Hello,

It has now been about 8 weeks since I started as the new General Manager for Green Connect and I have been loving it. Green Connect is an amazing organisation filled with amazing people all doing good for people and the planet, and I am proud to be part of it.

Time has flown by, and my brain is full to bursting. So much has happened in the short amount of time I have been here, but that seems to be life at Green Connect, never a dull day.

In brief

  • We have new staff including Quill Darby (Activities Coordinator), Natalia Adan (Zero Waste Manager) and Bella Peardon (Zero Waste Coordinator). Welcome!
  • Farm tours and workshops will be picking up again.
  • It’s spring and time for gardening, Green Connect Gardening and Landscaping can help.
  • Our Zero Waste team did a great job diverting waste from the UCI Bike Event and the Social Enterprise World Forum.
  • We would love more volunteers

New staff

Since my start, we have had three amazing humans join the Green Connect team:

Quill Darby, Activities Coordinator. Quill will be looking after farm tours, workshops and all the activities at our busy farm.

Natalia Adan, Zero Waste Manager & Bella Peardon, Zero Waste Coordinator – Natalia and Bella are managing Green Connect’s waste audits, sustainability consultations, and managing waste at music festivals and large events.

Farm update

We have also had a few non-human staff join us, including two alpacas. Peppino and Quilpie (pictured below) are now looking after the goats and sheep, including the two new baby goats, Finn (shown below) and Evie. Alpacas make incredible guardian animals and will protect the herd from foxes. If you come on a farm tour you may be lucky enough to meet the new baby goats, who are getting bigger every day.

We also got 80 new chickens who now live in a new fox-proof chicken coop. Thank you very much to the staff and volunteers who built this, especially the amazing, John Ruperto, we couldn’t have built this coop without his help. And a huge thank you to all the people who donate to us so we could purchase the new chickens and build their new fox-proof home.

Things are growing well on the farm and despite the wet weather recently, the farm is looking good and producing lots of food. I have recently become a Veg Box customer and have been really impressed with the quality and variety of the produce.

Farm Activities

Now that we have a new activities coordinator public farm tours will be happening more frequently, weather permitting.

School tours are also running and we’re loving seeing busloads of kids arrive for a look at how food is grown and to meet our farmyard animals.

Private tours & corporate days are available.

Zero Waste update

Natalia and Bella hit the ground running with two large events back-to-back. You may have seen our waste educators at the UCI event, they did an amazing job educating the public and ensuring waste was put into the correct bin. Behind the scenes, we had a team sorting the waste to double-check that it was correct and audit what came through. Overall, it was a very successful event. We had 66 staff working over the 10 days and we diverted 1685kg of organic matter from landfill, plus 76.91 cubic meters of cans and bottles (CDS) which equates to 83% of a semi-trailer load.

Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF)

After the UCI event, Natalia and Bella flew up to Brisbane to help make SEWF 2022 a zero-waste event. It’s the first time the SEWF has been held in person since 2019 and we were lucky enough to have it here in Australia. I was also fortunate to attend. It was an amazing event and incredibly inspirational. Social Enterprises from around the world were there to meet and share ideas. I left inspired and convinced that we here at Green Connect can and will do even more to benefit people and the planet.

Volunteers needed

Green Connect was created by the community for the community, to create jobs for those who need them most, reduce waste and grow fair food. To do all of this, we need a mix of staff and volunteers, and right now we need a few more pairs of hands on our farm, in our op shops and in our office.

Sign up to volunteer if you have 2+ hours a week to spare. You’ll be invited along to our next volunteer induction to learn more about Green Connect and opportunities to get involved.

Thank you for reading our newsletter, I would love to hear from you, especially any ideas for helping us become a truly great social enterprise.

Best wishes,

Robert