Creative Workshop Retreats – Photography in the Field

by user submitted | 4 Mar 2014 | Event, SLAM

Go Create! New England is a new local partnership offering creative workshops and retreats for all. Workshops cover many areas of visual arts and take place at our purpose built solar passive studio on our farm in Kentucky. We have on farm accommodation and love...

Making Super Sustainable

by editor | 4 Mar 2014 | Starfish

Some $1.6 trillion is invested in Australia’s superannuation funds. The Climate Institute have released a publication, Climate Smart Super: Understanding Superannuation Climate Risk, with information for superannuants to learn more about their funds are managed and...

Working bee – SLA Autumn Festival

by editor | 27 Feb 2014 | Event, SLAM

Some of the creative thinking has been done, and we’re up to the hands-on making. The first working bee is on Saturday 1st March from 11am to 1pm, at Bar and Pats’ place. We’ll be plaiting fabric, making weavings, and coming up with words for signs....

Home Grown Garden Tour 2014

by editor | 26 Feb 2014 | Event, Local Food | 2 comments

ALF’s 6th Home Grown Garden Tour is on 1-2 March! Come along and be inspired by all the wonderful gardens in this year’s tour. Almost all the gardens are new this year so even if you’ve been before, you’ll find something to inspire! Buy a booklet for entry to the...

Warning from Wyoming – 2014 Coal and Gas campaign update

by editor | 26 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM, Event | 1 comment

In Feb/March 2014 we are bringing John Fenton, a cattle rancher from the USA, out to Australia where he will be telling his story of how fracking for gas poisoned the water in his home town of Pavillion, Wyoming. Following the drilling of 200 gas wells in his region,...

Clean Up Australia Day is Sunday 2 March, 2014

by editor | 26 Feb 2014 | Event

Clean Up Australia Day is a simple way you can take action to clean up, fix up and conserve our prized Australian environment. In 2013 an estimated 550,300 volunteers removed 16,150 tonnes of rubbish at 7,341 sites right across the country – but we can do...

Guardian article on CSIRO – great graphics

by user submitted | 26 Feb 2014 | SLAM

May I recommend evryone in SLA to look at the article in the Guardian about the CSIRO statement on drought and climate change. Amazing Graphics. This is preliminary information from a publication due out I think in June, showing how different areas of Australia will...

Walking & Cycling Counts – February 2014

by Tom Fisher | 24 Feb 2014 | Transport

Volunteers are ready to count pedestrians and bicycle riders at several key locations within Armidale in late February. This will provide a snapshot of the amount of cycling and walking within the community. We aim to count again at the same locations to track...

Autumn Festival: SLA Float

by editor | 24 Feb 2014 | Autumn Festival, Event

This year the Autumn Festival Parade is on Saturday March 15th, middle of the day. SLA has entered a float every year since we began, and we have won the Best Community Float more than once. (This pic is part of the 2009 SLA float). If you would like to be involved...

National Day of Divestment Action – 3rd May

by editor | 24 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM, Event | 1 comment

On the 3rd of May, 350.org and Market Forces will hold Australia’s first ever national day of bank divestment action, where you and hundreds of bank customers* can close your account and switch to a fossil free bank. Our banks are funding a big problem. Since 2008,...

Fran Kelly – New report challenges Whitehaven Coal approval

by editor | 24 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM | 1 comment

A drawn-out battle over some of Australia’s rarest woodlands has dogged the development of the $766 million Maules Creek mine in the Gunnedah Basin of north-west NSW. Majority owned by Whitehaven Coal, clearing and construction on the open cut coal mine started...

Sustaining this is not Sustainable

by editor | 24 Feb 2014 | Starfish

The 85 richest people on Earth now own the the same amount of financial wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population ~ that is, the same as 3.5Bn people. This stunning finding comes from Oxfam‘s report, Working For the Few, which was published in the lead up...

Returning home to regional Australia

by editor | 24 Feb 2014 | SLAM, Starfish

More Australians aged 25-44 are moving from cities to regional areas than vice versa. According to the Regional Australia Institute, ‘returners’ make up a significant pattern in internal migration that often fails to be recognised as a positive – and popular – life...

Wake up call

by editor | 24 Feb 2014 | SLAM

Have you ever felt like we’re living through a nightmare of consumption? That you wish you could un-hook yourself and reconnect with a life that is somehow more real and vivid? Then perhaps you’re ready to heed Earth’s Wake Up Call. Read more at Gaia...

Bike Week 2014

by Tom Fisher | 18 Feb 2014 | Transport

Bike Week will be on again in Armidale in September 2014. SLA Transport Group is keen to run a huge Commute Challenge after its initial success in 2013. We’re looking for your input! Get involved in Bike Week 2014 – come to the 11 March meeting or contact...

Hey there, from the new camp!

by editor | 13 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM | 1 comment

Just writing to let you know what’s been happening at the Front Line Action on Coal camp and Maules Creek blockade. In the last couple of days, the bulk of camp FLAC has moved from the edges of the Leard State Forest to Cliff’s property, just 15 minutes away. ...

The Galway pub with free beer for those who lend a hand

by editor | 13 Feb 2014 | SLAM | 1 comment

A new moneyless pub will rely on donations of energy and time to create a business that is tied to the people and land that support it What holds your business back from truly reflecting how much you care about the world? What stops you making decisions based on...

Follow up: Is SLA living a small town fantasy?

by editor | 7 Feb 2014 | Event

After another stirring forum, where nearly everybody spoke, Annette encouraged people to respond to this green paper. From Annette: There is an opportunity right now to have input to the design of the Direct Action policy, by responding to the consultation on the...

Open Forum – Is SLA living a small town fantasy?

by editor | 4 Feb 2014 | Event, Monthly Forum | 3 comments

There seems to be a lot of unrest lately; frustration that not enough is being done on the environmental protection and climate change fronts by Australia. Locally SLA is making positive moves to put sustainability at the front of the public mind. This is all well and...

CANCELLED: AURG Working Bee Sunday 9 February

by editor | 4 Feb 2014 | AURG | 2 comments

UPDATE: This event is cancelled but there will be more. The AURG is holding its first working bee for 2014. This will be with the Bishops Court Reserve Group and involve some work with chainsaws to clear out woody weeds in the area as well as woody weed control...

Calling all Protectors of the Pilliga and Leard Forests

by editor | 4 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM, Event

You are invited to hear the latest updates from the Pilliga and Leard Forests, share personal stories and discuss plans to protect our land, our water and our future from 7pm on Monday, 10th February, at the Armidale Bowling Club, 92/96 Dumaresq St. We can all make a...

Armidale Protectors stand up for the Pilliga and Leard Forests

by editor | 4 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM | 1 comment

Local support is growing as the campaigns to protect the Pilliga and Leard Forests intensify. Armidale Action on Coal Seam Gas and Mining (AACSGaM) invites members of the community to join the meeting on Monday, February 10 at 7pm at the Armidale Bowling Club to...

Discussion Forums – NSW Framework for Sustainability Action and Engagement

by editor | 4 Feb 2014 | Event

UPDATE: This is on in March not February. Do you engage your community in environmental issues? Are you a teacher, an academic, a community member or volunteer with an environment group? Are you from local or state government, a community organisation or a business?...

‘Frakka Hakka’ protest song from West Sussex

by editor | 4 Feb 2014 | AACSGaM | 1 comment

Filmed in Balcombe at the controversial Cuadrilla fracking site in West Sussex, Seize the Day’s ‘Frakka Hakka’ song is performed by the band and protestors at the Balcombe Community Defenders Camp. Let us know what you think and share it far and...

Knitting Nannas against Gas (KNAG) Knit-ins every Thursday at 11.30am

by editor | 30 Jan 2014 | AACSGaM, Event

Hi, there will be ongoing knit-ins that will occur most Thursday’s 11pm at ANZ, politicians’ shopfronts, and whom ever is involved in the fossil fuel industry. Recently we established the New England North West loop of the Knitting Nannas against Gas...