Community Energy Congress keynotes announced

by editor | 19 Mar 2014 | Event, Starfish

The official website for C4CE’s Community Energy Congress is now live! www.c4ce.net.au/congress The website is a hub for all news and important information on the Congress. You can find the latest on keynote speakers, our growing program of talks and workshop...

2014 CANA Conference – 3rd & 4th April

by editor | 19 Mar 2014 | Event

2014 Annual Members’ Conference 3rd & 4th April 2014 The conference will be preceded by a public event on the evening of 2 April. The 2014 CANA Conference – Generating Groundswell: Harnessing our Knowledge & Unleashing our Energy is a 2-day event...

New CSG threat to Blue Mountains please take action – submissions are due by March 21

by editor | 19 Mar 2014 | AACSGaM, Event

A new Petroleum Exploration Licence application (which covers Coal Seam Gas) called PELA 158 has been lodged by a company called CEEMAC Pty Ltd. As you can see from the map below, the application covers an area from Capertee, Cullen Bullen, Portland, Wallerawang,...

Autumn Fest: SLA – Float 33

by editor | 13 Mar 2014 | Autumn Festival, Event

Come and join the SLA Float in the Autumn Festival Parade. We’re float 33. Assemble in Beardy Street, between Butler and Markham Street at 12 noon. We’ll be behind the Waldorf School and Southern New England Landcare. It’s a great opportunity to make...

March In March Rally – Central Park

by editor | 13 Mar 2014 | Event

Climate change and the Government’s response are among the major topics to be addressed at the rally on Saturday 15th March at 2pm in Central Park – immediately following the Autumn Festival Parade. The theme is “Uniting for Good Governance”,...

Ripe near me

by editor | 13 Mar 2014 | SLAM

Fulham couple Alistair and Helena Martin have started the website, Ripe Near Me, which connects people with fresh produce growing in local back yards. Alistair Martin writes: One thing I have loved from the time I was small is fruit and veggies picked straight out of...

It’s always inspiring to see young people having a crack

by editor | 13 Mar 2014 | Starfish | 1 comment

Alex Fried was the 2013 Brower Youth Award Winner. Have a look at how he’s progressing with his project Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN).

Thursday Forum: Film ‘Land Awakening’

by editor | 6 Mar 2014 | Event, Monthly Forum

The subject of the next Thursday Forum to be held by Sustainable Living Armidale on March 6th explores our relationship to land: seeds, soil, planting, cooking, and eating. SLA will screen Land Awakening, a recent feature-length documentary made by Mexican-Canadian...

SLA – Autumn Festival Parade – Working bees

by editor | 4 Mar 2014 | Autumn Festival, Event, SLAM

Will you walk with SLA in the big parade on Saturday 15th March at 12.00noon? Let us know, email info@slarmidale.org That’s step one. Will you dress in bright colours and wear a fabulous hat of your own making, or made at a working bee, that is big and bold? and...

AURG Working Bee Sunday 9 March

by editor | 4 Mar 2014 | AURG, Event

The AURG is holding a tree planting day at the St Peters Pre School area on the North side of Dumaresq Creek on Sunday 9 March. Dan Emery will be preparing the site for us and we will be replacing plants that have been lost and infilling existing areas with plants...

March In March Armidale – 15th at 2pm at Central Park

by editor | 4 Mar 2014 | SLAM

A diverse group of local community members is planning a rally for March in March Armidale on Saturday, March 15, at 2pm at Central Park. March in March is a grass-roots movement which seeks to engage Australians across the political spectrum and to give expression to...

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...