Sowing and Growing
7:30pm Tuesday 16th December - Waiheke Community Cinema

New Zealand nurseries couldn't keep up with the demand from home gardeners this year and ran out of strawberry seedlings, horticulture supply companies are reporting record turnover, the sales of Kings seeds increased 60% from last year, the list goes on. These NZ trends are our version of what can be seen happening all across the industrialised world, as people become aware of the need to move from the globalised oil dependent food supply to localised, appropriately diverse means of meeting our food needs.

As a Waiheke community we are taking on the challenge of growing our own and many new people are coming on board and bringing their fresh energy to the task of building some serious resilience into our island food system.

Tonight 50 people attended a screening at the Waiheke community cinema, of "Samso, an (un)common island"

The energy from those who came was for taking action to address our energy needs and building some independence. The film encouraged and inspired us and the message from some residents of Samso to residents of Waiheke (as delivered by Jakob Anderson from the Danish Trade commission), was well received.

Some feedback forms were distributed and the information from them will be posted here in due course.

CSA Meeting – 20 November 2008
Minutes

Present: Sue Connor, Meriel Watts, Jennifer Fountain, Debbi Lyttle, Marta Fisch, Brian Griffiths, Paul Gilligan, Ken Clarke, Pete and kath Russel, james Samuel

An Island takes charge of their own affairs

A film and presentation at The Waiheke Community Cinema - December 2nd, 7:00pm

The conversations which took place during and after the The Big InTent Festival were often focused around the impact and importance of this event, and the impulse to want to take it on the road and evolve it in each new place.

There was much said about the urgency of doing so now, at this time when many people are looking at the environmental, energy and financial crises, and are confused and wondering what the heck is happening. People are looking but many of them don't know what they are looking for, or where to find it.

Exploring different methods of Earth Building using locally available materials - adobe in-situ, stabilised with cement to create steps and pavers, adobe brick making, cob - unstabilised to make raised garden beds, paperclay plaster for all manner of applications. Participants are encouraged to learn from hands on experience, to have fun playing with mud, shovelling, sculpting, decorating, allowing themselves to follow the curves of their imagination - no straight lines here!

Cost is $50 ($30 - low income) Phone Henery on 021 206 1253 for more info

A monumental stuff up, were Bryan Innes' words. David was supposed to arrive today at Auckland airport, and Don was there at 5:30am to meet him.

No-one who looked at Davids ticket, including David himself, got his arrival date right. American Airlines don't put the arrival date beside the time of arrival. David was shocked to find he has 23 hours layover at LA Airport, something he described as being his worst vision of hell.

So our planned lunch and evening meetings with David went ahead anyway and I suspect they were more fruitful as a result of the conversations we were able to have. We may not have got down to the nitty gritty if we had been focused on David's presence and words - knowing we could put that off till later.