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A local treasure

A local treasure

By Artemis Pattichi “We are so blessed to have it!”, “[it provides] such a great sense of community” … These are some of many comments we hear about our beloved Southbank News from the people we meet through our group. A local treasure, that’s how we describe the gem of our community’s local voice, Southbank News! We are honoured to be a part of and celebrate with Southbank News its 100th edition. A consistent voice for our local communities, it helps us to get to know our neighbours, our neighbourhood, and our city. It certainly gave our group its voice in the Southbank community. Sean Car’s very open attitude to support the local community, and our small group at the time, comes through in all the stories we see across this newspaper, edition after edition, giving us a great insight to what is happening around us. This newspaper was my first look into my new neighbourhood when I moved to Southbank (and Australia) more than six years ago, as I am sure it has been for you, too. I know many of you got to know our group and its amazing volunteer work through this newspaper. You have told us so and we are always delighted to hear it. Staying on the topic of local treasures, I want to acknowledge our incredible volunteers Faye and Huguette for the amazing work they’ve put into keeping our neighbourhood’s vegie garden in great shape. As many of you may have noticed, broad bean leaves are ready for harvesting and there are plenty of them. You will see them rising high and plush with green. They are very high in antioxidants, reduce stress, and have all sorts of other benefits (just google “fava bean leaves”). Harvesting their leaves is also very beneficial for the plant. On the practical side of things, there are two more matters we need to cover … We need watering volunteers to help keep the garden we all love alive and healthy. We have a watering roster going, with instructions and all. Please email us if you’d like to volunteer 45 minutes of your time to the garden, alone or with a partner. We’re permitted to have two people gardening at a time, while social distancing, for a maximum one hour, as gardening falls under the outdoor exercise category. Composting … I know a few of you are eager to reduce your waste by composting, which is great. Only we’ve lately found ourselves with mountains of food waste on the two trial concrete planters we use solely for our group. We do not have any capacity to take more organic waste at the moment, but we recommend jumping on sharewaste.com to find neighbours who can take food waste for composting. We will announce it here once the community composting hub is up and running. Lastly, inspired by the great work our group has managed to accomplish for the good of our community, changes we never thought we could make happen, and motioned by the great crises we are currently facing, I have decided to run for council. I will be running to be elected as an independent City of Melbourne councillor so that I can serve our community on a wider scale. This group has been very supportive both of my leadership and my call to run for council. I am honoured to be allowed to continue leading and serving this amazing group of supportive neighbours that want to leave the world a better place. I hope to eventually win your support and vote in representing our community on council. About the group: A solutions-focused group of Southbank residents working to bring positive change in sustainability practices and education to our neighbourhood, while building a wonderful community of like-minded people. 2019 Environment Melbourne Award winner •

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