Environmentality, 19 October 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,

Summer is just around the corner and the recent warm barmy nights have made this weeks guests very timely indeed.  Sieta Whitehead, CERES facility Manager, has some great upcoming  events to kick off your summer activities. And if that's not enough this weeks 'mystery guest' presents listeners with a great oppotunity to get on their bikes and ride off  into the sunset.

With the completion of stage 3 in sustainable buildings at CERES the Van Raay Centre is just one of the great venues that can be hired and enjoyed. We were lucky enough to have Sieta Whitehead on the phone this week to inform our listeners of all the fantastic facilities CERES has to offer.

Image courtesy of CERES official website.

From small group meetings, fully catered functions and even weddings. Ceres could be just the space you were looking for. For more information check out the great interview with Sieta on our podcast or follow this link to the CERES website. While your there check out all the upcoming Festivals and Events. This month its the Rainbow Urban Gathering and the Sacred Kingfisher Festival. Kicking things off on Friday 21st October, is an out door film night. Featured film 'Play again'.

 Image courtesy of 'Play Again' official website.

Some exciting new development are also happening at the Banksia Gardens Community Centre. Stephen Hiley is no stranger to the show and has joined forces with Banksia Gardens and the Healthy Hume project to initiate the Broadmeadows Bicycle hub. The purpose built facility will encourage transportation alternatives whilst recycling  and reusing old bicycles. Steven is hoping to recruit 5 or 6 volunteers who will be trained and supported by the CERES Bike Shed staff. So lets get those wheels of interest turning! Anyone is welcome to attend the information night at Banksia Gardens on the 9th November 6:30 till 8pm, food and drink provided. What a great chance to support the community. 

We ended the show with some thought provoking analogies involving a boiling pot of soup and the predictability of  climate change. And Jaime referenced an intriguing video about Quantum Locking but not before wishing Andrew Raphael a big  Happy birthday form the Environmentality team.

Please feel free to comment on any of the topics in this weeks show. We love to hear form our listeners.

Check out the podcast and enjoy. 

Environmentality, 12 October 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,

Last weekend it was World Food Day so our Research Coordinator Alicia decided to dedicate the show to food, which Smokey and I did not mind at all!

To start we had a very interesting chat to Arabella Forge. Arabella is a blogger, cooking teacher, published writer and, most of all, a passionate Frugavore. Haven't you heard this word before? Don't worry, we hadn't before either!

So Arabella explained that being a frugavore is about utilising the best quality foods, but wasting nothing as you go. This means that money can be saved on groceries – not by buying cheaper produce, but by using better quality, local produce more wisely, and connecting directly to the source of our food and preparing items from scratch. If you are interested in finding out more about the Frugavore Lifestyle, you can visit Arabella's website.

The interview with Arabella finished with a couple of recipes from her cookbook that she kindly shared with us. The recipes were fantastic but Smokey and I spent the rest of the show very hungry!

After this we had a chat to Zoe Whyatt, National Manager of SecondBite, an NGO that is committed to making a positive difference to people by identifying sources of nutritious surplus fresh food and produce that might otherwise go to waste and facilitating its safe and timely distribution to agencies and people in need.

Zoe explained how SecondBite worked and we were amazed to hear how in a few years it has grown from a small operation to an organisation that will move 1 million kilograms of food this year! While this is fantastic and it shows what a fantastic organisation they are, it also points out to a huge need for emergency relief in Australia, which is a worrying notion given that we are one of the richest nations in the World!

The music selection was Smokey through and through, although he did include a couple of modern tracks. You got to hear:

No one wants a lover by Josh Pyke

The sum of it all by The Herd

Born Alive by Wilco

Nowhere fast by the Smiths

When I first met your Ma by Paul Kelly

Listen to the show!

Environmentality 5 October 2011

Dear Environmentality listeners,

As some of you may know, the last two weeks have been challenging for North West FM and for us too, as the station is experiencing some major technical difficulties (a broken transmitter).

However, this has not had any impact on the quality of our guests, and this week we had someone who we described on air as a "heavy weight" in terms of environmental activism.

His name is John Merory and as he quite humbly puts it, he is a neurologist with a great interest in environmental matters. The list of environmental organisations in which he has or has had an active role is most impressive, including Men of the Trees, the Riverland Conservation Society, several Bicycle User Groups, Beyond Zero Emissions, Doctors for the Environment and Transition Banyule, to name a few.

We had a very interesting chat with John, who brought some music that unfortunately we were not able to play (more technical issues!!). Luckily his daughter Sam brought some that we could play. In her selection, we particularly enjoyed a band called Otouto.

For the last few minutes, we connected with Georgina Murphy, Environment Education Officer at Hume City Council. Georgina told us about the event that council is preparing for National Ride to Work Day - 12 October 2011 and about some Environmental Workshops coming up in the next few weeks.

The podcast for this show is not available due to the problem with the transmitter, which is a shame. However, that gives us an excuse to have John again soon. We look forward to that!