Group Meeting – 17th November 2024

Another great get together at the Community Gardens, with another yummy meal shared. Permaculture Ethic “People Care” is what this gathering is all about. It’s community caring and sharing!

We started our usual round table discussion with a summary of the recent meeting of the Events Committee. We wanted feedback regarding having a second meeting in the month. The group have agreed to trial a return to the Art Gallery on the first Monday of the month. This will be a different format to what it was and will be as well as the gathering at the Community Gardens.

The format will be more formal, with a guest speaker and then question time. The speaker will present something with a permaculture focus and could be a local member or an invited guest. We will trial this for 6 months. More details will be forthcoming next year. We will continue to have our more social gathering on the 3rd Sunday of the month at the Community Gardens.

We also had a brief discussion on introducing a yearly membership fee. This would allow access to the website and all meetings – we would no longer charge the $2 meeting fee. This will also be decided on next year.

Lani suggested we have some sort of book or film digest to share titles within the group. Renee said that she had planned to put a bibliography on the website. We could also get a list together of suitable books and take it to the Gympie Regional Library and see if they can get some of them in. Lani is currently reading “Wilding” and recommended it to the group. Read more here: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/isabella-tree/wilding/9781509805105 She also said that “Biggest Little Farm” is a lovely movie. I would agree with that! Lani is leaving the area soon. It will be sad to see her go as she has contributed a lot to the group over the years. We wish her well with the move and settling into her new house and life closer to Brisbane. If you’d like to catch up with her before she leaves, come along to the Christmas Party. Gympie Permaculture Group Christmas Party – Gympie Permaculture

Pete added to this discussion on resources and suggested Morag Gambles Film Club. She hosts a monthly film on Zoom. See more here: Free monthly Permaculture Film Club – hosted by Morag Gamble He also suggested Happen Films – Stories for a More Beautiful World They have some lovely movies and are all permaculture related.

Christine brought along some mandarin seedlings. These are seeds she has struck from fruit from Zela’s tree, which I think originally came from Bill Mollison’s place. That’s a tree with history! Let’s hope that they all survive, and we can continue to spread the tree around. She also followed on from last month about her rabbit problem and that she had been in touch with the Council who had a virus. She had to get the rabbits used to eating carrots which she would leave out for them. The council then came out with some “special” carrots.

Rhonda said that there is a website where you can report where rabbits are. RabbitScan > Home

Eyre recently went to the dump and if you haven’t been for a while it’s all changed. There is a recycle section in a large shed to the left as you drive in, where you can put any recyclable waste. You unload this before you go through to the main dump site, which has also changed. This means that you can take out recyclable stuff without having to pay for all of the waste. Someone also said that they thought the dump shop wasn’t open anymore. Does anyone know anything about that?

We had some young people come along, and it was lovely to see Jessie and Imogen becoming involved. We need some younguns to start getting involved so spread the word – we aren’t all old fuddy duddies!

There was the usual garden talk and some talk about snakes as well. All in all, there was some good discussions and sharing of information. We talked about the Principles and Ethics of Permaculture and some members didn’t know them. I’ll pop this image in, which I have sourced from Permaculture Principles. And if you want to read more, there is a good booklet which David Holmgren wrote, and it is available as a free download. Free downloads – Permaculture Principles