Activities for all ages at the Bass Coast Sustainability Festival

This year’s Bass Coast Sustainability Festival on May 21 from 10am-3pm at the River Garden and the community hall in Bass, has something for all ages. A gold coin donation will get you into a full day of free activities to keep everyone entertained.

The River Garden will come to life with presentations and performances held on the main stage, a hands-on gardening demonstrations area, dedicated Kids Zone, and a chance to browse the latest in sustainable products and information from exhibitors, community groups and government departments.

The festival will be opened this year with a Welcome to Country Smoking Ceremony by the Bunurong Land Council, followed by the mayor, speaking about the Bass Coast Climate Action plan on the main stage.

Bass Coast Community Foundation is the sponsor for presentations on the main stage this year, to be powered by a solar battery, supplied by our sponsor Earthworker Cooperative.

Presentations

Presentations include Sustainability Victoria on the latest rebates to save you money, Circular economy awareness with Replas, Growing Organically with Grand Ridge Organics, School Strikes for Climate with Joey Thompson, Deep Ecology; Surviving the Climate Crisis with Bass Coast Climate Action Network, Community Energy with Mycelia Energy Collective, Home Electrification with Bass Coast Shire Council, and Solar Batteries with Earthworker Co-operative. The full program will be published on the festival website. There’s sure to be something for everyone!

Our Garden demonstration space will host two hands-on sessions by Permaculture expert Ric Coleman. At 11.15am participants will build a No Dig Garden and at 1pm participants will fill a Wicking Garden bed, to see how the layers work to provide an easy to set up, low maintenance garden.

In the River Garden you can also wander between the swales of vegetables, herbs and espaliered fruit trees, with the site surrounded by the beautiful Bass River.

Another exciting new area for the festival is the dedicated Kids Zone with free activities including facepainting, environmentally themed drop-in style kids activities and crafts with Sue from Phillip Island Eco-Tours, and RiverScape, a Bass River biodiversity play space run by Festive Tribe.

The Bass Hall will host a free screening of the new documentary film “Greenhouse” by Joost at 12pm and Eco arts workshops in the morning and afternoon.

Workshops

Bookings will open soon for these free limited-space special workshops from the Eco Arts ‘For our Future’ Project. These will include an “Eel Dreaming” listening circle with Uncle Steve Ulula Parker at 10.30am and a “Celebrating Waterways with art, storytelling, and science” workshop with local children’s book author and Climate Change and Environment advisor at Westernport Water, Meg Humphrys at 2pm.

Festival sponsors Westernport Water will have their fantastic display trailer and water to refill your bottles, as well as Meg Humphrys hosting a special presentation in the hall on the Westernport Water project, “Floating Wetlands” at 1.30pm.

Also, from the Eco Arts Project, we will see a fantastic lunchtime Community Concert on the main stage, led by Laura Brearley featuring a collection of “Songs of the Living World” recently published by Community Music Victoria.

New sponsor this year EcoLiv, will open their Display Centre to the public on the day from 10am-12pm, which is only 10 minutes away from the Festival at the Gurdies. Festival visitors can drop by to see a selection of sustainably designed and built modular homes that minimise negative environmental impacts, while maximising comfort, beauty, utility, and wellbeing.

You will be able to connect with various community groups at the Festival including the Energy Innovation Cooperative, Totally Renewable Phillip Island/Tenby Point, the Fixit Café, South Gippsland Beekeepers and Landcare.

You can check out the latest electric cars and bikes, buy some great quality garden tools from Gardenacious, beeswax wraps from Little Bumble Wraps, the Enjo fibre based cleaning range, stock up on yummy jams and chutneys from Grand Ridge Organics, eat some delicious paella from the Melbourne Paella company, or grab a coffee from Cherry Llama, while enjoying all that the Festival has to offer.

Our festival waste will be sustainably managed this year with our sponsors, Bass Coast Shire Council’s waste management trailer, helping us all to sort our rubbish into the right bins with lots of helpful tips for reducing our impacts.

This event is bought to you by the Bass Coast Landcare Network with support from Bass Coast Shire Council, Westernport Water, Bass Coast Community Foundation, Western Port Biosphere, EcoLiv and Earthworker Cooperative.

For general information, registration forms and program details head to www.basscoastlandcare.org.au/sustainabilityfestival2023.html or contact Lisa at lisa.wangman@basscoastlandcare.org.au

/ Sponsored article /