Update: Council met on 15 February this year to consider the proposed lease of Maidstone Hall and resolved as follows:

1. “Endorse the suspension of the Expressions of Interest process to lease Maidstone Hall, 16 Thomson Street, Maidstone, until a suitable site for the relocation for the Footscray Senior Citizens Centre is found”

This means our Expression of Interest is on hold until further notice. Presumably, it also means that Council might decide to relocate the Footscray Senior Citizens Centre to the Maidstone Hall site. If this happens, there should be appropriate processes and opportunity to express your views. However, if you do feel strongly about the possibility of the Senior Citizens Centre being moved to the site, we urge you to express your views to your local Councillor in writing.

POW will keep you updated, but it is unlikely we will hear much until much later this year.

Community Dinner

Come along and meet members of the new Maidstone & West Footscray Residents Group (MAWFREG).  It’ll be our first chance to get together and meet others in our neighbourhood.

Wednesday 17 November, 6 – 8pm

Maidstone Community Centre

21 Yardley Street, Maidstone

The delicious set menu will consist of pasta or chicken and salad and apple cake for dessert.

Spaces are limited so pre booking is required.

Registrations need to be lodged at the centre no later than Monday 15 November.

To register for the dinner, call Maidstone Community Centre on 9317 0747.

maidcomm@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au

If you’d like to be involved in your local community, have a say about what happens in your area, got some great ideas or some issues to discuss, then please come along and introduce yourself, have a chat and something to eat, and register your contact details for the next steps.

If you can’t make it on the day, we’ve have set up an email address for the group, so please send your details to:  mawfreg@live.com.au

We don’t intend membership being too time-consuming, as we all lead busy lives.  Maybe meeting once every couple of months or as issues arise, keeping in touch between time via email.  We’d like to start with having some really, interesting speakers  present to the group as a way to begin our journey.  The intention is to be a positive and proactive force for the area, not necessarily focussing on negatives.    If you have any ideas for interesting speakers, please let us know.  Many of the people who have shown interest so far, have their own areas of specialty and could possibly make presentations to the group.   Some of the first topics of interest may be: the future of the Maidstone Hall, local parks and open space, dog parks, planning, etc.  Maybe we start planning for the first Community Christmas party for our neighbourhood.   Who knows?!  Anyway, it’s all open to suggestion at this stage.

PLEASE feel free to forward this to your networks or print out the flyer and display at your workplace or somewhere locals will see it, i.e. supermarket, dog park, kindergarten, etc.   The more the merrier!  Contact details are below if you need more info.

PS.  We’d really love some assistance with letterbox dropping so we can spread the word before the 7th.   Is anyone willing to assist?

regards, Wendy Lang

mawfreg@live.com.au

http://groups.google.com/group/molm

letter re council meeting 20 july 2010

Dear Mayor Sanli,

Re: Support for establishment of a community garden at the Maidstone Hall site.

I am writing to you to express my strong support for retaining the Maidstone Hall site in the hands of the community, and to support the proposal for a community garden and demonstration sustainability centre.

Community gardens bring great benefit to individuals, communities and neighbourhoods. They provide much needed open space ? an asset becoming increasingly important with a growing population and density. Community gardens also have positive health and social wellbeing outcomes through providing fresh produce, but also a source of physical activity, a site for social and community activities, and provides many educational opportunities. Health and social wellbeing outcomes are of great priority with many health concerns and social exclusion evident in our communities. The best part of community gardens is that they are open to participation for the whole of the community.

There are many examples across Victoria, Australia and the world demonstrating successful community garden projects undertaken in partnership with local councils, and the many benefits that have resulted. These include at Ringwood, St Kilda, CERES on the Merri Creek and many more.

I encourage you to support the proposal for a community garden and demonstration sustainability centre for the Maidstone Hall site.

Yours Sincerely

Colleen Hartland

St Kilda Community gardens

Please RSVP to info@pow.org.au

Costa explores Melbourne’s Kevin Heinze Garden Centre where people with disabilities get their hands in the dirt, do something physical and experience the sensory delights of the space.   It’s a space where people can see, hear, touch, smell and taste a variety of plants and flowers.  The Maidstone Community Centre also wishes to create this type of garden for their members and Costa, with the help of POW, transforms their overgrown backyard into a sensory haven where people can interact and connect with nature.  It’s a philosophy that the Abbott of the Quang Mihn Buddhist Temple endorses – we need to create harmony and balance between the environment and our use of it which is why the Temple has installed a commercial worm farm to recycle the Temple’s waste.

Costa’s garden odyssey

Young people can learn how to make a healthy lunch that they can eat and enjoy between 12noon – 1pm at Maidstone Community Centre. All ingredients are provided and there will be people there to help. Stay on afterwards and join in the many activities available at Maidstone Community Centre.
LOCATION: Maidstone Community Centre, 21 Yardley Street, Maidstone 3012
CONTACT NAME: Wendy Vine  PHONE: 9317 0747
EMAIL: wendy.vine@maribyrnong.vic.gov.au
WEB: http://www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au/Calendar

The agenda for the meeting, including the officer’s recommendation to council can be viewed from Friday 12th March at www.maribyrnong.vic.gov.au. Councillor’s email addresses can also be found on the Council website. They’d love to hear your thoughts on the officer’s report when it is published.

Details of our submission can be found here.

Scott will be doing the prep on the Saturday, so people are needed to run the stall (pouring chilled drinks) from 12 PM until 3PM, plus a bit of set-up and pack-up either side of that. Scott will be running the woodfired oven as well as overseeing the food safety issues.  Could people please email Scott their availability during this time and can be scheduled in. Ideally we should have 2-3 people at a time on for about an hour each over the three hour program, giving plenty of time to enjoy the other activities on the day.