SustainaBundy has come in such a short time!
I had lots of questions, including where to start designing my backyard to make it more self-sufficient. We touched on permaculture principles, such as sectors/zones, and Andi explained the banana circle (which can be found in the report on the Organic Gardener's meeting last night). I got a tour of their garden, which only served to fire my enthusiasm further. I can't wait to get my own garden rolling beyond the potted herbs!
I had been a bit concerned about my lack of expertise in so many areas, including basic organic gardening, let alone permaculture! But Andi reminded me that we are surrounded by knowledge, in the people around us. Yes, there's a lot to learn, but a couple of generations ago, it was the way of life! I'm keen to refresh that knowledge for my generation and those following- now is the time to recapture it before we lose those who remember. I'm planning to do some oral interviews with locals to document some of Bundaberg's history, so that we can preserve it and use it once again. Attending upcoming community meetings will also be an important step in expanding my own knowledge.
What I'm personally excited about is the opportunity to strengthen ties in our community, from the individual level in project participation, to encouraging existing groups to work together for their common goals, thus making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Furthermore, by increasing interaction among community members, I believe the overall integrity of our town will improve, with results such as a lower crime rate and increased happiness!!
Andi lent me a DVD about Peak Oil entitled, "The End of Suburbia", which should help fill in some gaps in my background knowledge. We also agreed that although some information in the media about peak oil and climate change is fear-based, focusing on positive solutions to inspire and motivate is much more helpful. Personally, I'm a huge believer in the importance of spreading positivity, and that's a main reason I joined SustainaBundy!
Just as I was leaving, Andi mentioned contacting schools to suss out the possibility of working with kids in future SustainaBundy projects. The school she mentioned was my old school and the contact, my old biology teacher! A coincidence? I think not. I'm looking forward to getting involved with my school once again, if it's workable.
It's uplifting to see where SustainaBundy is going, and the huge potential that exists. This is just the beginning of a beautiful future!
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October 31st, 2007
so inspiring!
shine_on, thanks for the report on yesterday's lunch, we really enjoyed it and having someone pick up the ball and run with it like you have is exciting and really feeds our own enthusiasm - and eases some of our responsibility too, so thank you!!
Because of SustainaBundy our garden certainly hasn't gotten the attention it deserves, but we will definitely have plenty of zucchini, squash, tomatoes and potatoes in a few weeks - not bad for not getting out there very often! The herbs you brought over yesterday made a great and very aromatic addition to the salad and I know Dean is anxious to put the limes to use in some of his specialty Mexican dishes!
After you left, we were brainstorming about all of us with our backyard gardens - Rubyglow just finished a fantastic article for the guide on how she set up her home food garden, using all recycled materials (it was so inspiring to read, Ruby!!!) and of course there was the worm farm working bee over at cornonthecob's place. At the Organic Gardeners meeting Tuesday a lady asked me if I'd be interested in helping create a permaculture design for her 10 acres just past the airport... there are lots of opportunities for SustainaBundy members to help each other out - everyone gets together at someone's house, we spend a few hours (or a couple days, depending on the scope of it!) working on a garden project, have a nice lunch, learn stuff and have some fun! They don't have to be big projects, it can be as simple as helping to prep a bed for planting, transplanting seedlings or anything like that.
Permaculture Noosa has "PET" days, or "permaculture energy transfer", and Melbourne has their Permablitzes, and plenty of garden groups do working bees and similar - no reason we can't create a whole bunch of different types of group efforts - garage sale days (listed on the subgroups page), garden days, the list goes on.
It's also important that we get our members up to speed on the issues we're tackling, and why the responses we're promoting are good ones, which is why we lent you the EOS DVD (we actually have two copies and the second is lent out to someone from the organic garden group!) In the next couple of weeks I want to schedule a movie night for our members to get together and watch "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil." It is very inspiring and uplifting and will help focus our direction! Then we can start looking at doing movie nights in the wider community too, to get them involved. We're meeting with Bundaberg Community Development tomorrow to discuss the group and will ask about using the conference room in the school of arts building to show the Cuba video, because I think the group will be too large to fit in our lounge room :)
BUT.... first, the guide!!
Today was the deadline imposed for articles, so I'm going to chase down some of our contributors (they're well and truly sick of hearing from me by now I'm sure) and see if I can't schedule some more on-camera interviews. In the meantime, back to writing and guide design for me! More soon!