Foundation for rural and Regional Renewal - Community Impact Program
The Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal funded Community Impact events between September 2023 until June 2025. This included the following events and results:
1. & 2. Trade stalls = Tenterfield Show (26-27/01/2024 and 7-8/02/25), Tenterfield Showground. 100s of participants,
garnered a lot of interest in Granite Borders Landcare, selling plants and inviting 33 people to become new members.
3. Workshop 1 = Soil Health Your Wealth, Graeme Sait of NutriTech (4/03/24), Sunnyside Hall, west of Tenterfield. 31
participants.
4. Workshop 2 = Hollow Hog Bird Nest building, Hollow Hog (8/03/24). Tenterfield Park. 16 participants.
5. Workshop 3 = Cultural Burning in Context, Dr Peter Croft of UNE (17/04/24). 2024 AGM, the Royal Hotel, Tenterfield. 34
participants.
6. Workshop 4 = Carbon Farming Fundamentals by Clare Edwards (DPIRD) and Natural Capital links and pathways by Rachel
Lawrence (NT LLS) (02/08/24), Sunnyside Hall, east of Tenterfield. 26 participants.
7. Workshop 5 = Deep Listening to Nature, Andrew Skeoch (23-24/08/24). The Sir Henry Parkes School of Arts, Tenterfield.
This was a two day event, including an acoustic lecture, as well as a walk through Curry's Gap reserve, south west Tenterfield. Talk = 36 participants; Walk = 15 participants.
8. Workshop 6 = Wattle Day, Andrew Pengelli (SWRC), Sarah Caldwell (Mole Native Nursery), Helen Duroux (Gamilaroi
elder) (4/09/24). Granite Borders Landcare Office, Tenterfield, including a BBQ. 32 participants.
9. Workshop 7 = Soil Health, Human Nutrition How to do it course, Graeme Sait (7-8/04/25). Bolivia Hall, south of Tenterfield. 65 participants on day 1 and 57 participants on day 2 (122 total).
10. 11., 12. & 13. Workshops 8 - Workshop 11, International Women's Day events = 2x Cheesemaking and 2x Pickling
workshops by Country Feeling Australia (15/03 and 22/03). Each of the four workshops had between 17- 19 participants.The number, unfortunately, had to be limited to the number that the vendor could teach to (20). Wallangarra-Jennings Memorial Hall, north of Tenterfield. Total participants = 72.
14. Youth & Community Training = Working with Waterwise (Community Environment Network), OzFish and Back Track
Youth Works water quality monitoring events + a kick-off BBQ/ demo (24/10/24). Held on the 3rd Thursday of each month,
Nov 24- Feb 25. This fostered some lasting partnerships with OzFish and Back Track Youth works, including some of the
young Indigneous people in town. Total participants over 3 training days = 21 participants.
15. Social event = 2024 Christmas Party and General Meeting. The Tenterfield Golf Club, north Tenterfield. 56 participants.
16 & 17. Australian Rural Leadership Foundation (ARLF) conferences and courses = Leadership Action Initiative, Uralla (20-
21/03/24; Changemaker, Glen Innes (24-25/03/25). 5 partcipants (3 Committee and 2 staff).
Through the FRRR-CIP project, Granite Borders Landcare Committee reached a total of 499 participants over the course of 19 days, with even more unaccounted for at the two trade stall events. These participants included a range of demographics, including unemployed and work trainee Indigenous youth, landholders and producers, older lifestyle and special interest groups.
The project brought together a cross section of the Tenterfield Community in activities to build social capacity, create new connections and build relationships. Particularly important in these objectives were social workshops, such as the Cottage Industry pickling and cheesemaking workshops. In addition to learning new
skills, positive feedback included that people were able to relax, meet new people and talk about their worries. These evidenced achievement of our project objectives for improving mental health, well-being and building personal relationships. Granite Borders Landcare are proud of the trend noticeable of ever increasing participation in our events, evidenced by the later events, which saw 50+ participants on a regular basis. This was far more than expected in the original application, targeting between 10- 20 participants per event, proving that these offerings are popular in the community.
One thing the Committee is very proud of is reinvesting unspent money from this grant in additional events for the community. Targeting those events that were overwhelmingly popular, based on previous delivery, workshop feedback and other intel, meant that GBLC could provide relevant events in Tenterfield community. In particular, GBLC is proud of re-directing the waterwise glovebox publication towards contributing towards Indigenous youth training in water quality testing in the Back Track Youth Works program.
This arrangement allowed us to contribute over time in regular water quality testing training, contribute to national water quality database information and foster partnerships with OzFish and Back Tracks Youth Works. Other examples include the cottage industry workshops and Graeme Sait course on soil and human nutrition.