Creating culture, taking action and building resilience

October Culture Club

This is a watch and learn workshop.
No bookings required - just rock up on the day.
This is a free event - everyone is welcome.
See you there!

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Want to save the planet but don't want to go it alone?

Hook in with local climate action group - Extinction Rebellion Daylesford

Their aims are to raise awareness in our local community as well as participate in non-violent direct action locally and in Melbourne.

Calling all musos. dancers, singers, performers and everyone for a FLASH MOB style action coming soon!


Non-violent direct action workshop

Saturday October 5

1pm – 3pm

Senior Citizen's Hall (rear Daylesford Town Hall)

Run by Extinction Rebellion Daylesford.

For those interested in participating in the week of action planned in Melbourne from October 7 or other future events.

This is a free event and everyone is welcome to attend.

RSVP on the FB event, or just come along.

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Facing Fire

Now that spring has sprung, it's time to start thinking about how you are going to prepare for the bushfire season ahead. HRN has some fire rakes and other tools available to borrow for free. Perhaps you might like to organise a working bee in your street or in a nearby gully with some friends or family? Please email us for more details about the tools.

HRN has a dedicated page on bushfire info, which you can find here.

Hepburn's own David Holmgren was recently interviewed for a Canadian film about bushfire resilience and understanding fire (as opposed to fighting fire), which you can watch below. (If you are reading this in your inbox you will have to click through to the blog to watch it.)

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Some reminders re upcoming events:

Saturday Oct 5: Daylesford Culture Club - Spring clean your gut

Saturday Oct 5: Non-Violent Direct Action Training with XR Daylesford 

Saturday Oct 12: Daylesford Community Food Gardens monthly working bee

Saturday Oct 19: Wild Fennel

Sunday Oct 20: Daylesford Repair Café

The last harvest of the season + Frenemy Fire

Hello vegetable lovers!

The crew at Captain's Creek Organics are just about to harvest the last of the season's veggies: carrots, beets, cabbages, radishes, leeks, onions, silverbeet, and everybody's favourite: weird looking broccoli.

From 1pm to 5pm this coming Wednesday (August 7), at 16 Fourteenth Street Hepburn, you can come and take as many organic veggies as you'd like for a gold coin donation to HRN.

Please note the veggies will be picked on the day, and will be unwashed. Please bring your own boxes/bags.

Many thanks to Serge for growing the veggies, and to Jacques for co-ordinating the picking and sharing.

See you Wednesday arvo!

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Internationally renowned environmental historian Stephen J. Pyne is visiting Castlemaine while on tour in Australia. Professor Pyne will be giving a talk at Phee Broadway Theatre on

Thursday 8th August 

6.30pm - 8.30pm

Entitled 'Frenemy Fire: the best of friends, the worst of enemies,' Stephen's talk will draw on his work on the history of fire in Australia and globally, along with his experience as a fire fighter, to discuss how we can best live with fire as a friend, not just an enemy.

Stephen is one of the first authors to explore fire stick farming (indigenous use of fire for shaping the land). Stephen’s stories weave together fire science, fire history and cultures of fire across the ages and across the globe.

This event will provide practical ways that people living in central Victoria can understand fire management as it relates to them.

Stephen is Emeritus Professor at Arizona State University, and a much sought after speaker on fire. You can catch watch his TED Talk for a preview.

    You can book tickets at: www.trybooking.com/BEHPH

    Tickets are $12 or $10 (concession and Fryerstown residents).

    Light supper is included.

    Look forward to seeing you there.

How are you going?

A couple of months ago the editor of the U.S. journal, Natural Hazards Observer, published by the University of Colorado, invited bushfire safety expert Joan Webster to write an article on ‘the fate of the Australian policy of leave early or stay and defend.’ You can read her article here.

It has been archived in the Bushfire Preparation section of this blog, which you can find in the top right menu tab. Well worth a look as we head into the warmer months.

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Hop on your bike and head on over to Paradise Books on Friday Oct 4 for the book launch of Changing Gears:

Looking for inspiration about how to simplify their lives, Greg Foyster and Sophie Chishkovsky cycle from Melbourne to Far North Queensland (via Tasmania, naturally). Preposterously underprepared, they are propelled by the many inspiring and eccentric characters they meet – from a forest activist living up a tree to an 18th-century woodsman and a monk walking barefoot through Queensland. Featuring eye-opening encounters with DIY downshifters and leading figures in sustainability, Changing Gears is a jaunty adventure that explores an important question for the future: can we be happier with less?

Click for bigger

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And speaking of bikes, here are some pics from last Sunday's e-bike demonstration:

If you weren't able to make it, you can always contact Sam at Ballarat e-Bikes directly.

Kinglake & Kitchen

Day 1 of the Kinglake Regenerating People Place Prosperity Preparedness conference was truly a knockout. With so many speakers the day promised to be almost too full, but in groups of three the speakers managed to bounce off each other, stick to time constraints and be up for questions at the end of each session.

The content, as you may have seen in the program, is broad ranging due to the inspired organisation of Daryl Taylor. This event was made possible with monies from the 2009 Black Saturday fires funding for badly affected areas.

See if you can make it to Day 2 of this event on Sunday May 5th—National Permaculture Day—to celebrate the best of lessons learned in the wake of disasters close to home.

Inspiring stuff!

Please email us for car pooling options.

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Gardening Volunteers Wanted

The Kitchen Garden program at Daylesford Primary School is looking for volunteers. If anyone is available to assist, even for one session, please contact Jennifer Thompson at the school on 5348 2480. Other Shire schools would be also interested in Volunteers for their gardening programs with students; it's a great way of helping the younger generation go green.

Regenerating...

Regenerating People Place Prosperity Preparedness is a two day conference exploring a diverse range of community regeneration and disaster preparedness issues and opportunities, experiential learning and the latest in-depth research findings.

Featuring fire scientist Kevin Tolhurst, ecological historians Tom Griffiths and Bill Gammage, trauma psychiatrist Paul Valent, economic regeneration consultants Peter Kenyon and David Engwicht, social entrepreneurs Margi O’Connell and Jan Owen, climate modeler Penny Whetton, sustainability activist Cam Walker, community safety policy experts John Handmer and Blythe McLennan and socio-ecological resilience practitioners David Holmgren and Erin Bohensky.

You can download the program here.

For those who are unable to attend, the event will be filmed and hopefully screened at an upcoming HRN film night.

For those who are able to attend, please email us for carpooling possibilities.

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Wild Foods: Regaining Local Knowledge 

Want to know more about what local food you can eat for free without doing any work, except for a restorative walk? Join Patrick Jones for a four hour forage on the outskirts of Daylesford identifying edible-medicinal leaves, seeds, mushrooms and fruits that constitute bush foods, weeds and other naturalising plants. Learn some of the eighty-five species that Jones and his family incorporate into their diets.

Saturdays starting 20th April till end of term
1-5pm (all weather except torrential rain)
$30 per person
Contact Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre for bookings on 5348 3569 or daylesford@ourneighbourhood.org.au

Community dinner, update on the Chile project and a message from Rob Hopkins

So, December has arrived fast and our last event for the year is a dinner so let us have an evening of pleasure with a shared table of local food, an update from Chile on their building project that we raised the $6000 for and a message from Rob Hopkins that was delivered to the MAV day that was held around the theme of transition at Flemington Racecourse last month. We (the small Shire that we are) had 7 people from our local community, including John Collins and Jill Berry from the Council in attendance so Transition is definitely on our priority list in Hepburn Shire. Rob's message is quite inspiring so we look forward to seeing it together. It will be at the Savoia as usual at 7.30pm Friday December 10th.
Also, if it takes your fancy, bring a song a short story, a poem or a skit for us all to enjoy.
Please book.
And if you need a new something to wear, you might just find it at the clothing swap at Breakfast and Beer on the same afternoon between 3 and 6pm

Don't worry if you forgot  the Bushfire Prep working bee at the Hepburn Hollow on Sunday 28th November, it was too wet. BUT do continue to do fire prep around you home; it may seem wet but who knows when the grass will dry off and become a fire hazard;  the HRN tools are always available here for you to borrow. The hollow is starting to look good so take a bike ride, maybe pack a picnic and have a peek.
A couple of inspiring blogs, one local and one a bit further away
 Finally, the Melliodora Solstice Party is on Saturday December 18th. By invite only. Mail us.