Community Action Network

Saturday 25 May 2024

2:00 – 4:30 pm

Murwillumbah Community Gardens, Mooball Street, Murwillumbah (beside the showgrounds)

Topic: Sustainable food systems

Council is inviting residents to a free workshop to plan and develop community-led action to support sustainable and climate-friendly food actions, including a worm-farming workshop.

Participants are invited to the Murwillumbah Community Garden to discuss topics such as growing your own food, composting, avoiding food waste, food networks and more. If you’ve got ideas about sustainable food, or would like to learn from and be inspired by others, then come along to our workshop on Saturday 25 May from 2:00 pm.

BYO afternoon tea: have you grown something that you’d like to share? Or could you bring something that has been produced locally? If you’re unable to bring something to share, no worries!

The Climate Ready Tweed project completed in 2023, revealed that members of our community would like to grow their own food, throw away less food and eat less red meat as important climate actions. The recent Imagine 2484 project also showed strong community preferences for increasing food security and local production as key elements for a regenerative future that is resilient and adaptive to future climate change impacts.

Everyone is welcome. Registration is essential here. Or for more information contact Council’s education officer – sustainability, Jane Moad at jmoad@tweed.nsw.gov.au or phone 02 6670 2400.

In February, our theme is sustainable transport. What might it look like for us to reduce our emissions from transport?

Bike repair workshop with Northern Rivers Cycles

Sustainable transport presentation slides

Sustainable transport could be:

• more public transport use
• active travel, walking and cycling
• carpooling
• electric vehicles
• community transport solutions

Read and comment on the ideas we came up with; what do you think? What could you add or contribute?

And these are some of the next steps that participants volunteered to take following the workshop:

• More bike to shop in town. Just ride baby! – Belinda
• Reinstate the Northern Rivers Rail with a light rail system (not freight trains) – Peter
• Encourage and participate in more RIDE SHARING – Steve
• Raise awareness for sustainable travel leaving the car at home, using public transport, bikes, lowering carbon footprint by carbon offsetting – James
• Work on safe cycling routes from Rail Trail to coastal bike path; liaison with TSC reps - Cam
  1. Southern route e.g. Wooyung Rd / Tweed Coast Rd
  2. Middle route – Cudgera Creek Rd etc.
  3. Northern route – Reserve Creek Rd etc.
• Cycleway safety and promotion and expansion – David
• Cycling or walking instead of driving when practical – Glenn
• Investigate how we can buy affordable electric vehicles – Kirsten
• Lobby NSW State Government again to ask the Transport Minister to legalise PEVs - Mark
• Try to get my primary work vehicle converted to EV - Chris
• Investigate cycling advocacy groups in the local area - Tamsin

November 2023

Our November 2023 gathering was focused on energy: exploring the actions we can take as individuals to reduce our electricity use (and bills), as well as supporting our friends and communities in steps towards sustainable, renewable energy and how we might influence the broader community and leaders for climate action. We discussed:

• Key levers for energy efficiency in the home. More energy efficient = reduced electricity consumption = reduced greenhouse gas emissions
• Challenges, obstacles and opportunities for energy sources: solar energy, wind farms, nuclear energy

Actions pledged:

• Community member to make enquiry with Essential Energy into a community battery in Kunghur
• Exploring solar in business precinct
• 4 individuals/groups interested in home energy assessment
• 1 group to provide peer reviewed research articles on nuclear energy for Council information.
• Energy Access Poverty Plan
  • Deb to review Northern Rivers Community Foundation Vital Signs report from Kyla (Alison to help) to gather baseline energy poverty figures.
• Solar on Social Housing
  • Deb to contact social housing providers about their interest in putting solar on social housing, and find out the location and number of properties in the NC region that may be suitable.
  • Deb to contact local solar installer and find out how much it would cost to assess the suitability of sites and write up a report of their assessment.

Follow up questions answered by Seb Crangle, Home Energy Advisor.

• We noted your questions on the day and Seb has kindly answered these in this document.

Links to useful information requested in conversation:

• Northern Rivers Joint Organisation Renewable Energy Blueprint
• Suitable areas for wind energy development, map on p21 of the draft Wind Energy Guideline
• Find a local accredited provider to install or service you solar or battery storage system Clean Energy Council.
• Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme accreditors for new dwellings: https://www.nathers.gov.au/assessors or https://www.basixcertificates.com.au/thermal-assessment/
• Green Building Guide - lowest cost green rebuilding techniques, focusing on energy efficiency, water savings and indoor air quality.

August 2023

Jo Taranto, Good for the Hood

Our first session focused on the importance of placemaking and building momentum from small wins. Jo Taranto from Good for the Hood shared

inspirations from around Australia of what other community groups, councils and individuals are doing.

• View Jo’s presentation slides

Other placemaking resources

• Place based approaches for community change – great resources, models and how-to guide from QCOSS
• 101 small ways you can improve your city – ideas and inspiration from Curbed
• Book of doing: 100 Town Teams in Action – examples of actions taking place across Australia
• Palette of Possibilities – how to plus examples of change making from Australian Association for Environmental Education (NSW)

What's happening in the Tweed

• Climate Ready Tweed final report – first comprehensive baseline study of community perspectives, delivered by Griffith University
• Climate Change in the Tweed – check out the projected impacts on our Climate Change page
• Co-design project outputs – some of the ideas mapped out in community co-design sessions

Local inspiration feature: Together Pottsville doing some inspiring things in their village:

• Simply Cups coffee cup recycling program – partnering with St Ambrose Primary and Black Drop Café to recycle takeaway cups
• Victorious Veggies workshop – September 9 – partnership with Pottsville Community Garden to help people grow their own produce
• Community Recycling Centre – in partnership with Pottsville Community Garden, the group will facilitate recycling of items that can’t go in the yellow bin
• If you want to get in touch with them, email them here: togetherpottsville@gmail.com