working bees, workshops and YouTube

Sonya Wallace, who is leading the very promising relocalisation efforts on the Sunshine Coast, just posted this about working bees on the website of her relocalisation group in Eudlo: http://www.relocalize.net/node/7483 (text below this post).

Working bees like the one a few of us attended yesterday (building a worm farm for SB member cornonthecob) are a great way to get to know people, help out on a fun and useful project, learn something new and even get kids interested in sustainability projects! There was a little girl at yesterday's working bee that was helping where ever she could, and squealing and having a ball sitting in the wheelbarrow while cornonthecob ran the wheelbarrow at top speed from the barn to the worm farm! Sure, the "big picture" importance of worms in an ecosystem won't be visible to her for several years yet, but she may very well remember having a wonderful time playing in the food garden.

Working bees and workshops can focus on any aspect of sustainability - garden projects, renewable energy projects (a working bee to help install solar panels!), practical conservation workshops, you name it. These get togethers - and interviews too - should be videotaped and edited into short, useful instructional videos that can be posted to YouTube for the benefit of not only the group and the wider community, but for anyone that is interested in various aspects of sustainability! To that end, we've created an account for SustainaBundy at YouTube: http://youtube.com/sustainabundy (right now it contains links to a few of our favourite sustainability videos, and we'll look to add more, but we hope to post some original content too!)

Much as I personally hate being in front of the camera, and I know most other people do as well, this is one of those "greater good" type issues - we need to get over our shyness to create useful tools for the future! This would be a great project for the Education Sub-Group, and obviously would overlap with the other subgroups as well (food, energy, etc) depending on the subject of the workshop, working bee or interview). Something to think about as SustainaBundy moves forward. We've got a videocamera, we're ready to get started!

Andi

(Content of Sonya's working bee post follows)

Food Garden - Working Bees start in Eudlo

The first of our PIG days - People In Gardens - will be on November 11. As our next project group members have decided to start helping each other get our gardens productive and abundant and overflowing with food!

Our first 'PIG day' will be on November 11 at Eudlo. We will be helping design a new garden and perhaps making a start on raised garden beds.

For those of you who haven't been involved in these types of days before it goes something like this...

We all decide whose garden to work on and that person selects a project or two for the working bee. It might be a garden bed, a chook house, worm farm, compost system, propogation shed... anything that relates to home (organic) food production and sustainability. Something that would take a group of people about three hours - you'd be amazed how much you can get done.
That person then plans the day and works out all the resources needed (materials, tools etc). They either supply them themselves, or ask group members to bring them along (usually asked to bring your own tools).
We all bring some food to share at the end of the session
The person whose house it is provides; tea, coffee, cool drinks etc.
People arrive at a particular time, work begins, after about three hours we stop and sit back, admire our hard work and have something to eat and drink.

If you are interested in being part of the Eudlo Working Bee PIG group, let me know.

laurel
October 15th, 2007

videos for the camera-shy

I love the working bee idea. Work parties make (almost) everything more fun while bringing the community together.

The instructional videos are also a great idea. Those who are camera shy might be inspired by a snappy instructional video from the Homegrown Revolution folks in California. No faces needed - or even voiceover!

-laurel

ahazelwood
October 17th, 2007

Re: videos for the camera-shy

Thanks for that Laurel, great link! I've added it to SustainaBundy's
favourites page http://youtube.com/sustainabundy I notice that not only
is it no voiceover and no faces, it's also no video! All the images are
stills! Flashy and labour intensive but fun to watch. Once SustainaBundy
has some committees hopefully we'll be able to spead around
responsibilities enough that someone can spend time on projects like
that one! In the meantime we're hoping to have the video from our
interview on conserving water online before long!
http://relocalize.net/sustainabundywater

Cheers,

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