 | Come along and be inspired and nourished by an immersive experience on the banks of the Broken River and wilder spaces around Lake Benalla. |
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 We have a new coordinator for the food co-op. We are pleased to have long term committee member Sonia Bourke, take on the role. Sonia has been a dedicated member for 12 years and has an excellent knowledge of the products and how the co-op operates. To assist Sonia in her role we have delegated some areas of responsibility to others. Sonia is centre in the above photo with two new members Teresa and Fiona.
Our membership sits at around 68. One of the first things we will be doing is further promotion to tap into members of our community who may not be aware of the unique asset we have in the Benalla community. Our main form of advertising has been through ‘word of mouth’. Open dates for the remainder of the year are as follows – December Monday 2nd, at 4pm, Saturday 14th at 9.30am and Thursday 19th at 9.30am. Narelle Martin is the Founder and Director of the Regional Change Agency.
Narelle has worked on environmental sustainability in Victoria, NSW and Canada for many years, working with local and state governments and the wine industry in Ontario, Canada. Since 2008 her focus has been on climate change, and she is highly qualified in this area. Following the 2019-20 Summer bushfires she worked extensively with Towong Shire Council staff and Councillors to lead the debrief around the fire impact for a number of council operations. More recently she has worked with RAMJO, a collection of eleven Councils in NSW. She developed a Regional Energy Strategy, which was adopted in November 2022, and in March 2023 was engaged as the Energy and Sustainability Project Manager where a major role was to work on a number of the recommendations of the Strategy. She recently toured Canada where she visited a nuclear power station. Her community roles include membership of Burgoigee Creek Landcare, and land and community related projects including as the Foundation co-chair of the Giant Pumpkin Competition and Harvest Festival. She has been a member of Renewable Albury Wodonga (RAW) for some years, which has undertaken initiatives in renewable energy and community education, been an elected member of Council (Gawler, South Australia). Narelle’s talk is titled “Building Hope in a Warming World” and is an outcome of her extensive work in the topic area. The meeting will be held at 7.30pm at the Benalla Uniting Church, Carrier Street Benalla, opposite the Coles Car Park. Supper will be available after the meeting. The resource suggestions below come from the Chair of the Coalition for Community Energy, Heather Smith. Given the critical importance of climate change action, renewable energy is not a specialised area: everyone has a role in reducing our immediate impact, and electrification is the readily available tool to move forward with reducing our emissions. Hence we are sharing the information and resources contained. Judy Schwarzman Secretary and David Blore, President, Benalla Sustainable Future Group Information from Online Meeting of the Coalition for Community Energy, 31st October 2024
Guest Speaker: 'Local Government Energy Upgrades - Supporting Residents in the Energy Transition' - Donna Luckman, Merri-bek City Council - Donna's talk and slides. (Also posted it and the links below on the forum.) Indigo Power - Molly and Heath. Molly can be contacted on [email protected] if you are interested in resources or marketing materials to support groups with their new groups offer - $100 reward for each customer sign up. It comes alongside some new rates with great prices for non-solar customers who can use up excellent solar soak. Congratulations on signing the 7 new community batteries with ARENA, sites are all listed in the GoogleDoc. Climate Ready Hume Newsletter - Louisa Marston [email protected] can be contacted if you want to be on the Climate Ready Hume Newsletter and you are not already. Some links shared and namedropping that occurred from meeting -
Venus Bay community is giving a talk about their resilience work at an Essential Energy webinar on 4th Dec (5:30?) Coalition for Community Energy eNews, please sign up here. Heather Smith Chair, Coalition for Community Energy M 0417 862 206 E [email protected] W www.c4ce.net.au  Kaye Blore and the Wastewise Benalla Action Group Join Electrify Wangaratta at the Wangaratta Performing Arts & Convention Centre at 2pm Sunday 13 October for an exciting event focused on making homes more energy-efficient! Learn how to optimize your home to reduce your energy bills and increase year-round comfort. This is an interactive, informative session includes:
Please register at https://events.humanitix.com/go-electric-slash-your-energy-bills  At our next Meeting on Thursday October 10th Join us for a FREE information night followed by a Q&A session on the current state of residential Solar and Batteries in North East Victoria, presented by Solar Gain. Book your place using the QR Code below, or use this link https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1299107, or click on the flyer image.  Our next General Meeting will be from 7.30pm-9.30pm on Thursday 12th September 2024 at the Benalla Uniting Church, opposite the Coles Car Park Carrier Street Benalla 3672. Our guest speaker for the meeting is Serenity Hill from Pukawidgee Farm. Serenity Hill runs a 168 ha regenerative farm in Warrenbayne: "Pukawidgee". A self replacing flock of Australian white sheep are managed for sale as meat or livestock. She produces these in a way that regenerates diverse native pastures and revegetated grassy woodlands through increased photosynthesis and plant diversity. A longer description can be found on the Discover Regenerative website here.  Serenity also co-founded and works in a non-profit called Open Food Network. Open Food Network receives funding from government and philanthropy to conduct research and pilot new approaches to agriculture and food systems. Current projects include:
1) the national Discover Regenerative Platform, aimed at showcasing regenerative agriculture to business buyers. 2) a Food Subsidy Pilot Project, funded by Citibank foundation, to develop a voucher system to help low income households access good food. Serenity also advises Sustainable Table which directs philanthropic funds to food system transformation and Moving Feast, which is a collaboration of food social enterprises in Victoria. She is on the steering committee of the National Regenerative Agriculture Advocacy project, which coordinates advocacy to the Federal government around regenerative agriculture. Serenity compiled and maintains the publicly available Agroecology and Regenerative Agriculture Knowledge Commons which is a 110 page compendium of the published science pertaining to agroecology and regenerative agriculture. After the meeting supper will be available. RSVP: [email protected]. Download the flyer. Benalla Council's National Tree Planting Day Event--Psaltis Reserve--Sunday 28th July 11 am to 1 pm.25/7/2024 This is an opportunity for us to improve greening and cooling in Benalla, as well as habitat for native birds and wildlife on council land. National Tree Planting Day is an initiative of Planet Ark and is Australia's largest tree planting event. Andie Guerin, co-ordinator of the Regent Honeyeater Project will speak about his project.
A free BBQ will be provided at the end of the day.
Rhona Rose and Judy Schwarzman  On Saturday June 15 2024, another successful Swanpool Environmental Film Festival was held at Swanpool Cinema from 1pm-9pm. The full details of the program for SEFF 2024 can be viewed here, including the menu provided by the Swanpool Catering Team. Since its first screening in 2013, Ian Herbert has been the festival coordinator and MC. This year Ian had to step back from his role due to ill health, although he is now feeling well enough and able to assist at the festival. David Blore, the recently elected President of BSFG, took on the MC role for this year's festival. While the attendance at this year's festival was down on previous years, the program was well received. Immediately before the 1 pm start of the festival our local XR Flash Mob performed Stayin’ Alive, their signature dance to their own music track and lyrics of the Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive. The flash mob also included some members of the Hot House Quartet, who later provided music over the dinner break. Listen to Staying Alive below along with some of the lyrics, watch the video recording by Margot Nash below and scroll down to view the video of the Flash Mob's Stayin' Alive video in a Canberra mall and on the streets.  David Blore opened the festival conducting an Acknowledgement of Country before introducing Mark Diesendorf.   Mark Diesendorf’s presentation highlighted many things to consider as we embark on “The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation”, the title of both Mark's presentation and his new book, co-authored with Rod Taylor, https://sustainablecivilisation.com/. Unfortunately we did not record Mark’s presentation. However, you can watch Mark’s presentation at the Modern Money Labs Summer Series in 2024 below to see some strategic ideas on achieving a Sustainable Civilisation. It is very similar to Mark's presentation at our festival. Robert McLean recorded Mark's presentation on audio. Robert is from Shepparton and produces the podcast Climate Conversations www.anchor.fm/robert-mclean. Thank you Robert for sharing your audio recordings. Robert McLean's audio recording of Mark's presentation can be listened to here. There were many questions from the audience about Mark's presentation. The film following Mark was The New Corporation, the Unfortunately Necessary Sequel, https://thenewcorporation.movie/about-the-film/. The film can now be watched on SBS On Demand, https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/movie/the-new-corporation-the-unfortunately-necessary-se/2264088643615.  Intermission! Time for afternoon tea after The New Corporation!  During Afternoon Tea we screened a short video, 'Love Changes Everything Part 1', from local artist Anna White, who has contributed at a number of our festivals. Anna's Artist Statement and video follow:   Following afternoon tea Steven Hail, Associate Professor at Torrens University and Economist at Modern Money Lab, https://modernmoneylab.org.au/ introduced the film Finding the Money which follows economist Stephanie Kelton on her journey to flip our views on money and the myths we have about federal budget deficits, https://findingmoneyfilm.com/, Stephanie Kelton is the Author of The Deficit Myth, https://stephaniekelton.com/book/. Neither a deficit hawk nor deficit dove Stephanie Kelton calls herself a ‘deficit owl’ because owls have the ability to rotate their heads nearly 360 degrees for better perspectives and are associated with wisdom (P76 The Deficit Myth).  Finding the Money has now been released on some streaming platforms, hopefully available soon in Australia. Thanks to film maker Maren Poitras for listing SEFF 2024 on where to watch, https://findingmoneyfilm.com/where-to-watch/. The Film Press kit is also available with many details about the story of the Finding The Money film. Steven answered many questions from the audience about Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) following the film. Below is a Zoom meeting video from Steven at Modern Money Lab on January 2024 on The Importance of "Finding the Money". Thanks again to Robert McLean for his audio recording of Steven Hail's introduction to Finding the Money and the Q&A after the film.  During Dinner, the Hot House Quartet from Canberra provided lively entertainment with some well known favourite tunes, albeit with lyrics exploring environmental themes. Robert McLean's podcast also includes a recording of the Hot House band during the dinner break, concluding with The Carnival Is Over! Listen here, We also saw the video of a large XR Flash Mob performing Staying Alive in Canberra. Video below featuring local Hot House lead singer Warwick.  After Dinner, Margot Nash introduced her short film 'Undercurrents: Meditations on Power, A cautionary poem or 'song' for the dark times' (trailer below). Made from reimagined/recycled images and sounds from the filmmaker’s archive and other found materials, https://www.margotnash.com/undercurrents.  We are again fortunate to have Robert McLean's audio recording of Margot's talk and short film, Listen here from about 21 minutes. Margot is Mark Diesendorf's partner and pointed out how she was working on her film while Mark was writing his book, which resulted in some cross fertilisation of themes and ideas.  The final presentation for the night was by wildlife ecologist Bertram Lobert from the Save Our Strathbogie Forest Group, https://strathbogiesustainableforests.wordpress.com/. Bertram explained the regime followed by State authorities in specifying control burns across Victoria, These burns often have no consideration of the need to burn, nor for the loss of wildlife, and the often resulting regrowth of a vigorous understory, increasing the risk of fire.  To finish the presentations Bertram invited Simeon Ayres from Strathbogie to enlighten us with a tale from the bush, https://www.bewildernest.com/my-story.  Gifts with some local produce were provided to guests during the evening. MC David Blore concluded the festival by thanking the Swanpool Catering Team for their dedication and expertise in preparing and offering a tasty menu for the enjoyment of festival guests. David also thanked fellow members of the Festival Committee, Rhona, Peter H, Pam, Kevin, Peter M, and John for taking on the task of organising the 2024 festival. He also thanked Ian Herbert for his role as Festival Coordinator since 2103, grateful that Ian was now feeling well enough to attend the festival and assist, and also for his contribution providing media for the show, which included media and financial support from Winton Wetlands. Additional supporters were Swanpool Landcare, Benalla Sustainable Future Group, Benalla Rural City, GBCMA, and Gecko Clan. Finally, "Wishing Everyone a Safe Drive Home!"  Lou and Amy of the Community and Partnerships team (DEECA), are coordinating a webinar about how to reduce energy bills through low cost changes to your home, and accessing Government rebate programs. This webinar will live stream at Benalla Library and online.
If you are financially impacted by energy prices, or are interested in lowering your energy bills, this webinar may assist you. About the webinar Is your home icy cold in winter and are your energy bills sky high? Join this FREE webinar on reducing your energy costs! It will include low cost hot tips on how to create a cozy winter home, without emptying your wallet. When: Wednesday 19 June 5:45pm – 6:45pm Where: Live stream at Benalla Library and online How to sign up: Take Control of your Energy Bills | Humanitix Please see the Poster below to join. For more information, email Amy or Lou or [email protected] Judy Schwarzman Benalla Sustainable Future Group Following Susanne's retirement as coordinator at the end of May, 2024, a celebratory Food Co-op communal lunch was held on Saturday June 1. A love of wholefood cooking using supplies from the Food Coop was evident in the delicious food shared by coop members. Rhona's speech of thanks to Susanne was delightful, as was Susanne's reply. Thank you so much, Susanne, for making such a valued contribution to our community. Best wishes for your move to Tangambalanga! Photographs to be added...
 Rather than reflect on just the past 12 months, I would like to comment on the five years during which I have been President. Over the 31 years I have lived in Benalla and Lima East, I have been President or Chairperson of many and varied organisations and committees, but when I somewhat apprehensively became President of BSFG in May 2019, I felt that this role carried with it an enormous responsibility – not just for the BSFG membership, but to the wider community, and especially for the future generations of residents of Benalla and district. That is why I have tried to promote important events and information sessions through our local secondary schools, print and social media, and other organisations which may be related to the particular events. With this approach, I have been so grateful to the people who have served as either committee members, or organisers of events, or produced newsletters, because their enthusiasm and expertise has been amazing, and has helped alleviate my initial level of apprehension. Within our organisation, there is such a diverse range of interests and concerns for the future sustainability of the planet, such that it is impossible for any one person to grasp all the concepts involved. That is why BSFG has Action Groups that allow people to work within their spheres of interests and abilities to make a difference within our community, and as the years have passed, I believe that each of the Action Groups have contributed to better outcomes, and greater awareness of the issues, for residents of Benalla and district. In the recent newsletter, I mentioned in my President’s comment that urgent action on climate change mitigation was “my thing” during my time as President. I sincerely hope that our Benalla Councillors present tonight will take back to their fellow Councillors and Council officers the sense of urgency that we in BSFG have felt for a very long time. We, as individuals can only achieve small steps by modifying our own lifestyles, but each level of governance that we have in Australia can make contributions, either through actions or legislation, that will make large differences to the future wellbeing of our communities. I hope that tonight’s presentation and discussion will open our eyes, not just to the threats climate change imposes, but to the possible actions that can be taken to address and mitigate these threats. This is not an easy or simple task, but it is one that cannot, and must not, be continually placed on the “to do” list. We in BSFG, are ready and willing to work alongside Council to tackle this task, so would like to be able to contribute more directly to the relevant discussions and planning centred on climate change mitigation. Without pre-empting tonight’s discussion too much, it is already evident within Australia, that a number of communities have become unsustainable due to climate related events, and this number will continue to grow, not just due to their location in low lying coastal areas, but for other reasons such as economic or health related issues. Finally, again I want to thank all those who have contributed to the work of BSFG over the years, to acknowledge the support I have received from all the committee members and others over the past five years, and also to thank David for accepting the role of President for the near future, and the members who have agreed to continue on the committee. I look forward to another year of informative, interesting, and progressive events. Peter Holmes Friday 24 May 2024 The Financial Report produced by Treasurer Wendy Baker was also presented to the AGM:
President's Report - Peter Holmes
Financial Report - Wendy Baker Benalla Food Cooperative Report - Susanne Bennett Ecologically Sustainable Development Report - Peter Maddock Greening and Cooling Benalla Report to AGM 2024 - Judy Schwartzman Renewable Energy Benalla Report - Kevin Smith WasteWise Benalla Annual Report to AGM - Kaye Blore Website Report - Peter Maddock and Bev Lee NERSA Report - Kevin Smith Judy Schwarzman Secretary The Benalla Food Co-op is in its 13th year of operation and currently has a membership of 68 households with over forty of them shopping regularly. Our main activity has been general ongoing operational issues. Our efforts to remain vermin free have been mostly successful with minimal stock loss. Our ability to improve storage is hampered by lack of spacespace. Initially we planned to purchase an extra cupboard, however that idea changed and have bought extra shelving. A safety step is on the shopping list. Our product list had a few changes with instant coffee becoming unavailable. We are currently trialling dried mushrooms from Markwood Mushroom and buckwheat kernels. Our vacuum caused a few difficulties and thank you to Robyn Kelly, who kindly donated a Dyson vacuum. The Co-op continues to open earlier on Monday afternoons during winter due to shorter daylight hours and colder weather. This commenced in May. Our markup remains at 20% Thank you Wendy Baker for the overall accounting matters (see Wendy’s financial year report). Thank you Christine for continuing to coordinate the roster, and Peter for ongoing management of the day-to-day accounts as well as the biannual stock take. The Holmes duo have been tireless in their Co-op volunteering and are life members. Thank you Rhona for years of email update news. I will miss our pre-news texts and chats as we collate our narration each week. Thank you Graeme Greed for ongoing equipment maintenance. Thank you Maren for ordering the spices and Julienne who helps to package the herbs. Thank you Sonia for continuing to allow her front porch to be used for deliveries. Thank you Kay Blore, Karen Nankervis and Judy Schwarzman who promote recycling and empty our recycle containers. Thank you to our 11 duty managers and 13 iPad operators. Jenny Monger has retired from being an iPad operator and Julie McPherson has moved from being a Duty Manager to iPad Operator. Thank you Jenny for years and years of volunteering. Thank you Beverly Lee and Peter Maddock for maintaining our social media and BSFG website presence. Thank you Karen and Graham who regularly ask if there are orders to collect from Melbourne or Myrtleford and happily do so if required. Thank you to my husband Richard who has unloaded the pallets of produce each month for the past 3 years and stacked it all into the cupboards. In closing I would like to say how much I’ve appreciate your friendship and assistance over the last 3 years. Without your help, there would be no Co-op. I applaud Claire as she steps forward to take on the extra load and warmly wish her the very best as I step down. Co-op Committee: Susanne (retiring coordinator), Claire (new coordinator), Christine (rosters), Peter (finance), Rhona (weekly up-dates), Karen (recycling), Judy (BSFG secretary), Sonia (porch for deliveries) and Julie McPherson (moving to iPad operator), Tanya and Rosalie. Duty managers: Graham, Sonia, Tanya, Rosalie, Christine, Rhona, Joy, Robyn, Eleanor, Susanne (retiring) and Claire (stepping up). iPad Operators: Peter, Karen, Glenys, Simon, Stacy, Deanne, Jenny, Julienne, Maren, Marlies, Sally and Robert. Enquiries/feedback welcome via the BSFG website or the Co-op email [email protected] Susanne Food Cooperative Coordinator |
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Benalla Sustainable Future Group acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we live, work and meet, the Taungerang, Yorta Yorta and Bpangerang people of North East Victoria, and pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.