Melton Sustainable Living Group

This coming Saturday (26 October '13) the Melton Sustainable Living Group are having a bumper meeting - first a tour of the sustainability features of Melton's new library, then a workshop to plan our future events! We will kick off at 10am with the sustainability features tour, run by Kellie from Melton City Council. After some morning tea, we will then get into planning our future events. We welcome your enthusiasm, ideas and offers, including joint activities with other local groups. If you would like to join the group, please email Patrick (our secretary) at meltonsustainblelivinggroup@gmail.com

We had a great turn out for the Group AGM yesterday at Kim & Gavin's place. A huge vote of thanks was given to them and David for their work over the past few years, along with Stacey and Michael (the 2012/13 committee's ordinary members). Gavin, Kim and their family are taking a break from the group for the next year, but we hope to see them at an activity in the near future. We elected a new committee for 2013/14: Stacey W (president), Jan M (Treasurer), Patrick Mc (Secretary), Jonathan C and Mandie M (ordinary members). The committee have their first meeting next weekend, and will soon be in contact with members to arrange the new calendar of activities. If you have any questions, feel free to email the group or leave us a comment below.

Hi Members and friends,   Based on a survey of members, we have chosen Saturday 27 July at 2pm to hold the AGM for the Melton Sustainable Living Group.   We are delighted that nearly all members are continuing with the group, and that we have nominations for all committee positions in 2013/14 (more nominations are still welcome).   We will be sending the nominations list shortly, along with some other information. If you have any questions, just leave a comment or send us an email.    

  You’re invited to four FREE workshops You’ll be able to: • learn from energy & gardening experts • meet your neighbours • tackle climate change and sustainability in new and creative ways with your community. The Australian Conservation Foundation GreenHome program will help you reduce your environmental impact and take practical steps to save water and energy, produce less waste and grow local food. Tuesday 11th May Greening your home - part 1: Becoming energy efficient Learn more about energy efficiency, workshop ideas and hear from energy experts. Tuesday 18th May Greening your home - part 2: Gardening towards a sustainable future Special guest: Vasili Kanidiadis – presenter of Vasili’s Garden SBS. Hear form Vasili and other gardening guru’s about having a water efficient veggie patch, composting and worm farming. Tuesday 25th May Community actions for tackling climate change - part 1 Hear from inspiring speakers and tackle climate change in new and c...

The group got together for our monthly meeting this afternoon, and we had a great time learning about how Michael keeps his garden green during the summer months even with the scorching temperatures we have here in Melton.  He has a fantastic irrigation system set up that is all fed by rainwater and the bi-weekly mains water we are allowed whilst on water restrictions. Just last Saturday his garden featured on Vasili’s Garden which airs on the community Channel 31.  It used to be shown on SBS. Here is the write up about what Vasili thought about Michael’s garden; and here is the 25 minute episode which was very entertaining and the entire family got involved. Here are some photos taken by Kim during the workshop. Some of the members listening intently to Michael, The proud gardener! Green everywhere. The runner bean bed. The broad beans are still going. H...

All I can say is that I believe that our stand at the DJ festival was a success and fun to boot.  Not only did we get the message out into the community that we exist, met many like minded people from other environmental groups in our shire, we made $121 for the group by selling plants grown by Michael, Jan and Gavin, chicken and duck eggs donated by Jan, and T-Shirts and hats for members provided by Kim.  I must say the the Sunflower plants were the biggest seller of the day followed by the salad gardens and the multitude of heirloom tomatoes. It was a great day, and it was good to see that many members and volunteers were able to man the stand throughout the day.  Here are some photos of the event taken early in the morning. Setting up at the start of the day The first shift.  Left to right; Amanda, Amy & David Inside the marquee as you move from left to right; The Gardening Panel.  Green Cleaning and Energy efficiency panels Pou...

Hi Members and Friends, Great news for those who expressed interest in cheese making courses.  There will be two courses held at the Melton South Community Centre in November 2009.  Here are the details from the Melton Shire Learning Directory Term 4: Cheese Making - Basic Class Make your choice of either Wensleydale, Feta, Haloumi, Parmesan or Cheddar. You can then add your own spices and flavours to personalise you cheese. Date: Sunday 8 November 2009 from 10.00am - 3.00pm Cost: $55.00 includes lunch Contact:    Melton South Community Centre Cheese Making - Mould Course Choose from Brie, Camembert, Blue Vein or Stilton. These soft cheeses have the addition of either white or blue mould and have a slightly different preparation technique. Date:    Sunday 15 November 2009 from 10.00am - 3.00pm Cost:    $65.00 includes lunch Contact: Melton South Community Centre To book call the community centre direct during business hours. Melton South Community Centre Inc 26 Exford Rd, Melton South ...

Don't forget that Sunday 13th September is Sustainable House Day.  If anyone is interested in visiting a few homes in our area have a look at the link for details. http://www.sustainablehouseday.com/ If a few members want to get together and have a look at a few within a 100km radius of Melton, let me know, we may be able to organise a quick excursion.  Happy to give the Hybrid a flog for the day!  Email me at my normal address if interested. Gav

Well, what a great day out we had on Saturday!  Only a few members came along, but we had a great time at CERES this weekend. There was Gavin, Michael, David, Kim and Ben and Liam.  Kim was taking the photos.  We spent about 3 hours walking around the Community Environment Park, and it was great fun.  Here are a few photos of our visit. Renewable energy galore! Now that is what I call a bakery.  Ben sampled a croissant and said it was yummy! This is where the Cafe gets most of its food from. Fresh organic fruit.  The labels even had the food miles listed on them. Organic Free Range chickens of the ISA Brown variety.  They had so much land to run around in.  About 2 acres I reckon. The cob oven was pretty cool.  It even had its own herbs growing on top of it.   With wonderful mosaics.  Kim wanted to give it a go.  There were mosaics all over the park and it added a lot of colour to a winters...

This fortnight we have an evening meeting on Thursday, 2nd July, at the Melton Community Hall, meeting room 4, from 7-9pm.  The meeting will start dead on 7.00pm as we have a full programme, so please be a little early.  The hall will be open from 6.30pm onwards.  I have invited the team at ecoMaster to come along and present to us, and they have kindly accepted.  Listed below is what they intend on covering in two presentations; The most effective presentation would be about the Fed. Govt program which starts on 1st July.  Our group will be the first ever group in Australia to be presented with the Home Sustainability Assessments and the Green Loans program. We will cover: LYN: what is a home sustainability assessment and how does that work with a 'green loan' what is the purpose of the green loans scheme potential benefits the 'mechanics' of the scheme  eligibility for the loa...

I received this email from our local council.  It is a great way to get a small Solar PV system at a bargain rate as low as $1600 for a 1kW system!  I wish this deal was around when I purchased my system. Melton Council is currently participating in a solar panel bulk purchasing scheme - The 'Solar Suburbs' scheme. This scheme has been led by Brimbank City Council and other participating western region councils include Hume, Moorabool, Wyndham and Moonee Valley. The scheme represents an opportunity for residents of Melton to take advantage of the $8000.00 Federal Government Solar Rebate (which finishes on June 30th), benefit from the reduced costs associated with bulk purchasing of products, save on future electricity bills and do something positive for the environment . Although the current solar rebate will be replaced with another subsidy scheme after June 30th, the new subsidy will likely be of lower value. A commercial provider, Clear Solar , has been...

People often ask me why I grow my own food.  I simply reply that it gives me freedom.  I can eat fresh, wholesome food straight from the garden, in the sound knowledge that it did not come from far away, or was raised using pesticides,herbicides or fossil fuels.  I am providing food for my family’s needs.  What could be more sustainable than that? Here is a good example.  The Dervaes family who live in Pasadena, CA in the USA that have achieved amazing things on the same sized suburban block that many Australians own.  Theirs is a 809 square metre block and just about every single scrap of land is used to grow food.  It is a very inspiring story. And a longer video about the family and their Path to Freedom; Did you notice they they didn’t have any rainwater tanks?  Somehow I think that if any of us went to this extreme, we would have to have a 50,000 litre tank squirreled away somewhere! Anyway, sorry about the mass of date changes ...

I have just discovered a wonderful source of information.  It is Greenlivingpedia , and is written in the style of Wikipedia. Have a look at this link, http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Australian_climate_action_groups#Victoria .  I think you will all be pleasantly surprised! Don’t forget that the next meeting is at Gavin’s house at 1500 on Saturday the 18th of April.  I will write up the agenda over the weekend.  I expect the official part of the meeting to go for about 2 hours as we have a fair bit to get through. See you there.