Community

A letter from the convener, Keith Marshall


This year has like the previous few years seen FERN grow, take on new projects and continue to provide valuable services to the local community.

As with all community organizations, t he volunteers are the people that driving the organization and make all the difference.

From March 4th, 2009 on Wednesday nights FERN will be hosting the award-winning sustainability course - Living Smart. It will run for 6 sessions at our site plus a field trip. Over the course there are guest lectures, discussion time and hands-on demonstrations covering diverse topics from water efficiency to healthy homes and lifestyles to the future of fuel.

A Mixed Cultural Cookup event is being planned for late March 2009 as a FERN supported project. The event aims to bring together people from the diverse mix of cultures that make up the Fremantle and wider Perth community. The loose plan for the day is to have some cultural performances (music, dancing, plays, etc.) in the afternoon followed by a cookup of food from all the different cultures present and then a storytelling circle to end the evening. A grant was obtained from the Department of Indigenous Affairs to fund the event and City of Fremantle has also agreed to contribute to the event. An Event Coordinator has recently been engaged and a Steering Committee of six people has been setup with members of the Nyoongar community, FERN board and City of Fremantle.

For those who are not aware yet, the Magik Beanstalk organic feast nights have been ceased for the 2007 winter period. It was a great casual night out for the Freo crowd. Thank you  for your support in attending and making it the community event we wished it to be.

From everyone at FERN we would like to thank Matt Grimbley for his outstanding commitment to the weekly event of managing the whole shebang!

We hope to run these again in finer weather but will need someone to fill Matts shoes... any takers? 

The Community Water Grant team have been busy installing water conserving technologies on site--the most notable are the zincalume rainwater tank, and drip irrigation fitted by the busy bee team, to the rejuvenated vege beds. If you would like to know the tips and tricks, register to come along to our remaining Waterwise workshops or drop into the Saturday busy bees and see how its done.