Cittsalow Yea Report at AGM

 

It seems no time since we were in Katoomba and the assembly was a whole year away and, here we are.
Cittaslow Murrindindi has had the usual ups and downs. For us having the council decide not to pay our international membership has been an ongoing issue as we have not had sufficient funds to pay at this stage. 

As you know we are committed to only fund raise to match our needs and our community calendar has been our way to cover our expenses, however a new project proved to more expensive than anticipated.

In 2016 after one hundred years the Yea Agricultural show went into recess. We were aware of the fact that a significant number of our community nominated a rural life style and a country town as the most important factors in deciding to live in the shire and the annual show was seen as a visible expression of the country life. In 2017 I When the show committee decided to reconvene Cittaslow looked for a way to support them.

We settled on a Traditional Skills fair in conjunction with the show.

This added another significant attraction to the show and allowed Cittaslow to recognise and share the skills of people in the community.

The list of participants covered, upholstery, French polishing, pottery, furniture making, knot tying, sign writing and gold leaf work, spinners, embroiderers, patch workers, lacemaking, seed saving, basket making, bee keeping, preserving, bread and butter making. All these people were local which was important to us as we wanted to celebrate our local artisans.

We were thrilled at the interest and attendance and the show committee were also delighted. We are now working on this year’s fair.

We were pleased to receive some funding for signage from The Bendigo Bank however the event did deplete our funds.

Our other ongoing project has been a campaign to reduce single use plastic bags. To support this project we have started to enlist the help of individuals and groups to make boomerang bags. So far the CWA has made some and the year 9 class at the high school are about to start sewing as part of their community project.

We were very happy to have 2 Cittaslow supporters elected to the Murrindindi council, being Rebecca Bowles and Jackie Ashe. Just goes to show how discerning our community is.

We have also had ongoing discussion with the Federal Member for Indi Cathy McGowan who believes that Cittaslow has a role to play in articulating the values that make Indi a wonderful part of Victoria. She has started to encourage all the shires in the electorate to consider becoming Cittaslow.

We can see enormous potential in having a strong network of towns supporting each other in a number of ways, a lunch is currently planned for July to explore this idea further.

We have also provided information for the town of Marysville in our Shire who are also interested in becoming Cittaslow. In consultation with Lyn we have informed them that as the Shire already is Cittaslow they would not need to undertake an extensive application. I have asked them to look at the application and consider what is unique and important to their community.

2017 and 2018 both are shaping up to be exciting.