CONTENTS: Our AGM 20 June 2019 ~ Repairers needed ~ Join our great committee! ~ Wild vegetable fermentation workshop ~ Let's support The Joinery ~ Remembering Brigid Bruer ~ Water sensitive backyard design ~ NRM cultural awareness training ~ Plastic-Free July
Our AGM - 20 June 2019
The Annual General Meeting will be held at 6pm-8pm on Thursday 20 June 2019 at The Joinery, 111 Franklin Street, Adelaide 5000.
There will be a shared meal before the AGM which will be followed by a presentation from guest speaker, Christel Mex, councillor for the City of NPSP, Sustainable Communities member and expert on challenges faced by volunteer organisations.
You will also have the chance to renew your membership or to join up as a member.
Our committee keeps our organisation going! Without a committee nothing can happen, so here is your chance to join our team. Our meetings are friendly and fun!
We need a trainee secretary - someone who has skills in, or is keen to learn about, managing our communications and organisational records. You will receive regular training so that you will be confident to assume the role of Secretary at the AGM in 2020.
This is a great opportunity for learning and a valuable addition to your CV. If you are interested please email us at info@sustainablecommunitiessa.org.au.
Grow, Grow, Grow Your Own workshop Wild vegetable fermentation demonstration
2.30pm Sunday 30 June 2019 at Unley Community Centre, 18 Arthur Street, Unley.
During a wild fermentation demonstration using freshly harvested produce, we will discuss the fermentation process and its various requirements including time, temperature, ingredients, salting, equipment & storage.
Fruit and vegetables are naturally covered in microorganisms. Fermentation provides conditions that favour the growth of the naturally occurring Lactic Acid bacteria, allowing them to dominate and kill off other unwanted bacteria, moulds and yeasts. These bacteria convert the lactose into lactic acid. This acidification is a great form of preservation.
Our presenter, Grace, has been delivering workshops for 30 years covering various food topics including cooking, preserving, fermenting and home cheese making. She comes from Adelaide Hills market gardening stock and spent many years working in restaurants and the cheese industry.
Let's support The Joinery!
Five years ago The Joinery emerged as a community space from what was previously a run-down bus station. It is now a nature-focused community space in the centre of Adelaide. But repairs and upgrades are needed to keep the doors open.
Please contribute to The Joinery Appeal to raise the funds needed to do some great things including:
renovate the community kitchen
install access ramps and toilets
repaint and fix damaged tiling
upgrade the Exhibition Space
provide a home for the Precious Plastic recycling program
create a children's garden
Remembering Brigid Bruer
by Anne Wharton
Our dear friend Brigid Bruer died suddenly on Thursday 18 April 2019.
All who had the great joy to know Brigid will be unsurprised to know that her life was full and active until the very end.
Brigid and I became members of Sustainable Communities in the early days, joining the Unley Central group at its inception in 2010. Brigid loved our monthly get-togethers and the support from other members. She always aimed to get there, somehow fitting it into her incredibly busy life.
Many of you will know Brigid from the Freecycle stall at the monthly One Planet Market, which we ran together. We had many laughs at some of the unusual and sometimes inexplicable things that people brought in for the stall. It won’t be the same without Brigid’s gentle, patient attention to efforts to re-home, re-purpose and recycle unwanted items.
Brigid was a committed member of Sustainable Communities almost since it started. She lived her life with a commitment to frugality and sustainability, doing everything she could to make a better world for her grandchildren, extended family and future generations.
Thank you to Mellissa Bradley who explained how urban environments with large areas of impervious surfaces create run-off after rain that can result in flooding and excessive sediment being washed into waterways and marine environments.
There are many types of porous paving now available that allow rainfall to be absorbed, helping to recharge aquifers and increase soil moisture to benefit our gardens and street trees.
Rain gardens are another way to slow and clean water, keep pollutants out of the stormwater system and protect creeks and coasts. Water Sensitive SA provides lots of information about what you can do in your home garden to retain water and reduce run-off.
NRM Cultural Awareness Training by Monica O’Wheel
As a member of Sustainable Communities SA I was able to attend a cultural awareness day run for its volunteers by the Indigenous Engagement team of Natural Resources Management (NRM) Adelaide & Mounty Lofty Ranges. NRM staff, along with Kaurna guests, took us through the tragic history of invasion and settlement in South Australia using simple but effective role playing.
We were seated at tables, each representing an Indigenous Nation in South Australia. I was on the Narungga table. We were asked to draw a map of their country (known by us now as Yorke Penninsula) on a large sheet of paper with their animals, plants and features of the land. Then we added post-it notes with the names of family members to the maps.
The staff then read a history of South Australia and its impacts on the Indigenous people. To represent the repeated losses and injustices, strips were torn off our maps and people’s names removed. Some of us were then moved around to represent the ways in which people were shifted across peninsulas and nations. In doing this we felt in a small but moving way the losses of land and people that the Narungga and other Indigenous people have endured.
As a follow up, we were offered the opportunity to attend a tour of conservation sites led by Kaurna guides. I highly recommend to all SCSA members to take these opportunities when possible. We have much to learn about Australia’s history. We need to be involved in Reconciliation and the treaty process. We need to support the Uluru Statement from the Heart with its call for Truth Telling and a Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution.
[image: Ngarrindjeri Nation Flag Vwanweb [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]
Plastic Free July
Imagine a world without plastic waste! Sign up for Plastic Free July and help build a global movement to reduce plastic use and improve recycling.
This blog post from 2015 - Plastic-free shopping in Adelaide - shows that Sustainable Communities members have been active on this issue for some years. Join the campaign and please let us know of any new information that will keep us updated and motivated to continue!
