As I finalise this report, I still have an emotional buzz going on from the amazing success of our quarry’s first event in the amphitheatre – Live in the Quarry.
What a wonderful picnic atmosphere with local music, food vendors, kids’ activities, garden tours and fun.
Our community came together in a wonderful spirit of festivity and sharing. This fantastic afternoon was a fitting exclamation mark to an amazing year. This report can’t cover all the highlights, but our monthly newsletters certainly have.
Leadership
2023 started with the election of our committee: Courtney Mathew (deputy convenor), Sabine Schreiber (secretary), David Baker (treasurer), Christine Morriss, Geoff Rollinson, Sue McCallum, Heather Ryan, and Terry Lowen.
They have done an amazing job in guiding policy, ensuring we met legal obligations, sharing the load with grant and other applications, and much more. I thank them sincerely for their energy, enthusiasm, wisdom, and knowledge, particularly Heather and Terry who aren’t renominating. They brought many perspectives to the table, ensuring a diversity of views were presented to guide our community forward.
Special mention must be made of Courtney’s involvement in 2023. As well as working full-time and completing the Leadership Great South Coast year-long leadership program, she has led several projects with enthusiasm and skill. These included the completion of the wayfinding project which started before COVID (check out our beautiful new signs), and the accessibility grant project which involved updating and renewing our website and making it more functional; updating our logo to make it more accessible and functional, and running a series of free workshops.
Keeping “the basics” going
This past year has had many highlights, however these must be kept in the context that “business as usual” continued very strongly.
Thanks mainly to our site manager Dave Mitchell and the core group of volunteers who wrap around his days each week (around 100 hours a week), the Herb Group on Tuesdays, and the wider group who come in for Saturday working bees twice a month, our whole site has continued to thrive. Significant maintenance has been done around plot edges, the native garden beds, fruit trees, communal vegetable areas, paths and much more.
Community is all
We are a large, complex organisation. Along the way there are always some frustrations. There are also times of sadness, especially when members are ill or supporting family members, or we lose a member to illness. There are also some disappointments, such as when our trailer was stolen. In times like that the “community” part of us comes to the fore. Often it’s members supporting members, but sometimes it’s support from the wider community such as when our trailer was recovered when we went to social media.
One thing that has emerged strongly after the depths of COVID is research on the psychological and emotional value of doing things with other people – community. If those activities are close to nature then there’s a multiplier effect. It’s nice to have what many of us just “know” verified by science.
New developments on site from our own resources
We’ve done a lot of work on site from our own resources, many areas now have automated watering including the hot house, automated chook feeders, biochar production, expansion of the sheoak forest, cardboard and mulch over some large areas not actively mown or gardened (more areas will be included if these prove successful), our first honey harvest in autumn, a new team coordinating the propagation programs building on Heather Ryan’s great work, solar power installed at the container using reclaimed panels, security cameras added, and the HUB garden bed has been rejuvenated as part of a student project.
New work and equipment from grants
Support from other organisations and government has been amazing.
Quarry funding from previous years has seen the completion of the amphitheatre, including lighting.
A Living Local State grant has allowed us to replace the deteriorating HUB deck.
A federal volunteer support grant has purchased many items of equipment, including the new BBQ.
A grant from Are-able has seen our website updated to give it a more modern look and make it more readable, our logo reworked to better suit many applications and modernise its look, purchasing equipment to suit all abilities, as well as run a series of workshops and tours.
Pre-COVID wayfinding funding from Warrnambool City Council has seen new signage finally go up including an updated site map, as well as new brochures for the garden and Sprouts Club program.
Council’s events funding also supported our Live in the Quarry event.
Wannon Water Ripple Effect funding is helping us to increase native plant biodiversity along our western boundary, including supporting us to propagate much of it ourselves.
Support from the Good Things Foundation allowed us to run a photo scavenger hunt as part of online education, including purchasing an iPad and portable Wi-Fi.
The A.L Lane Foundation contributed $10,000 to help us rework the all abilities gardening area which they helped establish back in 2009.
Warrnambool Racing Club JUMP grant will help us test blinds on west end of verandah to make this a useful area in all weather conditions.
Continued recognition
After receiving the Premier’s Sustainability Award in 2022, recognition has continued in 2023. We were a finalist in the national Banksia Awards Future Places category in February.
There was an article in Women’s Day Magazine in April. Heather Ryan was nominated for senior of the year, largely for the work she has done at our garden. We’re a finalist in the Volunteering Victoria awards for Volunteering Innovation. Our treasurer David Baker received a Certificate of Appreciation in the 2023 Not-for-Profit Treasurers’ Awards.
We continue to be contacted by other community gardens, with some visiting to see what we do and how we do it. We don’t do anything for the recognition, but it is always nice when someone else says “well done”.
Support from our community
We are forever appreciative to our local community for their support. Some of the organisations who have helped us include All Seasons Nursery with several donations of money and goods and Wannon Water who provided merchandise for the Sprouts Club. Several organisations provided grants to enable us to further develop the site or run programs.
Sprouts Club
Our children’s program has been rebranded the Sprouts Club. Under Heather Ryan’s leadership it continues to engage children and families. While it started with the regular Wednesday timeslot of 4-4:45pm, it has run many other activities through the year.
Apart from gardening, the children have built habitat, looked at pond life, cooked, been creative with solstice candle and hapazome (art with flower pigments) and nature stencilling, nature play, and much more.
The garden market
The market remains an important part of our financial self-sustainability. We have started a process of review and possibly renewal, beginning with a questionnaire and data gathering completed by Bruce Campbell. Any produce left after the market has gone to Foodshare.
Tours and activities
A quick scan of the calendar shows tours and activities with many groups. There are bound to have been more. Woodford Primary School; Lorne Garden Club; SWTAFE Intercultural Café participants; Council’s Green Futures Now; St Pius Primary School; Warrnambool College - multiple groups over the year; Port Fairy Garden Club; Danawa Community Garden Torquay; SWLLEN Project Ready program - 4 days including completely remodelling the top garden in front of HUB; Stoked Surf Therapy activities; WAVE school - two visits; East Warrnambool Primary School – three groups; Warrnambool home schoolers group; Probus Twin Rivers Club; Warrnambool Seniors Festival Tour; Deakin University education students, planting in the quarry; Deakin University undergraduates and masters business students team doing some modelling on potential projects – an assessable activity for them.
Workshops and other HUB activities
A small sample includes weaving with ghost ropes (artist Kaz Clarke); pickling and preserves (Rob & Denise); propagation by seeds and cuttings (Rob & Heather); introduction to permaculture course (Kirsty Williams); National Reconciliation Week tours; Biggest Morning Tea; Volunteer Week morning tea; garden photography using your phone (Perry Cho); sustainable gardening (author Donna Ellis); garden design drawing (Kirsty Williams); producers panel (various expert growers).
Helping or working with other organisations
More and more we are working with other organisations. We helped with the establishment of Fruit Rescue, partnering with Leadership Great South Coast and Permaculture South West Victoria. We will host Foodshare’s end of year function. We provided speakers to several organisations, many of them supporting older residents, including three Probus groups, Rotary East Warrnambool, and Warrnambool Independent Retirees. We have helped Lions Hopkins Kinder set up worm farms. We have been one of several organisations helping Warrnambool College students research for their bush food garden project.
Live in the Quarry
This was a wonderful celebration of community, but to really understand the emotional significance to the core group of our members driving the project, consider this brief historical snapshot. The quarry rehabilitation is the biggest project we have ever done, and probably will ever do. By the time stage two is finished we will have channelled close to $450,000 of funding into it, the majority from state and local government. Huge trust has been placed in us as an organisation to manage a project of this size.
The project started with a dream from the garden’s beginnings in 2007, weed control research in 2014, concept plan consultation and development in 2016, major funding from Pick My Project in 2018 and Warrnambool City Council in 2022, actual development from 2019 to 2023 through COVID and multiple levels of government and bureaucracy but with amazing community support. Stage two work (the forest gully) should see earthworks start in early 2024.
Looking forward
Our direction for the next few years will be guided by our new strategic plan for 2023-2028 . The 2022 election promise for $100,000 to support immediate needs (mainly a tractor and a shed) has been confirmed and paperwork has started. This opens up possibilities around increased garden areas, larger scale composting and more.
We’re working on a new tenancy agreement, changing from a licence to a lease, and hopefully working on longer-term agreements. We’re changing membership renewal from November to July to match the financial year (and better fit the seasons). Stage two of the quarry is scheduled and normal operations continue with ongoing work around the site, workshops, tours, links with schools and so on. We have started consultation about the market – it’s due for some renewal.
Bottom line – Warrnambool Community Garden will continue to be a vibrant, supportive organisation where there will are many different ways for people to link into our community. Whether people join for one type of activity or many, from being a communal gardener to having a private plot to helping with Sprouts Club to grant writing or any of the myriad other things we do, or simply just companionship, we welcome all.
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