For those who have been following, you'll probably know the fight our small community has had to keep a Food is Free stand on a nature strip. It's designed to be a place where people can drop off excess produce and swap with others, and has been loved by everyone here, even if they don't use it themselves.
The caretakers of the stall submitted many letters from the community, and we all emailed councillors to express our upset that something designed to address food sustainability, community union and mental health was being threatened.
To me it seemed a bit of a tension between law and reality - in reality, I think the council knew it was in line with the values they talked about, but the old laws said no. It was good to hear they were reviewing it rather than stubbornly adhering to bureaucracy.
But finally the outcome came via the Gardeners group I manage on Facebook - the social media mentioned in the article:
The infringement notice has been withdrawn and the report to Councillors for tomorrow night's meeting states that "The Shire is engaged with the petitioner and there is no current intention to require the structure to be removed in the short term." The nature strip policy and the community amenity law are under review. I am confident this issue can be sorted out for the benefit of the community. Congratulations to all who are showing community spirit through this initiative. Welcome to all who would like to attend the Council meeting or view it via the web streaming.
Looks like the council has listened for a change. Good news!
One of the things I love about the stand is people drop things off then come into the Facebook group to tell people stuff is there and share a recioe for what you do with it.
Then people will turn it into preserves or the like and offer it back to the community, either selling or a few donated jars. I usually do this with oranges, turning them into marmalade.
Well, can't stay chatting - off to donate some pumpkins!
With Love,
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Yay! I hate it when beaurocracy ruins things. A guy here was growing cabbages on his pavement for community feeding and had to fight over it. He finally won only after a massive social media campaign. He got called the "cabbage bandit" hahaha
Aaha that's great!! I love that, imagine getting that nickname . What a claim to fame. It's such hypocrisy for a council to say: we support community! And in the next breath take away their food.
Exactly! People here need all the free food that's available
Lord, I read about this in the paper. Nutty stuff 😂😂😂
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Well done! A feel good post to start my day. 🙂
Isn't it just? Made us happy too..
What an awesome initiative! Well done to all of you for standing by your guns!
Sooo good. Picked up some jam today and dropped off some mushrooms.
Victory!
Honesty 1 - Dishonesty 0
Hurray!
Happy for you all.
P.S. I love that typewriter + added handwriting recipe. Reminds me of my mom, although she would literally write it all by hand on cards like these.
Isn't it great? In days when everyone just links to internet posts, it's great to see this personal touch.
Fantastic result 👍
That's a very nice project and it was a relief to read that local administration decided to evolve instead of killing it for stupid old-fashion reasons. That sounds like unusual to me... Congrats for winning this fight!
Oh I certainly think the council was totally attacked for being backwards as many communities are allowing them now. It made them change their policy legally so that's some progress...
Let's hope this could serve as an example for other places in the world (or at least in the US).
Congratulations to all these wonderful gardeners, growers, farmers, cooperators, food sharers, preserve makers, community folks, and unanimously reasonable council members! Just having such a fantastic "Honest and Free" food stand deserves recognition, as it shows amazing community spirit and actual valuable interaction between its members. Something to be proud of.
What I don't get, is where the opposition comes from. Like, who even came up with the idea to issue "an infringement notice for obstructing a nature strip"? Sounds like something an AI would do at the start of its self-learning phase. I mean, how vast of an area are we talking about that this food stand "obstructed"? Two square meters, maybe three? Isn't there a strip-mall somewhere nearby, that is obstructing a somewhat bigger nature strip?
An any case, I am glad reason prevailed, the infringement notice was scrapped, and the AI was presumably reprogrammed to take a wider scope of considerations.
Haha what's a strip mall??
Yeah the councils love their power trip by laws. They always had rules for the nature strips so council trucks and I suppose neighbours wouldn't have stuff in their way. I don't know. Uniformity of street appearance? Was it an aesthetic thing? But for sure that letter didn't take into account human things.
A strip mall? I'm sure you have them in Oz, but apparently they go by a different name. It's essentially a shopping mall you enter with your car. Instead of having a massive building with a huge parking lot around it, it's the other way round: a vast parking area with the shops scattered all around. Some of them may be right next to each other, others may stand completely separate in the ocean of parking spaces. As you can guess, it's commercial convenience at the expense of aesthetic appearance, ecology, community, and pretty much everything else.
Now I'm quite curious: what do Aussies call those things?
What are you kidding me? Like drive through shopping? Or do you walk into the shops? If you walk in I suppose we would call it a shopping complex. Wait I have to Google this. I've heard the term but have never thought about it...
Ah okay... They use strip mall to differentiate inside shopping areas to outside ones I guess. We have them... Everywhere, far more common than interior shopping malls which seem to be an American icon... I'm thinking Dawn of the Dead now haha.
Hahaha, no no, you don't drive INTO the stores. You park your car and walk in. But that would be the next step in convenience, I guess. So yeah, shopping complex is probably right.
Interestingly, malls aren't a thing any more these days. Back when I was a teen it was all the rage, and in fact it made sense: hanging out in this big indoor space with lots of shops, the food court, a movie theater, etc... With all that speaks against shopping malls, at least they were a place to socialize. Strip malls (that is shopping complexes!) don't even have that going for them.
I love seeing those derelict, abandoned shopping malls in America.. they are Soo symbolic. And the fact they don't unite community anymore is telling too.
We have drive through bottle ships! We call them a bottle-o.
Oh, I don't think they ever united the community. In fact, they killed downtowns (= city centers) with mom&pop stores and small retailers who could not keep up with the chain franchise big dogs. For a teenager, however, they were kinda like a dream come true. I'm sure you've seen the movie Mallrats.
What are bottle ships? (I know those model ships you build in a bottle... but what do they have to do with malls?)
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This is so nice to read. I'm sorry but this was the first time I read about this community initiative. Must be great to have something like that 🙂 Gives me hope for the future 🙂
xx
Oh yes, it's such a lovely thing. Community building is everything in this day and age - we're so isolated! So it was good the council recognised that.
Yay! You all won! I have loved hearing about the stand all this time and am glad it will be ongoing. :))