Why do Sustainable Neighbourhood Volunteers do what they do?

TASNG Update- July

The next meeting of the Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood Group will be  9/8/23
2nd Wednesday of the Month
5-6:30pm 

The Hub, 97 The Boulevarde.
 All Welcome. 

Local initiatives of the Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood Group (TASNG) include:

1. Advocating for Shared Pathways with priority Toronto to Booragul, but not forgetting Kilaben Bay to Rathmines;
2. Advocating to LMCC and Biraban Land Council about planning for a Biraban/Threlkeld memorial as part of the Toronto Foreshore Planning later this year;
   
3. Setting up a major display at the new Landcare and Sustainable Living Centre (umali barai-ku) for“Plastic Free July” to encourage people to reduce their purchase of all plastics, reuse of containers, and recycle plastics where available;
4. Maintaining the garden established on Awaba Road at the entrance to West Toronto and the wetlands opposite Lions Park;
5. Helping the Boomerang Bags group at Toronto Library, second Saturday of each month;
6. Supporting the Pamper Care project at the Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre by collecting food during the current rental crisis;
7. Advocating for the community against the overdevelopment proposal for apartments at Cary St adjacent to McDonalds;
8. Participating in resilience meetings about climate change preparation through Ausgrid and Toronto to Teralba area meetings;
9. Launching an anti-graffiti campaign in Toronto, acknowledging support from Toronto police and local businesses with Certificates of Appreciation and applying for a Clubs Grant to set up Awabakal mural displays at Goodsir St Toronto where graffiti was removed.

Pamper Care Report 

A HUGE, HUGE thank you to those who supported Pamper Care with cash and product. It is really appreciated.

Again, tin June we had a high turnover of clients needing support. Thirty one people, including those with cats, needed mainly food assistance.

Once again, Pamper Care funds subsidized some of the OZHarvest intake. At Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre’s OzHarvest day, held ona Thursday, at least 12 people have attended each week, coming in for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Ausgrid resilience workshops

About 30 residents from Lake Macquarie have attended three workshops since April (with one more in October) to assess options for Ausgrid to implementstrategies to improve the resilience of infrastructure and community responses during severe weather events.

Along with Port Stevens and Central Coast, Ausgrid is submitting a proposal to the Australian Energy Regulator to spend about $200M in support of these and other initiatives.

Current focus areas for Lake Macquarie are: protection of high vegetation areas from east coast lows, reduced outage time and frequency for most customers, development of a blackout plan, an Ausgrid liaison person shared between the three Councils, energy resilience, small mobile generators (also for mobile phone towers) and communications targeting vulnerable customers.

TASNG events a plenty

The TASNG team has started the year full steam ahead taking up the challenge with McDonalds to get recycle bins on site, (as most of their wrappings are recyclable), securing resources to tackle graffiti in the town centre, liaising with Council and Biriban LALC to have local hero Biriban more significantly recognised in the Foreshore Masterplan, supporting the very enthusiastic sewers of Boomerang Bags sessions at Toronto library (next session is 13/5/23) and hosting a Repair-It café at the Hub.

Happening at The Hub (97 The Boulevarde)

Repair-It Café at The HUB- Saturday 18 March 10am-1pm

Is it TOO GOOD TO WASTE? Do you have any clothing, textiles, toys, small electrical items, carpentry or small furniture in need of repair? Bring it along and see what it takes to whip it back into tip top condition. Free Tea/coffee and light refreshments too.

You can keep up to date with where the Repair -it crew are by connecting with the Repair-It Facebook page. More info about Repair-it is on the Sustainable Alliance's website

Plant and Garage Sale- Saturday 25th March 8am-noon

Textile Tasters- Learn a textile craft - Wednesday 12 April 

Wet Felting and Sashiko textile crafts $18/session and all materials provided. More info at https://www.amandadonohue.org/workshops

Pamper Care

February was a HUGE month for Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre (WNC) and Pamper Care. While the Centre was operational for 20 days in February, Pamper Care had 25 people in need of pantry food assistance. This is up from last February by 35%.

Your continuing support is greatly appreciated. Pantry items can be dropped at WNC, 80 Hayden Brook Road, Woodrising. Open Monday - Friday

Financial donations are also welcome directly deposited to: Lake Macquarie Sustainable Neighbourhood Alliance | BSB 637 000 | Account number 724181724 | Description - “Pamper Care”.

Sustainable Neighbourhoods Gathering -
Saturday 1 April, 2-4pm

Landcare & Sustainable Living Centre, umali barai-ku, 80 Toronto Rd, Booragul

Get together with Sustainable Neighbourhood volunteers from around Lake Macquarie for an afternoon to catch up and plan for a productive 2023.

Hear about what other Sustainable groups are planning, identify and develop our projects and priorities for 2023.Get together face to face for some cake and conversation.

All welcome. RSVP essential by 29 March. https://events.humanitix.com/sustainable-neighbourhood-gathering-april2023

TASNG Update February 2023

GRAFFITI VANDALISM 

Report, Remove, Prevent

Ever wondered what you can do about unwanted graffiti? In November a TASNG community discussion session came up with these actions.

Report

• Report graffiti you find on your property, community buildings & facilities like bus stops & benches and another person’s property to: Service NSW Graffiti Hotline 1800 707 125 and/or NSW Police Force Community Portal on-line,
• Take photos of the graffiti to attach to your report

Remove

• Cleaning up graffiti quickly is the best way to stop more graffiti; the perpetrator is less likely to do it again if it’s only there for a short time
• Contact Council for information on the Graffiti Hotspot Program

Prevent

You can help stop people doing graffiti on your property by:

• Putting up night lighting & CCTV security camera so people doing the wrong thing can be seen and reported
• Cleaning up graffiti as soon as possible
• Planting hedges or climbing vines so it’s harder for people to reach your walls

Boomerang Bags

Join the volunteers of TASNG for a social sewing morning at the Toronto Library’s “Make and Mend Space”. We’ll be making bags from rescued fabric to share with others.

At the first meeting, Saturday 11th February,9:15-11:30am, we’ll discuss bag patterns and the distribution of bags in the community.

Rescued fabric and sewing machines will be provided, however any donations of material are appreciated.

The Boomerang Bag days are the second Saturday of the month: 11/2/23, 11/3/23, 13/5/23, 10/6/23, 8/7/23

Register to attend any of the events.

Pamper Care

Pamper Care has been helping those in need in the 2283/2284 postcode area, with pantry food and personal care items since 2017. So far this year 15 local people have sought food relief from the pantry.

You can donate personal care and pantry products at the Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre, 80 Haydenbrook Drive, Woodrising Monday-Friday.

Want to help those in need over the festive season?

The Pamper Care Project has been busy! With the increase in rents and mortgages, increase in domestic violence, illness and issues in the food supply chain, more and more people are struggling.

Pamper Care is putting out a call out for donations of food items such as 1kg rice, long life milk, baked beans and tinned spaghetti, breakfast cereals, dog and cat food (dry and wet).

Donations can be dropped off at Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre.

The Soul Café is also collecting and creating “Hampers of Hope’ and Hunter Back Care at the Carey Bay Shopping Village will be accepting donations till COB Monday 12th December.  

The items wanted to make the hampers are ring pull tins of baked beans, spaghetti, soups, chunky stew, tinned fruit. Other items include instant noodle cups, bottled water, cans of soft drink, packets of chips, soap, deodorant, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste or a Christmas bauble.

A caring community

Since the March Chronicle there’s been a mighty shift in what it means to be a part of a community. The CPPA Committee contemplated the role we can play in the current crisis, utilising our strengths in local knowledge and a hand-delivered communication channel.

Activities at our Hall have ceased due to gathering and distancing constraints. The CPPA and TASNG committees along with the Art group are meeting online. Landcaring has been officially called off by LMCC.

We sincerely hope everyone is keeping safe, appreciating the beautiful bushland suburb we live in and finding ways to support our neighbours, friends and family.

Here are our suggestions for sharing and caring locally:

Send your neighbour a contact card.

 

Introduction Card

Have you thought about dropping a hello card into

Connection Card

your neighbour? Everyone loves a letter that’s not a bill. The connection card in this Chronicle makes the introduction easy. Knowing who lives across the road may ease concerns of isolation. There's also a simple introduction card or a piece of paper will do.

Do you need a hand or want to lend one for shopping? 

The CPPA is setting up a register to connect ‘at risk’ locals, who need a hand with shopping, with those who don’t mind picking up a few extra items when they’re out. The CPPA will collect names and phone numbers and put people in touch with each other, the rest will be up to the helper and the recipient. Phone m: 0438596741 or email Suzanne coalpointprogress@gmail.com.

The Lake Macquarie Sustainable Neighbourhood Alliance has contact cards 

Explore our amazing bushland tracks and landcare sites and some not so obvious access points. 

Did you know you can walk:

• Into Toronto along the foreshore from Ambrose Street gaining access from the lakeside reserve.
• Along the Coal Point Ridge by joining the track at the crest of Whitelocke Street…exploring the Water tank mural is always fun.
• From the Carey Bay Shopping Village to Puntei Park by a pathway at the rear of the shops.
• From the Fire station on Ridge Rd to Kilaben Bay along the firetrail.

There is an online brochure ‘Wandering around the Coal Point Peninsula’ which shows the access points to many hidden treasures within our community and some greater detail in a post on a footpath strategy from 2011 

Safe Walking

 True. Walking on the right hand side facing the oncoming traffic lets you see approaching traffic and enables you to make sure that drivers have seen you. Be extra careful where the view of oncoming traffic is obscured.

Go on a Fuzzy Fauna Hunt.

Put out a stuffed or toy animal in your front window or wherever is visible from the street so when families are getting exercise they can get involved with a Treasure Hunt. The CPPA is supplying the wildlife for The Carey Bay Shopping Village which will be changed each week. You can post pictures of your findings on our Facebook Page or the Bear Hunt Lake Mac group https://www.facebook.com/groups/bearhuntlakemac/

Join a real bio-adventure. 

This is an online identification game that will open your eyes to the amazing and beautiful life all around us in our bushland suburb. The CPPA has set up team, if you want to join it get in touch.

By taking photos of as much life as you can you score ‘game gold’ for every sighting, with extra gold if you can identify what you’ve found. And even more gold if you can find something rare or interesting.

QuestaGame is a fun experience with nature, friendly competition learning about life in all its forms, and it helps protect biodiversity as all sightings are shared with CSIRO’s Atlas of Living Australia.https://questagame.com/the-game

Donate to Pampercare. 

If you’d like to help out those doing it tough and rough you can donate vouchers or gift cards to the Pampercare project by dropping them in at the Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre. They helped 11 local families in March.

Volunteer for Toronto Meals on Wheels 

Meals on Wheels are always ready to welcome new volunteers to support the work they do. If you’re interested in becoming one of their volunteers go to www.mow.net.au and follow the links to join as a volunteer by completing the paperwork. You could be delivering meals, or even catching up with people over the phone in the Have-a-chat program to support isolated elderly people in our local community.

From the Meals On Wheels GM, Damien Isaacs: We’d like to remind everyone that we are here to support the community. People over 65, people living with disability, and anyone in the community who may need a little bit of support with a meal or two per week delivered – for whatever reason.

TASNG update

Plastic Free Cafes are one cup closer 

Every day in Australia 2.7 million takeaway coffee cups must go to the tip, 500 billion

each year worldwide!

Locally we are doing our bit to ease the tip-burden. There are 25 cafes in Toronto and Warners Bay who are part of the campaign to reduce single use plastics by switching to metal straws and offering re-useable, collapsible, pocket-sized cups for a $2.00 donation.

This project is a partnership with the Sustainable Neighbourhood Groups and New South Wales Government.

For more information about the reductions in plastics please do not hesitate to contact Steve torontoareasng@gmail.com

Pamper Care

Pamper Care was busy in January with 22 individuals (and their families) assisted, and three back-to-school kits were given out. The bush fire at Awaba Conservation Area (proposed) saw approximately 43% of the bush burnt. The Project assisted Awaba Rural Fire Brigade with bottled water and snacks to take on the trucks. With the bush fires and extreme heat conditions, we are assisting wildlife carers at Dora Creek and their network, with food.

TASNG will be supporting Harmony Day on Saturday March 21 with an event on the Toronto Foreshore 5-7pm. The day celebrates our cultural diversity and coincides with the United Nations’ International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It’s about inclusiveness, respect and a sense of belonging for everyone.

Keep in touch with TASNG Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TASNG/
Email torontoareasng@gmail.com

Pamper Care drop off at Westlakes Trophies, Framing & Engraving

The Pamper Care Project was initiated in July 2017 to assist disadvantaged people in the

2283 and 2284 areas. The Project provides personal care items and non-perishable food and operates out of Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre and networks with other agencies.

The need for assistance is increasing, in March the project assisted over 10 people with Pamper Care Kits and saw an increase in assistance for food.

Carl & Helen Leary, community-minded-businessfolk, will be hosting a Pamper Care receiving station at their shop, in the Carey Bay Shopping Village. Any personal care products or non-perishable food items are welcome to be left; soap, shampoo, deodorant, personal hygiene products…items we take for granted but make such a difference to how we feel.

Happy 1st Anniversary Pamper Care

The Pamper Care Project has turned one. The program offers assistance and support for local homeless people in the West Ward area.

From July 2017 to June 2018 there have been many locals assisted through various agencies.

• Woodrising Neighbourhood Centre - 18 women, five teenage girls, 10 men, 
• OZ Harvest 4 clients 
• Lake Macquarie High School - 3 Students 
• Toronto High School - 9 Students. 
• Southlake Marketplace -9 clients 
• The Salvos -1 client 
• Nova Women's & Children's Refuge 
• Castle Personnel clients 
• Eastlake Youth Centre