The Melbourne Sustainable Living Festival is on at Federation Square and the river promenade, from Friday 19 to Sunday 21 February, 2010. Free entry (donations accepted)

If you haven’t seen the program, there's an extraordinary array of events, workshops, discussions and sessions. The diversity of things looks fantastic, it seems so much more than last year, and last years was good too.

The program is available at: http://festival.slf.org.au/

Tell your friends about it, this is really a wonderful thing that Melbourne has, and all built from the commitment of the SLF organisation and Stephen Ingrouille who started the Going Solar shop 30 years ago.

Permaculture Melbourne's stall

Permaculture Melbourne will have a stall and be presenting a number of activities & workshops: The stall will have a seed and seed saving theme and the workshops will cover a variety of topics.

On Friday, the schools day, we’re doing a workshop with two school groups "Permaculture Design for Schools - an exercise in Participatory Design for Sustainable Schools”

On Saturday 10.00-11.00 a discussion forum “Food Security & Urban Agriculture for Melbourne”

Then at 11.30-12.30 a book signing at the PcM stall by David Holmgren with his latest book “Future Scenarios”

At 2.00-2.45 a workshop “Drafting Permaculture Ideas for Your Home” will be conducted.

There’ll also be a scarecrow making activity for families.

Things you can help with!

* Assist at the stall - there’s still a few gaps in the roster so if you're interested contact John McKenzie on jlmckenzie@optusnet.com.au or 0421 699 306

Stall activities include answering public enquiries and assisting with the seed saving and scarecrow making.

* more display material - we could use some more examples of display materials on permaculture designs or pictures or promotion material on seeds saving, permaculture events and local groups ect– we’re happy to receive more or you can bring it in on Thursday or Friday.

* Assist with the 'Design Studio' - do you like the ‘designing’ part of permaculture? Then be a support and ideas person at the Saturday afternoon studio, help people as they play with design ideas for their homes.

* Attend and contribute to the Urban Agriculture forum – tell others what you and your local group are doing and help consider the next steps for urban ag in Melbourne

Event details

A forum on Food Security and Urban Agriculture for Melbourne

Saturday, 10.00-11.00 at the Leisure Dome tent

For those interested and active in Food Security and Urban Agriculture. This session will try to identify the gaps in what currently exists and consider possible links and collaborations to fill them. The session will be facilitate by Geri Overberg from Permaculture Melbourne and will hear from Pablo Ermini who works on a national program seeking to improve food security through Urban Agriculture in Argentina , and Pam Morgan who for many years has been a championing for food security with community development in Melbourne and in Latin America. This session is scheduled early in the day before the crowds arrive to attract those specifically interested and to allow stall holders to participate.

Drafting Permaculture Ideas for Your Block

Saturday, 2.00-2.45 at the Green Roof Space

This will be a quick moving workshop-studio event. The session will bounce back and forward from group presentation to small group and individual work. Drafting permaculture ideas for your block, what might your residence look like if it had a permaculture design

This will be workshop with a number of permaculture designers present Opening presentation gives a rundown on some simple design concepts and permaculture ideas; Make use of you opportunities with soil, water, sun to be environmentally productive. Grow food. Grow nearest the house what you need most of. Then each person is challenged to consider their own place and what could be done there. Paper will be available to sketch sites and members of Permaculture Melbourne will be available to discuss options and workshop in small groups.

If you are interested in helping out, please contact John McKenzie on jlmckenzie@optusnet.com.au or 0421 699 306