When I look through the events of this year, I am taken aback with the wonderful amount of work in our community that Lighter Footprints members have achieved – our monthly meetings, small group work, forums, submissions and putting the case for climate action, and I would like to extend my thanks to you all.
Here are some of the highlights:
- 3 big forums at the Hawthorn town hall ( audience – 1300)
- 3 meetings in the Marwal centre (audience – 500)
- 4 meetings in the Guide hall (audience – 300)
- Over the year we have delivered about 100,000 flyers
- 10 Committee meetings
- 5 Policy Action Group meetings
- 12 Forum planning group meetings
- 7 website planning and then website training meetings
- 20 or so cumulative meetings of our three working groups
So that is over 50 meetings and over 2000 attendees! We also did 7 submissions to enquiries at the three levels of government, and spoke to U3A The Lyceum Club and Probus, ran stalls at several Community festivals, and of course many members contributed to raising awareness of climate action at the recent elections.
Our meetings also covered a wide range of topics – here is a reprise along with some notable highlights:
February: Clean Energy Disruption: Simon Holmes a Court and Bruce Mountain with Rob Gell at the Hawthorn Town Hall.
March; Lighter Footprints’ 5 Kooyong candidates & two school strikers forum; Kooyong Votes Climate campaign in full swing; the first School Strikers march
April: Election forum – Is climate the issue of the moment? – 6 candidates with Barry Jones – 600 audience at Hawthorn Town Hall
May: First 100 days – Victoria McKenzie-McHarg
June: Victoria and Energy – with Bruce Mountain, Marwal Centre
July: Waste and Climate – Problem or opportunity, Mat Genever from the State Govt and Natasza Purser from Boorondara Council
August: Hydrogen the coming wave -Oliver Yates and Andrew Reddaway, Marwal Centre
September: Agriculture, Regeneration and Climate – Bev Middleton and Thomas Nicholas; 150,000 people attending the Climate Strike in Melbourne
October: Living in a Clean Economy – Tom Kompas, Peter Newman and Anthea Harris, with Victoria McKenzie –McHarg at the Hawthorn Town Hall
November: Powering up for Summer Dylan McConnell and Ric Brazzale
And I would like to extend special thanks to our hard working committee and Lighter Footprints core volunteers and leaders of our action groups and working groups.
So special thanks to:
Anne Young and Joy Mettam co-convenors of local government group, and Brenda Tait organising the speakers group, Mick Nolan, who runs the Energy group, is also on thee Committee and provides key logistical support.
Lynn Frankes, Deputy Convenor, meetings, stalls and so much more: John Gare, Treasurer, assisting the writers group plus solar model and food wrangler; Myf Parker, our Secretary who never fails to record our sometimes long and tricky meetings.
Other committee members include Ray Peck, volunteer coordinator and special work on forums; Julian Atchison working on the website and many other jobs, Rob Brown, energy and submissions; and Ken Parker on data base of our members.
But it doesnt end there. Many others continue to work on a range of projects that are fundamental to Lighter Footprints, and there are too many to identify all of them- but here are some – Sally Newell, Comms, graphics, lifting our brand and a driver of our strategic thinking; Simon Grosser has been helping us build a new website; Matilda Bowra offering professional media services; Julian Meehan whose amazing photos have been used around the world and that make our work look so much more exciting than it really is! Malcolm Cameron who has helped build a unique writers group focused on letters to the paper which has tried to be copied by other groups with much less success than Malcolm has achieved – thanks also to our star writers – Barb Fraser, Bev Macintosh, Bill Chandler to mention but a few. And thanks too to Tam An, especially for work on the Climate Emergency Declaration petition with Jean Christie, Julia Croatto and Lynn Frankes.
And we are so grateful for support from Darryl Maunder and Rob Anderson for Forum slides and video, Andrew Mitchell for Facebook Live, Penny Sillet, David Harmer, Carmel McNaught, David Kennedy, Yoland Wadsworth, Malcolm Cameron, Allen Lo, Judith Scurfield, Shirley Mitchell, Jenny Henty, Bev Middleton, Mandy Alner, Laurence Ingvarson and many others for support for our larger (and smaller) events.
This is just a taste of the group that makes up Lighter Footprints – a small committee and wider group of core supporters, with over 350 on our Action list and nearly 2000 on our News list.
Thank you again for your many contributions, for making this such a special group where we can have fun together, and for working to build Lighter Footprints into a powerful voice for clean energy and climate action in Melbourne’s inner east.
Carolyn Ingvarson