Our next group meeting is on Sunday 5th September at 2pm at the Lions club hall, Sweet St Warners Bay. All welcome.

As always, afternoon tea is provided free of charge. Come along and meet your neighbours, share your ideas and see how you can get more involved with the group.

The focus of the September meeting will be finalising WBCG's stall at the Lake Macquarie Smart Living Festival at Speers Point Park Sept 12th, progressing the Vegeblitz garden working bees, updating everyone on Council's site assessment progress and the grant allocation(!) and discussing ideas for other gardening and community related activities and opportunities for our group. We will be joined by Chris and Lachie to talk about planning some permaculture workshops with them for WBCG.

A gold coin donation is welcome to assist with hall hire costs.

Early in Term 4 volunteers from the WBCG group will be helping Warners Bay Public School and Eleebana Public School with their vegie gardens, all ready for planting in the warmers months!

We will be holding fun working bees at both schools, to build a new vegie garden for the students at Eleebana, and at Warners Bay PS we will be improving some drainage issues through their garden area, as well as building a new vegie garden for the students.

Many hands make light work and the working bees will be a fun opportunity to work together for our community, meet some new friends and learn some gardening tips along the way!

We will announce the working bee days closer to the date so check your emails! For more information, or if you would like to see how WBCG can help your school, please contact Trish.

Council Progress
As you know, in early August WBCG submitted a formal complaint to Lake Macquarie City Council. The complaint was made for two key reasons:

In response to the formal complaint, Council have advised us of the following:

Council have now established their new assessment process for determining the site of the Warners Bay Community Garden. They have advised they will now undertake an assessment of the following sites (in no specific order):

and they expect this assessment process to be completed in 3-4 weeks. Following the assessment, Council have advised they will prepare a report for Councillors to consider, which they expect will be ready in 6-8weeks (equating to late Sept / early Oct).

Council have still not provided any information on what the decision making process or timeframe will be once the site assessment report is presented to Councillors.

On Tuesday 17th August, the Newcastle Herald ran an online poll in addition to a news story they wrote regarding the formal complaint the group submitted to Council the afternoon before. While it was disappointing that the Herald didn't contact the group for comment on why the complaint was submitted, it was exciting to see strong community support for the garden in the accompanying online poll!

The Herald's poll asked the question: "Do you support a community garden at Bunya Park, Eleebana?". The result of this independent poll was a resounding "Yes, this is the best spot for it".

Thanks to all who voted and who are continuing to support this project - it will be such a wonderful asset for the community when it happens!

John, Ben and Steve met with the Department of Community Services (DOCS) on Wednesday 25th August to discuss the situation with the grant. Much to the relief of everyone, the department is sympathetic to our situation (waiting for council to decide on a site) and have indicated that some flexibility is appropriate.
 
There are 2 disadvantaged groups we'll be targeting with this project - young people aged 15-24 and elderly people over 65. The terms of the funding are that we are to demonstrate community engagement of these groups. Over the next year we will be encouraging participation in our workshops and working bees by these 2 groups and then measure the success by conducting surveys. DOCS explained to us the overall report on our project will be compiled at the end of the 12 month funding.
 
When it comes time to employ a caretaker for the garden, we need to advertise for the job in the local papers. The garden group will draw up the selection criteria for the position and draft an advertisement. To be impartial, the selection panel will probably consist of a DOCS employee and an appropriate 3rd party with sufficient background to make a determination on the candidates.
 
Once formal council approval is granted for the site, we can inform DOCS and the funding for capital works will be released to us.

If you would like more details please don't hesitate to contact us.

This month WBCG member Gavin has started filming an interesting documentary on the garden. The film is fully self funded by Gavin's business, with other WBCG members lending their time to assist where possible during the filming. The film aims to explore all of the viewpoints with regards to the community garden, including members, Councillors, local businesses, opposing parties and members of other local commuity gardens. It will hopefully result in a better understanding from all involved than what can be gained through the media. For more information on the film please contact Steve.

As you may be aware, Lake Macquarie resident Shirley Myles Gleghorn has researched, written and self-published an interesting book on the people of Warner's Bay and the surrounding area's. The book is a social history spanning from the 1800's to the new millennium and includes many wonderful photographs. It's interesting to note the Warners Bay area has a rich food growing history, with productive orchards, chinese market gardens and farms of which residents were very proud.

Shirley's book will be available for purchase at our market stalls, and Shirley has generously offered to donate a percentage of her sale price toward WBCG which we sincerely appreciate. For a great read and a new way to support the garden, why not treat yourself to a copy of this wonderful book! Copies of Shirley's book can also be ordered by contacting Trish ph: 4947 1821.

If you'd like any more information on the activities of the Warners Bay Community Garden please call or email Trish.
Click here for contact details.  
 

Sincerely,

 

Warners Bay Community Garden Inc.