Care Farming Open Day at Oldina

We were extremely blessed with wonderful weather for our Care Farming Open Day at our Community farm at Oldina. We had a good crowd, who enjoyed a Garden Tour, a guided bush walk, then some Qigong and gentle movement in the Discover Nature Classroom space. There was also billy tea, clapstick making, and arts and crafts such as bush crowns. We had a talk on preserving food, and enjoyed tastings of five different types of fruit leather, including myrtus berry, cape gooseberry, blackberry, apple and pear.

Thanks to everyone who attended, we are proud to annouce that we have harvested over 300 kilograms of produce for the ROC Community Food Hub’s in Wynyard and Somerset. The project continues to deliver great mental health benefits of being out in nature, and having our hands in the soil. We thank the Tasmanian State Government for funding this great project.

Social Activation Program (SAP)

LWT SAP Team have achieved one of their goals last month for this program. We collaborated with the Waratah-Wynyard Council, 7UP, Circular Head Aboriginal Corp. (CHAC) and bighART to deliver activities for a youth week event held in Wynyard. The moto for Youth Week was “Courage: Stepping out of your comfort zone” which is so apt for our team as 3 out of the 4 have never done anything like this in their life and loved every minute and aspect of it. Even when they felt challenged at the thought of all they needed to do to organise everything, yet they all showed up and ended up with the biggest smiles on their faces. The SAP team also invited our local aboriginal organisation CHAC to come along and they did willingly, providing and delivering the Welcome to Country, Smoking Ceremony and Yarning Circle for the event.

The SAP team also increased their skills, as follows:

• Event planning, organisation of events/activites, event coordination, event administration, and event facilitation
• Poster designs and creating 
• Marketing – They did their own Radio promo’s at Coast FM, flyer drops, contacting media outlets
• Organising their own activities – all aspects from conceptions, decision making, organising materials and items for their stall/activity, marketing and more.
• They designed their own SAP logo, also learning the process of ordering, purchasing and designing the t-shirts with their logos on them. And to have them ready on time for the event and within our budget.

What the SAP team delivered on the day:

• Nintendo Switch: Jarrik had his Nintendo Switch available for people play Mario Kart, he also encouraged the youth to come and chat with him
• Sharman’s Art Corner: Colby set up a space for people to come and draw and check out his creations and he assisted people with ideas for their art pieces
• Chill Out Zone: We set up a space for people to Chill, bean bags, rugs and cushions all set up under the canopy of the 150yr Old Oak Tree
• Suggestion Box – Let your voice be heard! We asked youth to put in suggestions for what they would like to see to benefit them in their community. The SAP team will report the findings to the councillors of Waratah-Wynyard.
• Community Art Work: The Team had a canvas that they projected their logo onto and left space for the community to add their hand print to it in many different colours. The Team would like this art work to be hung on the Live Well Tasmania’s Community Centre fence, the design is their SAP logo

Joy & Gratitude – We will continue at the start of every session to share with each other what brought us joy since we last met. This gives us an opportunity to focus on what is bringing them joy whilst going about their everyday business. It’s a great chance to share this with their peers. At times we will also write down 5 things that we are grateful for.

The ROC Food Hub – SAP continue helping the ROC pack up every Friday at the end of the food hub, which the elderly volunteers are so grateful for their help with washing dishes, wiping tables and benches, packing all the items and boxes away, packing up tables, sweeping floors and any other jobs the ROC volunteers would like our team to do. Also, lots of interacting with people, the ROC are very grateful for their continued help (as their volunteers have limited mobility).

Live Well Tas Oldina Community Farm Track Signage. The SAP team are designing and creating signs for the LWT Oldina Community Farm Walk to the Grandmother tree and other beautiful and significant spots. One of the participants invited his grandfather in to assist them with the signs and he has offered to help them construct them once they are finished. Another community member offered her expertise and Cricket machine to cut out the stencils for the signs.  First of all, the team visited the farm and walked the 1km track and soaked up the beauty of nature, they loved it and are looking forward to more walks out there.

Events for May/Volunteer events

May is a busy month for us with a mix of volunteer training and a Volunteer Expo, and some other events such as a Community Conversation run by Relationships Australia Tasmania.

Here is the list of events:

2nd May, 10am -12.30pm –Self-Care & Wellbeing Workshop, Volunteers free, RSVP to Robin 0421 461 724

14th May, 9.30am to 1pm, Accidental Counsellor course, Volunteers free, others $220, RSVP to Robin 0421 461 724  

19th May, 3pm to 4pm – Community Conversation “What does a Connected and Respectful Tasmania look like?”, enquiries to Robin 0421 461 724

22nd May, 11am to 3pm, Volunteers Expo, linking volunteers to organisations, free light lunch, enquiries to Robin 0421 461 724

 28th May, 9am to 3pm, First Aid (full course and refresher), Volunteers free, others $180 full certificate, $60 refresher, RSVP to Robin 0421 461 724

17th July, Effective Communication for Mental Wellbeing, Volunteers free, RSVP to Robin 0421 461 724