Community Bike Ride

Don’t forget the next Community Bike Ride this Thursday, its a great ride along the coast to Bruce’s Cafe, and great conversation over a cuppa!

10th Year Anniversary Monster raffle

We have a huge array of great prizes for our monster raffle! Keep an eye out for us around the community selling tickets, particularly outside Woolworths, and in local businesses. The tickets will be on sale until our Long Table Lunch in November. Also look out for our stall at Ecofest (see https://www.ecofesttas.com.au/), where you can buy tickets.

These are our main prizes:

1. Woolworths Wynyard $50 gift voucher 2. Lemon Tree Providore. 2 x $20  Voucher 3. Bunnings 2 x $50 Voucher 4. Amy Kusina   3 x $30 Food Voucher 5. Ideal Meats $25 Meat Voucher 6. Cafe Umami Vouchers 2 x $50 donated by Ruth Forrest 7. The Mallee Grill in Burnie $200 Meal Voucher 8.  Federal Hotel $50 Meal Voucher 9. Noah’s Coffee & Take Away $50 Meal Voucher 10. Capeview Nursery Cooee $100 Voucher 11. The Wharf Hotel $50 Food Voucher 12. Sweaty Penguins $400 Sauna Voucher 13. Waterfront Accommodation Wynyard -1 night accomm in King Superior room with breakfast for two.  14. Flourish Florist – pamper package 15. Wynyard Newsagent -an assortment of gifts. 16. Yolla Co-op – a large esky. 17. Edwards Landscaping & Supplies: potato growing kit valued at $74.50 and 5L Pump Free Garden Sprayer with accessories valued at $111 18. Cape County Upholstery: 1 x Leather Care Dual kit valued at $77 and 2 x Textile & Rug Spot Cleaners valued at $35 each. 19. Wynyard Hardware: collectors fridge 20. Betta Electrical Burnie: A Sunbeam Food Saver fresh Vacuum Sealer with extra zipper bags

Live Well Tas Social Activation (SAP) Team Update

Our LWT SAP team have been busy organizing events, with the very successful Low Impact Cooking event held Sat 28^th March with Tanya Kurzbock, Your Naturopath Online.  Big thanks to our LWT SAP youth team for organising this event. Also, thanks to our LWT Community Farm volunteers for providing fresh organically grown veggies that people purchased at the event.

We had a full house engaged in this very interesting and useful presentation about gut health, nutrient dense foods, food miles, shopping locally & seasonally, reducing food waste and much more.

Review for Saturday- Low Impact Cooking by Arnold House

What did you like about the event?

I liked the event because a lot of people showed and enjoyed the low impact cooking representation at the event and buying a lot of vegetables at the event.

What did you learn about the event?

I learn to manage the money so I can sell the vegetables and set up tables and chairs for the event and help people with signing on the sign in sheet

What went well with the event?

Attendees had a great time at the event, with the low-impact cooking demonstration being a highlight. The featured vegetables, organically grown at Oldina Farm, were supplied especially for the participants.

Tanya will be presenting more about Gut Health at this years North West Ecofest Tasmania, check out the full program https://www.ecofesttas.com.au/program Tanya will have a stall at the festival, pop by and say hi.

Harmony Day Event – Watershed Wynyard

Our SAP partnered with the Waratah Wynyard Council for their Harmony Day event. Our team created a ‘Care Pack’- which is a backpack full of things that help you to feel calm, give comfort and items to feel safe in stressful times and in emergencies. We also made and gave away key rings with affirmations and 5 things to do to become calm on them.

Kids and families took part in a creative craft activity, making meaningful hearts that represent harmony within ourselves and our community. All craft materials have been sustainably sourced from recycled items. Our team also had information packs and community resources available on simple ways to reduce waste and live well.

Biochar Workshop – 18^th April at the LWT Oldina Community Farm

Our next event is a Biochar Workshop at the LWT Oldina Community Farm on the 18^th April.

In this hands-on workshop you will learn about the process of making good biochar, as well as the diverse applications and benefits of biochar in building healthy living systems. 

Biochar production begins with turning carbon rich material into charcoal. A range of methods may be used and for this workshop you’ll be guided in using the Live Well Tasmania cone kiln. 

Throughout the workshop we’ll discuss suitable materials for making charcoal and the next steps in processing and applying it within your garden, farm or land restoration project.  

Particularly given current fuel prices we are promoting and encouraging the idea of car-pooling. Check out the flyer for more information and our fb page.

Learn how to grow veggies with Elspeth Brock – Saturday 2^nd May 10

Elspeth will help you learn to grow your own food, information about composting, multi harvest varieties to grow and the benefits of low food miles and local adaptations. These all help to Reduce Waste & Food Miles, WIN WIN RSVP to Kelly by the 30th of April, email [email protected], or ph. 0498 315 298

Snake Handling Course Review by Colby (from the SAP team)

The snake handling course was made available by the Circular Head Aboriginal Corporation (CHAC) and was run by Scott Smith, North West Snake Catcher. We learned a lot about the native species of snakes in Tasmania, the copperhead, tiger, and white lip snake. Some things I knew like tiger snakes being one of the most venomous snakes in Australia and that they are one of the most aggressive snakes, but I also learned a bunch of new things like that copperhead snakes grow larger and are more robust compared to tiger snakes, snakes in Tasmania give live birth as it’s too cold to lay eggs, tiger snakes on an island off of Tasmania have stronger venom to not only kill the mutton bird chicks faster but to also digest and break them down faster as well. We also learned how to provide first aid when bitten by a snake.

After learning all of these things we then began learning how to catch and handle snakes using tongs to grab the snake, a stick to hold the upper part of the snake in place, and bags to safely catch and contain the tiger snakes. We practiced with a more tame tiger snake then a more wild one. We then learned how to pick up with the hook and our bear hand grabbing the back end of the snake.

What I enjoyed most about this course was learning more about such a unique animal and how to safely handle them to protect not just people but the snakes as well, snakes are such extraordinary creatures, they have been around since the Cretaceous period over 100 million years ago, there are so many unique kind of snake and we are so lucky to have them in our world.

Compassionate Communication

I recently went to a two day workshop on compassionate communication, which is a way of speaking and listening that focuses on honesty, empathy, and human needs, rather than blame, criticism, or control. It is a language that aims to inspire compassion and joyful relationships in all areas of life, and hence to “make life more wonderful”. Called “A Language of Life”, it was developed by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, and it’s widely used in relationships, workplaces, education, therapy, and conflict resolution. It is based on the idea that everyone has the same basic needs, and that conflicts arise from unmet needs—not from people being “bad” or wrong. Often in our communication, particularly when we feel stressed, conflict can escalate where people feel attacked, and they respond by defending themselves or counter-attacking. People often want to communicate more compassionately but run into a number of obstacles. These barriers aren’t character flaws—they’re habits shaped by culture, stress, power dynamics, and how our brains handle threat. When people are angry, afraid, hurt and/or ashamed, their brain tends to shift into fight, flight and/or freeze mode. Reflective thinking shuts down, language becomes reactive, such “always”, “never”, etc, and our goal becomes protection, not understanding. Sounds familiar?

During the course we practiced a framework of non-judgmental observation of events that might upset us, thinking about the feelings that arise as a result, and identifying what basic needs might feel unmet. If we can communicate that calmly to the person who has upset us, a resolution of the problem that satisfies both parties can occur. It’s a very powerful process for making our lives so much better by assertive but empathic communication.

If anyone is interested in learning more about compassionate communication, let us know!