Community Comes Together- Sweet Talks 2015

By Justine Skilling

Good food, good conversations and good ideas were shared at the second Mangere Bridge community Sweet Talks earlier this month. A crowd of around 50 passionate, enthusiastic locals gathered at the Ambury Farm barn, ready to share ideas for creating a more caring, connected and wastewise community and to hear about what Friends of the Farm have been up to over the past year. 

On arrival, guests contributed events to a Mangere Bridge community calendar, a project we’re planning to get off the ground over the next year.  By way of an icebreaker, Frances Hancock (our facilitator for the evening) created an imaginary map of Mangere Bridge in the room and asked us to stand where we lived and where we felt “our patch” was.  This encouraged conversation with neighbours about areas that’re special to us in our community and got us thinking about how we might take responsibility for looking after them in some way.

Janine Nillesen gave an overview of the past year and the work Friends of the Farm have been doing in the community to create connection and foster care for the environment.  She reported back on initiatives that were suggested in last year’s Sweet Talks and have since come to fruition, such as the soft plastics collection, our facebook page, the Spring foreshore clean up, and planning for an annual community picnic to be held in February. 

In keeping with our Sweet Talks tradition, we created a café together in the room, complete with long tables, candles, flowers and delectable desserts (thanks to Donna Hansen, our local caterer).  Our wonderful volunteer café staff swept in to take hot drink orders and the conversation began.  Ideas for projects tackling household waste and fostering community storytelling were on the menu, along with general suggestions for making Mangere Bridge a more caring, wastewise, connected community.    

Once again, the group came up with some fabulous, creative ideas, including a mid-Winter Barn Dance, fruit trees in community spaces, and holding a swap/ recycle meet.  There were lots of requests for more information about what to do with different types of rubbish and more communication from our group about what we’re doing and how to get involved. People would also like to find ways to connect children and older people with these community initatives.  

Several people offered to join our group and help to make some of these things happen over the next year. To help get things rolling, we've already begun work on a community database of volunteers.

Thanks to everyone who came and contributed ideas- It was a lovely night “communicating with local people who care about the community”, as one participant said.  Keep an eye out for information about upcoming events and opportunities to volunteer.