Posts filed under ‘Education’
Whats on in July?
Our trusty Foodswaps.
There are all sorts of goodies ready to swap from back yards across Darebin – seedlings, greens, citrus, rhubarb, something you have made in your kitchen if your garden doesn’t have anything to swap.
So come along to one of our food swaps and exchange something that you have in abundance for something someone else has been growing in their garden, super fresh produce at its best!
Reservoir Food Swap – 10am on 16th July outside Reservoir Library.
Fairfield Food Swap at 11am on 16th July at the cnr of Duncan and Gillies st.
Thornbury/Preston Food swap at 11am on 23rd of July at Thornbury Picture House
July Repair cafe – Our 26th repair cafe
Our 26th Darebin Repair cafe takes place on 24th July 10am-1pm. Clyde Hall, Thornbury
Spots to be booked for sewing and jewellery repair and some general fixes. – get in quick -bookings can be made here – Darebin Repair Cafe #26
Join us to be a hard rubbish hero!
Transition Darebin are co-hosting with Darebin Hard Rubbish Heroes (DHRH) as part of the Span Community House RRR Hub project with a pop-up shop that will offer free and low-price items, and include upcycling, recycling collection and workshops.
This is all aimed at helping us avoid items ending up in landfill as ‘hard rubbish season’ continues during July in Darebin!
More info here – https://www.darebinhardrubbishheroes.org/events/relove-pop-up
A whole lot going on – we would love to hear from you if you have time on your hands to help out.
Email us at Transitiondarebin@gmail.com
We are in the Leader this week – come to Share Make Mend!
see all the details of Share Make Mend in the post below – see you there!
Grafting Workshop with Permaculture in the North
Grafting workshop with John Pinniger tomorrow night (27th July 2011) at Loophole Community Centre located at 670 High St, Thornbury.
Be on time for a 6:30 start.
Hope to see you all there!
Progressive House Tours
We are pleased to announce the start of a new venture – house/garden visits. Nothing new? Yes, these are small groups where the host discusses growing veggies, planning gardens and retro-fitting their house with you. Maximum group size is 10. On the day the group would visit 2 homes.
You must register by emailing John at cjpinn@bigpond.net.au (please put ‘Progressive House Tours’ in the subject). The cost is $5 per person, payable on the day. Once you register, we will email the address of the first house, and public transport details. In most cases the distance between the two houses will be walkable.
Our first tour.
House 1. Northcote. Water diversion, fruit & veggies. House insulated and double-glazed. Aquaculture begun.
House 2. Northcote. Energy-efficient retro-fit of an old house on a small block. Water harvesting, storage & internal use. Solar heating, house orientation, weather stripping. Basic veggie, fruit & berry growing.
Date: Saturday 23rd July.
Time: 2.pm. Finish approx 4.30.
Initial Location: Notified after registration. 100m 246/250/251 bus. 1.5k Fairfield station.
Spinning yarn from rabbit fur!
What an inspiring afternoon learning all about Angora Rabbits and how you can make clothes from their fur. It is the softest stuff I have ever felt and when knitted into clothes is just divine. What amazed me about this afternoon was not only has Asphyxia created her own house out of mudbrick, created a garden that supplies oodles of fruit and vege but also has an animal that supplies her with wool to create her own clothes. The rewards of this type of lifestyle are huge. Asphyxia mentioned wanting to see if she could live like a “medieval woman”- what a great aspiration in this fast paced, consumer orientated society.
Asyphxia explains how to care for an angora bunny
Using a drop spindle
Let's get a closer look at that
Spindle in action!
Rabbit yarn workshop with Asphyxia
Asphyxia will show us how to look after Angora rabbits and turn their fur into clothes we can wear. You can even have a go at spinning some yarn!
When: 2pm Sunday 17 April
Where: 7 Bower Street Northcote (Asphyxia’s house: down the back behind number 5).
Close to Dennis railway station and 251 and 250 buses.
This workshop is free (donation optional) but bookings are essential as places are limited –
contact Sally: sally.macadams@gmail.com / 0415 099 829 by Thursday 14th of April – first in best dressed!
Sunday Crafternoons
The clothing and materials working group are hosting regular casual get-togethers where people can bring along a crafty project, maybe get some tips and advice, or maybe help someone else with something they are making.
Our first crafting session will be at 1/15 Ballantyne Street, Thornbury from 2pm on Sunday the 10th of April. We will look at making this a regular event if it proves popular! Other venue suggestions are welcome.
Food for Thought: Local Food Forum + Open Space Session
Transition Darebin hosted a forum on the future of food in Preston on the 23rd of October 2010 at Preston Shire Hall.
After a welcome from Mayor Vince Fontana Michelle Darebin from the City of Darebin’s Environment team updated us on how people in Darebin are faring with food security and what the City of Darebin council is doing on food availability and sustainability. Guest speaker Kirsten Larsen from the Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab reported on what climate change and the end of cheap oil means for food in Australia.
Kirsten Larsen (right) from the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab
Over lunch participants met some of the groups in our area who are involved in exciting food-related projects before participating in an ‘Open Space’ session to explore the question: how will Preston feed itself over the next twenty years?
Participants gather for the open space session.
Here is a summary of what participants talked about during this session (PDF, 56KB).
Transition Darebin thanks the City of Darebin for supporting this event.
Local Food Tour
On Saturday 9th of October more than 30 people came on on a tour of local food sites, taking in community gardens, productive backyards, Preston Market and a talk on Preston’s rich food producing history, as publicised in the Preston Leader a couple of weeks ago.
We met at Sprout, a community garden next to Thornbury station that helps people experiencing homelessness and mental illness get some hands-on skills. The garden plots are communal rather than private, and the garden throws open its gates to the wider community with a market on the first Thursday of the month.
Transition Darebin’s very own Kat Lavers opened our eyes to the useful weeds growing all around us on our way to Angelo’s house. Angelo’s house has an amazingly productive permaculture bursting out of his backyard and he was only to happy to give away tips and even seedlings and cuttings to people inspired to start growing their own.
At Costante Imports on Bell Street we found all kinds of food processing and preserving equipment – which is just what you need if you have a yard as abundant as Angelo’s!
Then we grabbed lunch from Preston market and walked to a nearby park to listen to tales of Preston’s food-producing past from Merv Lia from the Preston Historical Society. You can download a scanned copy of Merv’s notes (PDF, 292 KB).
Finally we had a well-deserved sit down at Motor Mower cafe on Murray Road where we heard about how a cafe can be set up in a low-impact way.
See the map below or download the schedule (PDF, 60KB).
10 October, 2010 at 2:02 pm transitiondarebin Leave a comment
Home Sustainability Assessment
I decided to host a home sustainability assessment in the lead-up to the sustainable living festival and invite all my neighbours. Eight people came along, including six neighbours I had never met before. Larissa Nicholls, a local sustainability consultant, talked to us about
- how to use less energy in our homes, save on power bills, and be more comfortable
- how free home sustainability assessments work (courtesy of the Green Loans program)
- what owners AND renters can do
For me the really fun part was finding out how to turn down my water heater. Our unfortunately electric water heater is the culprit behind a good half of our electricity bills. Despite the dire warnings that only electricians should meddle with our water heater, with a simple turn of a dial we were able to reduce the temperature from above 80 degrees down to 60 degrees. That should reduce our energy use significantly and the water temperature is perfectly fine for washing dishes. We just don’t have to use as much cold water in the shower now.
Would you like to host a home sustainability assessment? Contact us
Transition Darebin 