Cartooning Workshop with Bradfield Dumpleton

Last week at co-op we had the pleasure of inviting local cartooning mentor, Bradfield Dumpleton to co-op. Bradfield has extensive experience working with children and school groups and our co-op children have boundless amounts of enthusiasm when it comes to cartooning, so we knew we were in for an interesting day.

Bradfield led the children through various drawing games before asking them what they'd like to draw… What mythical, made up, madcap creatures they could imagine for him to show them how to draw. For the next three hours we watched our children relax into a wonderful afternoon of cartooning. Fears and inhibitions were overcome as artists emerged from each child there. Some even surprised themselves! What a wonderful thing to witness! Bradfield was a warm and encouraging mentor whose passion for drawing is infectious - hopefully we'll be able to welcome him back to co-op some day soon!

Open Day :: Imbolc

We'll be holding our very first open day at co-op on Thursday, August 21st and we'd love it if you'd join us! Seasonal celebrations have always been such a wonderful way to bring our families together to mark the nature and abundance around us, so we'll be creating seasonal celebrations for each of our open days going forward.

Our first winter open day will be a belated celebration of Imbolc. Traditionally, Imbolc is a time when we first start noticing the stirrings of spring. It's a celebration of the passing of winter,  the lengthening days and stirring seeds give us hope for the warmer seasons ahead. Imbolc is a wonderful time to mark new beginnings and to set plans into action. It's a time of reawakening and a beautiful time to welcome our friends to co-op.

Open day activities will include:

* Yarn bombing our beloved tree with colour and love. Sadly, the tree we gathered under was pruned to a tall stump a few weeks ago, so we saw fit to nurture it and create some new happy memories with it. We'd love contributions of hand knitted or crocheted squares, blankets or lengths of fabric or yarn to cover what's left of our tree on the day.

* Making seed bombs to plant in the co-op grounds or take home and plant in your garden at home. A little guerrilla gardening and seasonal observance all in one…

* Beeswax candle rolling and decorating - for lighting the remaining days of winter through to spring!  There will be a small additional cost for this.

We've discovered some public barbecues in from of the hall, so we intend to make use of these on the day, so bring along anything you'd like to cook up for your family or to share.

The open day will cost $4 per family. All are welcome to come along and join in, both old and new friends! We hope to see you there! xx

Sharing Skills

Much of our talk at co-op lately has been about what skills we have between us that we can pool and share. Realising that creating a culture of sharing and learning is strengthening and nourishing for our group and its members, we aim to draw out those skills as we grow together. Adults learning from other adults inspires children to get involved and learn alongside their parents, or their peers. And finding skills that the children can share with each other is wonderful too! Kids are always so keen to learn what their friends can do…

Last week, one of the children facilitated a Manga drawing workshop while one of the parents facilitated a granny-square crochet workshop. Long held crocheting and manga drawing ambitions were fulfilled! And we got a start on preparing to yarn bomb our tree. By the end of the session, children were learning to crochet too! Some of the crocheting parents were rather keen to learn the art of manga, so we may need a repeat performance of that one at a later date!

Our Tree...

Quite shockingly, one day we arrived at co-op to find our beloved tree severely pruned back to a tall stump. You can read more about it here.

We hadn't realised just how much of the magic of our little co-op had been wrapped up in that beautiful, shady tree. But it's something we've come to realise in the weeks since.

We'll be planning a yarn bombing project for the tree, to make it a cheerier place to be and to honour what was. We're hoping friends from our wider community might feel moved to join in and celebrate with us and look forward with us...

Strengthening community & new beginnings

We've been talking about community quite a bit at co-op lately. Wanting to strengthen what we have, we've made a slight change towards seasonal membership subscriptions, encouraging members to come along weekly for a whole season at a time. Those who can't make it weekly, we are hoping to see at our seasonal open days which will be big, beautiful celebrations of our wider community and a chance for new friends to check out where we are and what we do.

We're hoping the familiarity that comes from a regular bunch of friends will mean an even more comfortable, reliable and supportive community for all of us, but especially our wonderful children. In recent months we've seen friendships blossom and bonds form that we hope will be life-long.

Today we lit a camp fire and held a loose kind of loud and rambunctious circle around it as we marked the beginning of this new phase for our co-operative. 

We cooked baked apples, corn and damper in the coals as the children built bush shelters…

And then honed their skills in the skate park nearby...

The warmth of the fire, shared food and company and plenty of wild space to explore were just the antidote to a cold, wintry day. Almost certainly, it'll be the first of many such fires for the season, and a wonderful way to spend a few hours on a day that is an absolute highlight of our week, every week. 

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If you're keen to come along and try out our co-op, please don't hesitate to get in touch. We'd love to meet you! You can stay up to date with details for open days by subscribing to this blog via the email box above, or joining our Facebook group.

Co-op Highlights

We've had such a wonderful time watching our co-op grow and for families within our community forge friendships. We've celebrated the seasons, tended our garden, played in the sunshine and our very first camp. Here are a few highlights of the past year or so…

The neighbourhood garden...

We began tending our neighbourhood garden plot in earnest in February and we've been astounded at what a small group of enthusiastic children can do in such a short time! Working together, they've weeded...




Dug and composted...




And prepared our garden for planting. In just the last half hour of each co-op day we've managed to prepare a beautiful plot. The children have learnt lots already about soil, water and weeds... Last week they noticed that the compost felt warm under their feet and so discussion of the composting process, bacteria and soil began... But not only that, they're discovering the beauty of working together and all mucking in to create something co-operatively to be proud of... Tomorrow we plant our first seeds and watch our little garden grow food for us to share! Our hope is that each family will have some food to take home, and that we might harvest enough for a cooking day in the hall. So much to look forward to and share... we're looking forward to watching this tiny co-op grow and flourish too!

A little catch up...

Our co-op has been back in full swing this year, after a little break over the summer. Activities since last year have included ice-cream making, using an old wooden churn, Christmas crafts, spy club, art workshops and loads and loads of play in the playground and the open field.




Our meets are now weekly, every Tuesday afternoon from 12pm. The hope is that with continuity, or numbers will grow and a solid group of regulars will form and a strong little community will grow from it. Activities tend to be fairly low-key these days, with families bringing along interesting things for the children to participate in if they like. If a larger venue is required, the main hall is available to us and with this set-up our options are really without limit.

We now have a plot at the local neighbourhood garden, just behind the cottage. We've also started a small book-swap library where we can bring good quality used books that we've finished reading and read them at co-op, or take them home if they are useful or loved. No need to return the book, just replace it with another that you've finished with.

Do pop along and join in the fun. All are welcome and we look forward to spending some time with you!

Bread and Yoga

Apologies for the lateness of this post! Last fortnight's co-op was small but so much fun! We organised to use the space of the community hall and held a yoga class thanks to Carinda from Yoga Bugs! She took the children (and some adults) on a yoga journey or two with some very imaginative interpretations of traditional yoga poses, while managing to explain the history and relevance of them in a fun and engaging way. The kids were enthralled! We also made the most of having an oven for the afternoon and baked some bread! Lots of fun and yummo too.

Tomorrow we are having a simple play meet with some paper window star folding, possibly some ice cream churning and an outdoor game or two in the open fields. Hope to see you there! xx

Wildlife Carers at Co-op!

Last time at co-op we had the pleasure of meeting Stephanie and Wayne from Southern Wildlife Rescue.  They came and talked to us about all things wildlife. They even brought along a little furry friend or two!



Everyone was engrossed and entertained by Stephanie and Wayne's engaging presentation and we all learnt so much about our native wildlife. We learnt some amazing facts about what makes our wildlife special. We had a close-up look at wombat poo and a good laugh at some tales of baby wombat antics while patting a gorgeous baby wombat.



Best of all, we learnt how each of us can help our native wildlife if we come across any sick or injured along the roadside or in the bush. We have a checklist now to keep in the glovebox and some activity kits to take home and enjoy as we remember Stephanie and Wayne's words.



We were also lucky to see one of our co-op families taking the next step to becoming wildlife carers, bringing in a baby Bennetts Wallaby for us all to see. Thanks so much to Stephanie and Wayne and to Fran for organising for them to come along!

This Tuesday (October 2nd) , we will have YogaBugs along to give us a free trial class. The weather looks to be lovely, so we can do yoga outside, or I've organised for the big hall to be available to us for the class. If we like it, there's an option to make yoga a regular co-op activity. And of course, if your child doesn't feel like participating, that's totally ok. Please feel free to bring along an alternate activity to share with the group if you like!

See you at co-op of Tuesday! xx