Looking back at 2023

By Kit Shepherd, Convenor, Transition Bondi, 30.11.23

This year we’ve covered a lot of territory and had the pleasure welcoming new people into our
group and sadly saying goodbye to others who were passing through and got on board for a short
time….
Our hearty crew has been steering the boat as volunteers with Transition Bondi, facing the choppy
seas of daily living pressures, local and global issues, and fluctuating circumstances in our group.

This noble team consists of Lee (newsletter), Lise (tech, creativity, visioning), Chiara (garden and
slow fashion), Louise (connecting with Council), Kit (overview), Carolyn (systems), Tahlia (Markets
and overview) and a newcomer Jess (service design); others who are still holding onto one oar are
Nicole (Marketing), Laura (garden consulting) and Shona (recruitment support).
Regular volunteers are Chris (laneway gardens), Christine (watering roster), Rinita (admin
assistant), Jillian (note-taker), Zara (gardens). Julian, Kara and Elvis moved out of Bondi in August
and we’re still missing them.

Those who managed to stay while they could were: Julian from Argentina, Inez from Argentina,
Kazuya and Tijana
Our monthly Guest Dinners aim tooffered a banquet of dishes:
Regeneration vs Sustainability (Julianne Paradis)
Save the Forests (Dorothea Babeck)
Building a Straw Bale House (Nikki ……and Bernard Hickey)
Navigating stormy seas (Tom and Ling Halbert)
Permaculture Awareness (Doris Langer)
NAIDOC The Voice (kitchen table discussion)
Nina Facing Fast Fashion. (Nina Gbor)
Beyond the Electiricity Grid (Ashley Wearne)
Driving Change, Building Resilience (Stephen Bygrave)
Bee Inspirted (Elliott Hanley)

Our Garden activities have continued steadily – twice a week (Monday and Thursday) late
afternoon at 241 Bondi Rd (behind the building), plus a monthly working bee on the second
Sunday of the month.
We’ve also been keeping little local patches of laneway looking nice, and have begun to join the
Anglesea St community garden team in looking after the garden at the Waverley Woollahra Art
School, on Bondi opposite the Oval. We’re there once a month the first Friday mornings.
We’ve set up a community composting system there too, hoping to expand that activity to local
café and restaurant waste as well as local residents and students of the Art School. As we know
food waste and soil degradation are both enormous sources of carbon emissions, and all of us can
make an impact there.

The Farmers Market stall twice a month is the place to be on a sunny Saturday morning, with
families wandering through, enjoying delicious food and catching up with friends. We have a table
full of things to look at and learn about. Conversations are to be had, with locals and visitors to the
area. Stories from other places, projects that people are involved with, and ideas around
sustainable living and the big issues we face make it a fabulous and festive place.

One of the highlights of the year is our burgeoning Mend and Remake monthly program that now
takes place at Waverley Library. Mending, and refashioning the clothes that we don’t want to part with is a joy to many people….and is often accompanied by family stories and creative visioning.
Or the quietness that can come with focusing on a task that bring immediate results!

There have been training opportunities and workshops that keep us fresh and inspired, and
Council creates the container for environmental groups in to come together and ‘collaborate for
impact’, sometimes across the 3 local councils Waverley, Randwick and Woollahra. Council has
also just completed the Power to the Future intergenerational program that culminated in a
gamified offering, that had 20 households forging their way through 40 environmental tasks, after
eighteen months of learning and skills development. TB has been part of that. And Summerama
early next year, we’ll be involved as well.

We have two other strands that are waiting to be strengthened…..Inner Transition (maintaining our
wellbeing and sustainability as individuals and as a group) and indigenous Cultural Awareness
(which is so much needed at the centre of any environmental conversations and projects).
Transition Australia continued to offer monthly Zoom Cafes on a Sunday night, to connect with like-
minded groups across the country.
TA also ran four inspiring panels called Stories of Transition, with 3 groups each time telling the
story of their group, its origins, ups and downs, achievements and challenges.
We’re ending the year on an elevated note, with recent input from a local seasoned Climate
academic and community supporter – Stephen Bygrave – and also with the arrival of some new
people into our group. We’ve also put a lot of thought into some planning and expansion for next
year. Find out what’s on for 2024 here