Sunday 30 September 2018

Exchange?

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Hi, Everyone. 

We are looking for parents who would like their children to join our high level multi instrumental music classes for children from 0-18 in exchange for helping in the classroom. We require a full term commitment.

We are a social enterprise community venture bridging communities through music education.


Contact us via email melbourneinnernorthpaa@gmail.com


Room Available

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Small room available in house in Coburg North.
$150 per including free bike, NBN and all bills.
Free use of bike, and back entrance.
Would suit someone quiet and either short term or long term.
Sharing with a small family.
By Merri creek, Merlynston station and tram 19.
Please email me with your particulars: Natasha.close@hotmail.com.

Friday 28 September 2018

Recommendation Sought

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Hello.

I'm looking for a plasterer to remove no-longer fitting from our bathroom ceiling and repair the hole left behind.

Any local recommendations?

Let me know - Imogen, 0468 940 373.

Thanks!

Market

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St Marks Makers Trash & treasure Market Saturday 6th October 2018 9-1pm.

21 Beatty St Reservoir West.

Our market has craft, home baking, homemade and pre-loved goods for sale.

Hot food, sandwiches, devonshire tea & coffee available.

New stallholders welcome, tables for hire, indoor, or carboot spots outdoors. $15 per stall.

Off-street parking for early birds.

Contact  Bev 9478 5858.

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Some Boys Book Launch

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Some Boys is a picture book about all boys! Boys with long hair or short, in Batman costumes or tutus, boys who play basketball or princesses… whatever kind of boy, author Nelly Thomas says all boys should be free to be whoever they want. Join Nelly and some very special guests for the launch of her new book.


Book launch at Brunswick Library on Saturday October 6 @ 2.00!

Wanted

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Seeking donations of your junk.

We are conducting workshops with primary school children where we will be using old toys and discarded electronics. The children will be taught how to use tools and then they will have fun pulling apart the toys & electronics, in the meantime learning a lot about the use of tools, electronics, materials and how things are made. We need lots of things to pull apart. 

Please check your cupboards for any dusty electronics, toys that are no longer being used, things that you’re about to throw out. These all have great value for our workshops.
Also any old tools that you can spare would also be greatly appreciated, screwdrivers and pliers in particular.

Please contact Greg Giannis to organise delivery and/or pick up. 

Any contribution, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

0423 924 939

Recommendation Sought

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Hi folks does anyone have a cleaner they recommend? For a regular house clean...

Thanks in advance. 

Ash

0435 370 350

Free

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Bean bag - surplus to requirements - not very old.


Snow chains (for a Subaru Forester) never used size details in photo.


Ash

0435 370 350


Monday 24 September 2018

Pastured Ethical Meat

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Holistic Pastoral
“Holistic regenerative farming systems that grow clean ethical, pastured meat”.


Who we are:
We are a small, local farming family. We live in the township of Alexandra, along the beautiful and fertile Goulburn River valley just north of Melbourne. The river here, is known as Warring to the local Tungurrang people and we pay respect to the elders of the past, those of the present and the future.


A few years ago, we decided to pack up our lives and quit our jobs in Sydney. Daniel and Aldona moved with their two young sons, Jarra and Marley, to rural Victoria for a simpler and slower paced life. Joining us from NSW is Daniel’s horticulturalist brother, James. Together we are working towards growing the cleanest and most ethical food we can.


What we grow:
We primarily grow free range, chemical free chickens and lamb. Our breed selections have been very important to our systems, and we proudly grow Wiltipoll, Dorper and Meatmaster sheep. Our chickens are Cornish Cross, Ross and Cobb varieties which are amazingly efficient feed converters. We have bee hives too, and although the bees keep themselves, we sell their honey from time to time. (We are also growing a small herd of cattle at the moment, but they are not fully integrated into our farming systems as yet).


How we farm:
Our farming system is a little unique, in that everything on our farm is intentionally connected to each other (including us). Our Holistic farming system is based upon permaculture and regenerative farming practices already used in Australia and around the world, by many enlightened farmers.

Simply put; we mob graze our animals, and they follow each other around the land in a rotational grazing pattern.


Everyday our animals get moved to a fresh patch of pasture that has been rested for up to 12 months. This means the land gets very long periods of rest between intensive and short grazing periods. In turn, this means that our pastures bank more carbon, are ever increasing in organic matter, biodiversity and water storage capabilities.


We use electric fences to mob graze our animals, and each animal in our systems has a special role to fill. Our sheep’s job in the system is to mulch the old grass, and to prune the new shoots off the grass, to stimulate more growth (it’s a bit like mowing the lawn). Following behind the sheep we rotate our industrious Cobb and Ross variety of meat chickens. They walk the lengths of the fields scratching and spreading manure, eating insects and grass shoots, and being free like chicken should be! Our bees pollinate the pastures and trees around us, ensuring that both plant and animal diversity is vibrant. Although mother earth has the final say on what happens to the land, our role in the whole system is to steer the animals around the landscape and to ensure that it stay as balanced as possible

We use organic principles and it should go without saying that we don’t use fertilisers for our pasture, we don’t use chemicals or antibiotics on our animals, (unless it’s absolutely necessary), we use GMO free feed as much as possible, we don’t own or use heavy machinery and we don’t even own the lands that we farm (we borrow, trade and lease all our farm land).


All our animals are raised to live and feed from our pastures, but pasture alone (especially from old, archaic farming practices) is sometimes not enough for certain animals to thrive on. Therefore, we carefully select our supplement feeds for our animals. We supplement feed our chickens with the best and most ethically sourced feed we can, and although we have not yet reached totally organic grains and meat meals, we are working towards this as a matter of priority. Our sheep are sometimes supplement fed Lucerne hay, although this is often dependent on the condition of the pastures, and our years goal is always to reduce our feed inputs to 0.


How to buy our produce:
Our next batch of chickens will be available on Wednesday the 3rd October.

We are currently selling chickens via a monthly pre-order email system.
Customers reply to our monthly updates via email, how many chickens that want for the month ahead and we invoice them using PayPal.
Once customers’ orders are secured with payment we deliver our chickens both locally (around Alexandra and to the Melbourne suburb of Coburg) in the first week of every month.

Our chickens are sold whole, and are huge, weighing on average 2.5kg. This is enough to feed a large family of 4-6 in one meal, or a smaller family for many meals (don’t forget to keep the bones for making stock!!).


Lamb will be available from December 2018 onwards.


More information:
For more information about our farm, our animals and us, you can find us on the web and Facebook at: www.holisticpastoral.com.au & www.facebook.com/holistic.pastoral


Feel free to email us at: holistic.pastoral@gmail.com or even give us call for a yarn about farming and good food, on 0438 799 105.


Cheers,
The Holistic Pastoral team
Aldona, James and Daniel.








Sunday 23 September 2018

Friends of Edgars Creek

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Hi All,

Thanks to everyone who attended the final planting day for the year last Sunday and then helped to celebrate another wonderful season of planting events in 2018. We planted 870 plants on Sunday - you guys rock!

At the party, I outlined our achievements for 2018 and what’s ahead for 2019 and beyond. 

Here’s a wrap up of my speech.

Plantings
2018 was our 12th season of planting with around 7,000 indigenous trees, plants and shrubs finding new homes on the creek (helped considerably by a project sponsored by Loving Earth when 2,200 plants went in in one day). We will downsizing on the number of plants we plant per planting activity in 2019-20. Rather than the 800+ plants per activity, we will be reducing the numbers down to around 400-500 plants to allow more maintenance activity on the day of our events and also to reduce the workload on our core group of members (we are on the creek the week before the planting and on the Sunday events Rob and Stephen are often on site from around 9.00AM - simply not sustainable we have decided!

Committee meetings
Committee meetings are open to all who are interested to attend, so please come along. 

It’s important for us to share the knowledge that sits with our committee - we can't do the job forever and we are also mortals. If you would like to learn more about how we do the behind the scenes work eg: how to write a grant submission, update the website, learn about plant names or anything else, we are more than happy to pass this knowledge on. And likewise, from our volunteers, you all have so much knowledge, so please share it with us! We would really appreciate it.

For 2019 you may also be interested in providing assistance in the following areas:
  • Become an event host – meet and greet volunteers (more information here).
  • Letterbox drops
The FoEC trailer needs a home during planting season
Our Works Manager Rob is moving house and unfortunately cannot accommodate the trailer anymore. If anyone has room in their backyard or commercial property or knows of anyone who may be able to store the trailer, please let us know.

Elizabeth Street Cafe
Thank you to the Elizabeth Street Cafe for providing delicious fruit and baked goods for our party. Their support is so valuable to us and we really appreciate it. Please drop in to the cafe and enjoy a coffee and / or delicious meal. 

Change of Treasurer
At the next AGM to be held early in 2019, Stephen Northey will be handing over the Treasurer role to our Website Manager, Lisa Davis. He will retain the title of Immediate Past President as we have only had only two Presidents! His efforts have been critical to FoEC coming into existence and he will remain an invaluable contributor to the on-the-ground works.

Donations
We welcome any donations, big or small, and always have the platypus (money box) available at events - all proceeds go towards catering and other operational items we use throughout the year. If you would prefer to make a direct deposit, please let us know or alternatively, use the platypus at any of our events.

Thank you
Thank you to the many dedicated and passionate volunteers who help make FoEC so successful. We couldn’t do it without you!

Two more planned activities for 2018
Now the planting season is over, we need to finish off with some maintenance. 

* Sunday 21 October 2018, 1-3pm
Maintenance: Caravan Park site – weeding and general site maintenance activities.
Hosted by the FoEC
Meet behind the Big 4 caravan park (access from the end of Elizabeth St), North Coburg

* Sunday 18 November 2018, 1-3pm
Maintenance: Gooseneck site, west side of the creek – weeding and general site maintenance activities.
Hosted by the FoEC.
Meet at the Gooseneck area- access from, Spectrum Way, North Coburg (at the old Kodak bridge).

See you on the creek!

David.

Wanted

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Hello fellow Newlanders.

We are on the lookout for packing boxes for some family members. 
If anyone has clean sturdy cardboard boxes from a recent move that they would like to part with, we would be happy to collect. 
Hope everyone is enjoying spring gettin’ sprung!! 

Shannon.
0418534805

Yoga

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Would you like to experience the benefits of a regular (accessible & energy renewing 😊) yoga practice in Preston this spring?

Expect breathing practices (pranayama), mindful asana (postures), meditation & relaxation. 

Would suit those who might feel overwhelmed by large, fast paced classes. 

Bendy & not so bendy bodies of all shapes & sizes welcome.

Lycra optional, tracksuits welcome! 





Where? 
Mana Health Practice
130 Plenty Road
Preston

For more information 
Nicole 0422468758

Free

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Concrete Pavers to Give Away!

50 concrete pavers in good condition to give away. Must be picked up by Saturday this week. We can help to load them up. 

Contact Elise on 0438 820 567 to arrange pick up or find out more details if interested.




Needed

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Does anyone have a plastic sand pit and plastic cubby house?

M: 0410 333 949.

Keys Found

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Found these near the creek. 




One is a Mazda key, the other a small set. 

Text Hugh to collect: 0422 592 278.