WARWICK Collective celebrated its incorporation at The Cherry Tree at its second community meeting.
President Elizabeth Ure said the incorporation and not-for-profit status allowed the group to move forward with plans to establish a community space and community garden in Warwick, as well as pursue numerous other projects, funding and opportunities.
“The collective is guided by our members, so we wanted to get everyone together straight away to start coming up with some really concrete ideas about how people want to be involved in the community space and garden,” Elizabeth said.
Thirty people attended the meeting and in keeping with the vision behind the collective, which was started from a call for interest on facebook just a few months ago, everyone was heavily involved in decision-making and input with several group brainstorming sessions taking place throughout the course of the meeting.
“Engagement and inclusion is at the heart of the organisation and it was so great to see so much passion and everyone chipping in to give their feedback and ideas,” Elizabeth said.
The high energy brainstorming sessions had participants busily sharing ideas in small groups and reporting to the larger group.
She said the community space would be an inclusive space open to everyone with member-run workshops on all sorts of art classes, language classes including English for people new to Australia, music lessons, help with homework, DJ-ing, cosmetic making, cooking classes and a whole lot more. They will be held in conjunction with the garden where people can learn more about drought-resistant gardening, composting, bee keeping, worm farms, permaculture and of course healthy eating.
One of the main features on the Warwick Collective is the value of reciprocity and sharing, Elizabeth said.
“Members offer to share their skills and knowledge with others which gives them credits which they in turn can redeem for discounted or free workshops given by other members,” she said.
“All the classes and workshops will be open to the general public as well, however they instead contribute a small fee.”
The next meeting will be at The Cherry Tree Coffee and Dining again on Wednesday 23 April from 6pm. Elizabeth encouraged everyone who is interested in sharing their skills and learning new ones to attend.
“Although we hope to be self-sustaining through a handmade shop and of course the workshops, we are also looking for seed funding to get us off the ground to cover our insurance costs and other start-up costs,” she said.
“We are really hoping we can find a local business or two who want to partner with us to help provide this support.”
The Warwick Collective’s first event was an energy efficiency workshop yesterday (Wednesday 9 April) at The Cherry Tree.
For more information on the Warwick Collective or the upcoming meeting and events, visit www.warwickcollectiveinc.com.au or call Julia on 0438 665 440. Bookings essential.
