Land-based community food organisations - Sustain / CGA members & supporters meet-up - JUNE 2024

Want to learn how to successfully raise funds / revenue for your existing or upcoming community gardens or other urban agriculture project?  In this webinar you'll discover the tips & tricks to economic stability for your food production not-for-profit, community garden, or social enterprise.

Our first members' meet up held on 29th April was a great success. We had people joining from all over the country, from different organisations and backgrounds, to hear from Churchill Fellow Clytie Binder about the work her and her team do, plus the launch of LOCCAL - the LOcal Community Compost Alliance (Australia). 

Attending were reps from Permaculture Sydney South, Pakenham Community Garden, Garfield Community Garden, Bellingen Community Garden, Naarm City Compost Network, Heywood Community Garden, Mandurah Community Garden, Byron Bay Public School Garden, the Community Plate initiative, Australian National University and Ediblescapes Project, amongst others. Folks representing Vic, ACT, NSW, QLD and WA - a great spread across the country. 

Ideas for future sessions included: 

• fundraising for community gardens
• preserving / creating green spaces in new developments
  
• conversations with social enterprises to develop income-generating projects
• security issues at community gardens
• finding, training, and retaining volunteers

As we discussed in detail in our 2022 mapping and needs assessment report on urban agriculture, (commercial and non-commercial), in Victoria - Growing Edible Cities and Towns, funding and revenue-raising for community gardens and other urban agriculture projects plus organisations is such a critical challenge. It was one of our six key pillars of our Roadmap for Transformation:

So in our second members' meet up for 2024 we'll be focusing on this crucial topic. 

Nick Rose, Sustain's Executive Director has extensive experience in fundraising and revenue generation, (Sustain has raised sufficient funds to employ over 30 people since 2016). Nick will share some of his insights in the first part of this session. Then, along with Viktor Faulknor who is Wollert Community Farm Lead, plus Community Garden Australia's National Co-ordinator Naomi Lacey, all three will share key updates from each organisation in an open discussion. 

This event is free for members of Sustain and CGA! If you are not a member you can join Sustain here and CGA here.

This is the second series of joint members & supporters meet-ups we'll be organising this year - so help us grow this movement and become a member!  

Speaker Bios:

Viktor Faulknor, Wollert Community Farm Lead

Viktor brings a range of educational, work and life experiences to his role as Wollert Community Farm Lead at Whittlesea Community Connections, including a broad knowledge base in sustainability, environment and permaculture. He has strong practical skills in land management and building, having developed two rural properties, retrofitted a city home for suburban homesteading and worked as a carpenter and handyman. 

In the 2000s he established and ran a business taking small group adventure tours in Mongolia. His tertiary studies yielded a Diploma of Permaculture, Bachelor of Arts and Master of Environment, while he has worked in diverse educational settings, as a primary school teacher, a permaculture trainer at CERES, and university tutor and researcher. 

Working to progress community well-being and empowerment, food security, biodiversity and First Nation’s led initiatives through Wollert Community Farm is a privilege he relishes.

Naomi Lacey, President Community Gardens Australia

Naomi is a permaculturalist who is passionate about promoting healthy food systems, sustainable lifestyles and cultivating community. She helped to establish the first community garden in the satellite city of Palmerston in Darwin and is currently the President of the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network.

Naomi believes that community gardens provide valuable spaces in which to cultivate sustainable lifestyles and healthy food systems in our cities. They are also a wonderful way of bringing people together to share, learn, grow and enjoy the many benefits of growing their own food.

Nick Rose, Executive Director, Sustain: The Australian Food Network

Nick has been the Executive Director of Sustain since its establishment in January 2016. With a background In law and community development, Nick brings more than a decade of working at the grassroots and institutional level in several Australian states in food sovereignty and sustainable food systems. He is the editor of "Fair Food: Stories From a Movement Changing The World (2015)" and the co-editor of "Reclaiming The Urban Commons: The Past, Present and Future of Food Growing in Australian Towns And Cities (2018)." Nick is also a lecturer in food systems, food policy and governance and food movements for William Angliss Institute in their Bachelor of Food Studies and Master of Food Systems and Gastronomy.

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SPECIAL NOTICE

Sustain is currently running a crowd-funding campaign to support the recovery of food production capacity in the Gaza strip, which has, (and continues to be), devastated by the ongoing genocidal violence being waged against the people of Gaza by Israel. We have been asked to run this campaign by the leadership of the Gaza Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture Platform, with whom we worked to raise $25,000 to support members of the Gazan Urban Women Agripreneurs Forum in 2021 after the May 2021 Israeli bombing campaign. 

For more info, plus contribute to our efforts to help the small-scale women producers of Gaza recover and rebuild their enterprises, to work towards food sovereignty in Gaza, please visit the campaign page on our website.