Reforestation Project, Docklands

Community garden a step closer
(article from Docklands Community News)

Docklands has come a step closer to achieving a community garden with the establishment of a demonstration urban agriculture project in Victoria Harbour.

A project of the Future Canvas organisation, the garden is a six-month experiment playfully called “reforestation” and is the brain-child of 25-year-old environmentalist Emily Ballantyne-Brodie.

Ms Ballantyne-Brodie said Docklanders could expect to see food grown in raised beds in a small plot on Victoria Harbour in front of Dock 5.

“It’s a demonstration in the art of being sustainable every day,” she said. “Sustainable living is about well being and it’s about being active. And gardening is part of that.”

“We aim to use this garden as both a wonderful source of organic food, to find out about the Docklands community opinion for a longer term garden and a community art project,” she said.

“We hope that it will become a hub for the community to gather, get to know each other, and learn a bit about how they can garden and recycle organic waste from inner-city homes.”

She said the site would be used to run programs such as composting, worm-farming, wise water use and to encourage people to think about how they acquire food.

Reforestation hopes to run environmental education programs with local businesses, primary schools and youth drop-in centres in the City of Melbourne, and work alongside existing sustainable lifestyle events such as Ride To Work Day on October 14.

“We have had amazing support from the City of Melbourne, Lend Lease and VicUrban, and we hope that we can really get to know the community while we’re here and find out what they would really love to see in a community garden,” Ms Ballantyne-Brodie said.



http://issuu.com/ellieschroeder/docs/reforestationproposal/6?zoomed=&zoomPercent=&zoomX=&zoomY=¬eText=¬eX=¬eY=&viewMode=magazine

Blitz Day Schedule

Future Canvas Thread - April

Howdy,

Welcome to the Thread, a weekly heads-up on the flurry of activity taking place at Future Canvas’ home at the Docklands.

Upcoming events

Reforestation Meeting: Thursday April 9, 6:30 at the Shed.

Future Canvas Meeting: Friday April 17, 5:30-7:30 at the Shed to discuss key outcomes of Michael and Mel's review of Future Canvas and get views/consensus on these changes. There will also be an update on the FC Space Launch.

Future Canvas Space Launch: Join us for a night of celebration as we toast the opening of the FC space at the Docklands.

FC Space Blitz: Join us for an adventurous day fusing art, fashion, gardening, composting and sculpture creation at Shed 4.

How you can help out

We have a superb Reforestation sponsorship proposal which we are keen to circulate. If you have any contacts who may be interested in supporting Reforestation through financial or in-kind donation please contact Ash at Ashley.Chaleyer@futurecanvas.org.

Future Canvas Space Launch: May 2009: We need door people, bar people, people interested in co-ordinating a fashion show/art show, catering people, sound technicians, artists, event organisers, publicity/promotions helpers, muscle power for set up and pack up...and of course we welcome any form of sponsorship for the event! Contact joel.carnegie@futurecanvas.org

FC Space Blitz: May 2009: We need marketing people, events management people, promotion people, postering people, letter drop, furniture makers, carpenters, artists, gardeners, Bolsheviks or just about anyone, Contact melissa.schellekens@futurecanvas.org

Future Canvas: If you are a grant-writing guru, finance person, film person, artist, it or web person, marketing person or just about anyone contact melissa.schellekens@futurecanvas.org

Future Canvas

The last week has been bustling for Future Canvas. Some of the highlights include:
Future Canvas is developing a range of sub-Google Groups to streamline project management and target action and e-mail traffic.The groups will come on-line early next week.These sub-groups will be the nucleus for certain activities/projects and each group will have a moderators/leaders as set out below:
Future Canvas: (the main group that we already have)
Future Canvas Reforestation: (the garden, cafe, etc)
Future Canvas Media: (inc. video production, the website, 3D media)
Future Canvas Enterprise: (the Showcase can be a project of that group)
Future Canvas Arts: (the Shed 4 art space)
Future Canvas Events: (inc. the launch party, markets, fora)
Future Canvas Partners: (aka, the committee)
Stay tuned for these groups!

Em spent a few days this week in Sydney meeting with the Greenpages team and other important Future Canvas partners and stakeholders.

Melissa Shellkens and Michael Chew have been working with Ash, Em and Steve to further develop Future Canvas' processes, strategy and general efficiency. Michael and Mellissa spent most of last Friday developing a more streamlined governance model and review of FC's development since 2007.

Joel Carnegie has been working extremely hard to organise the Future Canvas Space Launch in May. Stay tuned for this event, it promises to be golden.

Steve McGrail and Dan Mullerworth, two key pillars of the Futurelab event visited the Shed and have shown an interest in working with FC in the coming weeks. We are delighted at the prospect of working with Dan and Steve again.

Over the next month Steve is running a review of FC's accounting processes to ensure this aspect of FC is being run using best practice.

Future Canvas is now on Twitter...keep an eye on our 'tweets'
Reforestation

The last week has been busy for Future Canvas’ Reforestation Project. Some of the highlights include:
Serious planning and organisation has begun for Future Canvas' Blitz. Meg Argyriou and Emily Ballantyne-Brodie are working diligently on a plan for the event.

Thanks to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show, Future Canvas has been given an enormous array of mulch, wood and steel which would normally be thrown out by the show's exhibitors. Thank you Cat for organising this !

Representatives from SP Ausnet came to visit Shed 4 on Friday (despite the pouring rain) and were very impressed with the team's vision. We will keep you posted on any further developments.

Melissa Schellekens and Ash Chaleyer have begun the process of forming the Docklands Reforestation Steering Committee, a key panel of stakeholders from the Docklands area who will help to guide the Reforestation Project. This is a key initiative which will further advance the Reforestation project.

The National Australia Bank's Tanya Watkins has kindly offered to prepare a communications strategy for the Reforestation Project. This will add great effectiveness to the Reforestation project and will enable us to convey our key messages clearly and strategically. Stay tuned for for more updates.

Finalisation of the Reforestation sponsorship proposal. This has been circulated to some key potential sponsors for the project. We will keep you posted on any further developments which flow from this.