As a community, we’ve agreed to protect and maintain the health of our members and ecosystems, and manage the land using organic and Permaculture principles. We aim to minimise, and ideally eliminate, the use of poisonous substances and nominate alternatives to the use of poisonous substances on the Community Parcel where possible. So today, we welcomed Ben Larson of Weedtechnics …
A Tale of Two Houses
The Gosford Horticulture Research Station was established by the State Government as Narara Viticulture Nursery in 1912 as a consequence of failures to produce Phylloxera-resistant rootstocks to combat a major outbreak of the Phylloxera aphid in the grape growing areas in NSW and Victoria. Heritage House Of the two residences built on the 220 acres, the Heritage House was built 1915-1916 …
21st Century Homes for the Future Society and Climate: The Eco Dreamers seminar
Yesterday (Saturday 12 May) 75 people came to Narara Ecovillage to hear Brendan Condon, Project Director, talk about the inspiring Cape Paterson Ecovillage in Victoria and their new 9 and 10 star sustainable homes. This was followed by a panel discussion with Narara Ecovillage. They key topic was the challenge of creating climate-proof, zero energy cost, sustainable homes and subdivisions, in …
Sacred Spaces Design Workshop
Member Scilla enjoyed Robina McCurdy’s 2-day Sacred Space Design workshop held at Narara Ecovillage over the weekend of 28/29 April. She said: ‘It was a great success on many levels. We were inspired by glimpses of special places from around the world, learnt about how ‘attune’ to this particular piece of Earth and followed our leadings to work on a …
Narara Kitchen Dinner Tuesday Night: Gratitude. Community. Life.
With this post we introduce a new-ish member of the Ecovillage. Dini is going to guest post various events from the village starting with this regular event we have at the village – shared dinners. Many thanks Dini! Narara kitchen dinners have been running for some time. Each one continues to be a hands-on example of making every moment count – …
Village day Feb 24th
Saturday 24 February, 1-4pm Our new format Village Day went off with a bang in January, with lots of activities to allow our 60 visitors to experience life at Narara Ecovillage. From 1pm our guests could choose to visit the tool library, have knives and tools sharpened by Rob and learn some bicycle maintenance skills with Mike. Many people enjoyed a site tour with Lincoln and …
Village Day in January
The Village kicked off the year with a new format for the monthly Open Days. Renamed to Village Days we are inviting you to join us for ‘a day at the village’ – we’d love you to join in the fun and comaraderie of a group of people working and playing together. During the year as we start to build …
Wildlife at the village
A very healthy-looking Echidna was spotted late afternoon last week. Said Richard Cassels: “This was the first I have seen here after living for 5 years. It was digging into an ant’s nest, on the track to the creek bridge, before curling up into a ball and burying its vulnerable parts, in fear of me and pooch Bentley. The mobile phone …
Construction of outdoor kitchen
To accommodate our many outdoor activities in the Farm Square area, we are building an outdoor kitchen (led by Majella Lloyd, co-founder of the Natural Building Group) from recycled materials, not only for the convenience of a practical, usable space in the northern area of our site, but this project is a hybrid experimental foray into ancient natural building techniques …
Open Day is now Village Day! 27th Jan 2017
Saturday 27th Jan, 1-4pm Our exciting new format Village Day is designed to allow visitors more involvement and opportunities to engage with our community activities which will change from month to month. Village Day organizer, Jeni O’Connor says: “As our Ecovillage is moving to the next stage of development, with the imminent growth of houses and infrastructure, we felt it was important to …
The Natural natural builder
By Richard Cassels A pair of Magpie-larks have just completed this fine mud nest in a Pecan tree below the Fisheries Building. The source of their building materials is the dry mud at the base of the nearby detention basin. (The barrenness of the detention basin’s bottom is due to a flock of about 50 Maned Wood Ducks having eaten …
First Development Approval Applications lodged
–Elizabeth Crichton It has finally happened! Exciting news! The first two Development Applications have been lodged with council! Yes, Tuesday Deb & Dan, and Libby successfully submitted their DAs with the help of JT and Art…thanks to you both! There were a couple of minor glitches but those hurdles were quickly crossed and there we were paying our lodgement fees and it was done!!
Natural Building Group talk on Findhorn
-Linda, Dan, Majella Last Friday evening’s talk by our Project Director, John Talbott (known as JT as owing to a surfeit of John’s in our community), was warmly welcomed by over 30 members and friends. JT, a registered Professional Engineer, has dedicated much of his life to developing viable practical solutions for sustainable living. He was destined to be part of Narara Ecovillage when …
2017 End of Year Celebrations
End of year celebrations – Joy Mozzi What a weekend to finish another year as part of our village and community. Three days of intense fun, socialising, eating, dancing, meeting time, laughing, working bees, the list goes on. Friday night – JT gave a talk to about 40 of us about his experiences building at Findhorn. Saturday morning – working bees chipping …
Bushfire Mitigation at the Village
At the last Land Team meeting, Tony Hester appraised the group about the threat of Bushfire to our village. Tony said: ‘Of all the risks, bushfire remains the number 1 threat to this property.’ He added: ‘Under the section 88b instrument, the Co-op and all private land owners have an ongoing obligation to maintain the whole of stage 1 as …
Narara Ecovillage granted first community-owned water licence in NSW
NARARA, NSW – In a first for a community enterprise in NSW, the Narara Ecovillage Co-operative (NEV) announced today that it has secured permission to operate its own fully integrated water system. Granted by NSW Minister for Energy and Utilities Don Harwin on the recommendation of the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART), the licences allow NEV to provide residents …
Making Scarecrows at November 2016 Open Day
At our November 2016 Open Day, we researched straw and other natural building materials. So what better time for the kids to figure out how to make scarecrows from a big straw bale? Oh, and then there were PUPPIES. Here are a few snapshots from the day: Thank you to all you kids for coming along. It’s probably fair to …
Huff ‘n’ Puff Strawbale Workshop #160
Over the October Labour day long weekend, Vanessa and I (along with kids and grandparents) visited Ganmain to attend the Huff ‘n’ Puff #160 strawbale workshop. You can find out more from their website below. http://glassford.com.au/main/ Can’t wait to build our own strawbale house at Narara in the coming months!! – John
Photo Blog: Open Kids Day
28 August 2016
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