Lorraine lovingly tends this garden - a marvellous contribution to Robinvale and the Network House

To market, to market, and to market at beautiful Buninyong

To-day I went to the Buninyong Markets.  Buninyong is a charming Victorian country village and now an outer suburb of Ballarat.  Once a month, on the third Saturday, it becomes Market Central.  THE market, so to speak, is organised by Rotary and you can find details here.

To my visitor's eye, I saw the market as a whole comprised of three sections.  Inside the Town Hall, seemed to be the Makers' Market: food, soaps, crafts, and so on.  Outside, the service lane coming parking area was taken over by things that grow.  This, to me, was the Farmers' Market.  This two/thirds was part of the Rotary bailiwick.

Next door at the Buninyong Uniting Church there was the third section: a Car Boot Sale.  I think some of the stuff there would not have fitted anywhere near a car boot.  There were crowds of stalls on the extensive front lawns of the church.  All manner of materials and things and books and things. Up next to the church itself is the church hall from where Uniting Church women served tea and biscuits alongside a table selling various goods and the whole in the midst of boxes and boxes of all manner of books.

I think it is a marvellous undertaking that Buninyong has embarked upon.  It brings people, goods and money to the village in a rather joyous jumble to make a marvellous whole.

To take a peek at the experience of going to market in Buninyong,

please go here.

The story of Meetup

Those of you who have your own blogs may know about meetup. It is a wonderful net tool for organising people to get together for meetings, a drink, whatever.  And while bloggers may love to communicate on their blogs, many of them like to meet up with similarly interested bloggers in their neighbourhood...so there's a tendency to use meetup.  In my mail box to-day dropped the wonderful and somewhat emotional story of how it all started............

Fellow Meetuppers,

I don't write to our whole community often, but this week is special because it's the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and many people don't know that Meetup is a 9/11 baby.

Let me tell you the Meetup story. I was living a couple miles from the Twin Towers, and I was the kind of person who thought local community doesn't matter much if we've got the internet and tv. The only time I thought about my neighbors was when I hoped they wouldn't bother me.

When the towers fell, I found myself talking to more neighbors in the days after 9/11 than ever before. People said hello to neighbors (next-door and across the city) who they'd normally ignore. People were looking after each other, helping each other, and meeting up with each other. You know, being neighborly.

A lot of people were thinking that maybe 9/11 could bring people together in a lasting way. So the idea for Meetup was born: Could we use the internet to get off the internet -- and grow local communities?

We didn't know if it would work. Most people thought it was a crazy idea -- especially because terrorism is designed to make people distrust one another.

A small team came together, and we launched Meetup 9 months after 9/11.

Today, almost 10 years and 10 million Meetuppers later, it's working. Every day, thousands of Meetups happen. Moms Meetups, Small Business Meetups, Fitness Meetups... a wild variety of 100,000 Meetup Groups with not much in common -- except one thing.

Every Meetup starts with people simply saying hello to neighbors. And what often happens next is still amazing to me. They grow businesses and bands together, they teach and motivate each other, they babysit each other's kids and find other ways to work together. They have fun and find solace together. They make friends and form powerful community. It's powerful stuff.

It's a wonderful revolution in local community, and it's thanks to everyone who shows up.

Meetups aren't about 9/11, but they may not be happening if it weren't for 9/11.

9/11 didn't make us too scared to go outside or talk to strangers. 9/11 didn't rip us apart. No, we're building new community together!!!!

The towers fell, but we rise up. And we're just getting started with these Meetups.

Scott Heiferman (on behalf of 80 people at Meetup HQ)
Co-Founder & CEO, Meetup
New York City
September 2011

--
Add info@meetup.com to your address book to receive all Meetup
emails

To manage your email settings, go to:
http://www.meetup.com/account/comm/

Meetup, PO Box 4668 #37895
New York, New York 10163-4668

Ode to an Opp Shop 2

Here are more photos of the Parents Without Partners Opp Shop at beautiful Upper Ferntree Gully. What can one say - I just marvel at it.

Ode to an Opp Shop 1

Parents Without Partners operate an Opp Shop at Upper Ferntree Gully. Last year, the shop front became a giant canvas/workspace as Work for the Dole participants in Knox City executed a wonderful mural entitled "Jungle Rhapsody". The work is huge and gorgeous. Miss Eagle doesn't know how long it took to paint, or how many people were involved but she does know it took quite a while to photograph it.

Dandenong Show - Community

A sense of community through shared activities is something that can be lost in the busy-ness of daily life. It was, therefore, wonderful to see the community involved in the Dandenong Show. The photos below put the community message forward loud and clear.

This album is powered by
BubbleShare
- Add to my blog