VICTORIAN CONGRESS 2025

WOMEN CHANGING THE CLIMATE
A festival of women leading climate action

Castlemaine, Victoria, 28-30 March 2025
Venue: Castlemaine Town Hall, 25 Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine
This is an in-person event, not available by Zoom.

A CALL TO ALL WOMEN

The Women’s Climate Congress (WCC) invites women of Australia, in all our diversity, to come together with other women to explore how women are leading a national and international paradigm shift to promote more rapid action on climate change based on compassion, kindness, and care for all life on Earth.

Part congress and part festival, this event will mix deep conversation based on the urgency for women to continue to challenge the status quo in relation to the current climate change crisis.

It will be a chance to explore the Women’s Climate Congress Charter for Change.

PROGRAM OUTLINE

Friday 28 March: Arrive in Castlemaine starting 12 noon onward, settle into accommodation, participate in a range of activities to enjoy Castlemaine, including an opportunity to join other participants at a local venue for dinner (at own cost)
Saturday 29 March: Program at Town Hall including an evening activity with a shared dinner
Sunday 30 March: Program at Town Hall, concluding at 4 pm.

See our Victorian Congress 2025 webpage for further program details.

FEES AND INCLUSIONS

We offer the following rates as a guide for you to consider your contribution:

Generosity fee $500

Full fee 3 days $295
- Friday - $0
- Saturday only - $175 (includes evening event and dinner)
- Sunday only - $140

Supported fee 3 days $175
- Friday - $0
- Saturday only - $100
- Sunday only - $75

Flexible fee 3 days - pay what you can afford

See below for further information on our rationale behind these fees.

A donation option is also available if you are able to pay a little more than any of the above rates. Donations over $2 are tax deductible.

FOOD

The fees include all activities at the Town Hall including morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea on Sat 29 and Sun 30 March and a finger food dinner on Saturday 29 March.

Meals and any other activities on Friday 28 March will be at your own cost.

ACCOMMODATION OPTIONS

There will be some billets for accommodation, but in and around Castlemaine there is a camp ground, cabins, B&B availability, hotels and motels – just do an online search. Friday offers activities to settle in and enjoy Castlemaine, while the pre-paid events will occur on Saturday and Sunday. The Castlemaine Fringe Festival is on at the same time, so we encourage you to book well in advance.

If you would like to be billeted, please express your interest in this option on our registration form.

OUR INVITATION AND VALUES

We warmly invite women from all walks of life (cis, trans) and gender diverse people who feel drawn to our movement, to participate in this nonpartisan event. This includes those who may have limited capacity to pay the full fee.

We know that these are tough times financially for many people. In the interests of transparency, we have explained our philosophy for setting registration fees.

There are of course significant costs to running an event like this including venue hire, catering and audio-visual systems. The WCC is run by volunteers and we depend on donations to function. In our financial decisions we have tried to consider equity, cost-effectiveness, environmental impact and other WCC values. We operate from the principle of: 'offer what you can and ask for what you need'.

In this spirit, we invite you to decide what is within your capacity to pay. If you can, we invite you to offer the higher rates suggested in the registration site and/or give a donation. This helps to support other women to attend at lower cost. If you prefer, we invite you to pay either the lower fee, or if that is still too much, please use the flexible fee options and offer what you can. There are also ‘Melisa’ (honeybee) opportunities for women who want to assist with work tasks for an entry concession. Please contact organisers to discuss this option.

We would love you to attend for the whole time but if this does not work for you, there are 1-day options. There are hotel discounts available (see the registration site) and we can also offer free billeted accommodation. Please let Lyn know if you would like to take up this offer.

We hope that we have provided enough options for everyone to feel welcome at the event. The venue is wheelchair accessible and we will make every effort to help you if you have special requirements.

Too complicated? Need help?
Please contact the organisers for assistance - see below.

COVID SAFETY

We will comply with relevant COVID safety guidelines.

CONTACTS

For further information and assistance contact:

Margaret de Kam - mdk0550@icloud.com
Supriya Perera - supriya@mvsustainability.org.au