Thank you everyone for attending tonight’s AGM. First off, I want to offer my sincere thanks to each and every one of the current committee, Lissa, Penny, Michelle, Leonie, Rose and Bezza – who replaced Kia, who resigned for personal reasons – for standing with me over the last 12 months as we endeavoured to bring YCG back on track after a few, very trying years.  While there have been numerous setbacks, they are now very nearly behind us and we can all take pleasure in what we have achieved so far.

Our Food Waste Loop project finished at the end of December ’23, and this committee decided not to seek further funding to continue, as the initiative had outgrown both the area allocated and our hard-working volunteer pool.  The entire project, which ran for over three years, was successful in demonstrating proof of concept and now we’ll keep pushing Council to take over this project and propel it forward in a better suited facility. At its peak, the FWL stopped more than 6 tonnes a month of Yandina’s restaurant food waste from reaching landfill. That’s an impressive figure by any standards and thanks must go to all the cafes and restaurants who participated. The Dingo that was purchased to assist in turning the compost piles became surplus to needs after the closure, and although it took months, we were fortunate to find a buyer who was happy with our asking price of $6000 and that money finally hit our bank account last week.

Since our last AGM, we have installed a new kitchen with a grant of $5000 from the Federal Government’s Stronger Communities Program Round 8, via Ted O’Brien’s office. This grant was successfully applied for by the previous committee but actioned and acquitted by this one. It is now a pleasure to work in this bright, clean uncluttered space.

Another milestone was reached when we held a few working bees to repair our poor cob oven, which suffered a bout of vandalism a while back. Our thanks go to Bob Cameron from Rockcote here in Yandina, who came to our rescue and provided his help and expertise, as well as all the paints and renders needed to bring our frog back from the brink. Thanks also go to Rex, the son of our committee member Rose.  Rex, a sculptor by trade, gave the frog a beautiful new face. Our revamped frog will be having its official launch on Saturday 5^th October at our next members and volunteers lunch.

In February, Sunshine Coast Council took back control of the Blue House, but that’s not as bad as it sounds.  We are on a three yearly lease covering both areas, but what it means to us is that Council is now responsible for the majority of maintenance and repair work that needs to be done on the BH – and being such an old building, there have been some long-standing repairs that we, as a group, just could not fund. Anyone coming to the Gardens over the last two years could not fail to have noticed the boarded-up deck and stairs around the Blue House caused by extensive dry rot in the timbers. Because of this damage we had to cancel our workshop program and we were unable to hire out the venue for other community groups; this caused a serious decline in income over that period. Council has since replaced the verandah and stairs and removed or repaired some damaged exterior walls containing asbestos. There are still some asbestos walls in the kitchen and bathroom, but these are well covered with paint so do not present a problem and we have been given a clean bill of health. Another benefit of Council taking over the BH is that our insurance bill has come down considerably without the building insurance component.

While all this Council work was going on, our tireless volunteers worked amazingly to clean up the gardens around the house and over on the old tennis and basketball courts. The shop and storage areas in the old aquaponics tunnel have also received their share of attention and are looking more inviting for both volunteers and visitors.

We have been successful in sending out three jam-packed issues of our revamped newsletter and the plan is that these will continue to be published every six weeks or so.

Some of the plans we have going forward are to move the chook house to a sunnier spot on the North St side, opposite the nursery tunnel and move our propagating area from the back of the gardens up behind the nursery tunnel. This area was our main junk storage depot, and a huge effort has been made to clean up, sort out and dispose of any materials no longer needed. We still have a lot of corrugated iron of various lengths – and degrees of rust – available to anyone who can use it. Any and all offers of help are always gratefully accepted, so, if anyone here has any spare time and energy that they just can’t seem to use up with chores at home, please consider coming along, even a few hours here and there makes a big difference.

Our new children’s street library has been a work in progress for quite some time. Gary, one of our Monday volunteers, repaired, repainted and made it water and vermin proof, and our very talented artist in residence – Ali – did an amazing job painting the door. We have lots of books ready to stock in our library, thanks to the generous donations of the Woombye Community Library. The official unveiling will be held in conjunction with the first pizza party in October, so, if you or your friends and neighbors have any little people in your life, let them know about this great resource.

One of the benefits of having the verandah repaired has been the recommencement of our permaculture workshop program.  This has started slowly with four so far and two in the pipeline; once the word is out, however, the interest and attendance will build. On the other hand, bookings for the BH from outside groups are increasing steadily, with 15 bookings so far, some of these are return bookings.

2024 was the end of an era for YCG, in that we ended our involvement in the setup of the Giant Kitchen Garden display at the Qld Garden Expo, something some of our volunteers have done for the best part of 16 years. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank each and every one of the volunteers who put in such a great effort every year. I’d also like to extend a huge vote of thanks to Paul Jones from Aqualess, who provided us with the wicking pots that we used in our display – Paul also provided the pots for our displays in the last three Expo’s and allowed us to on sell them to raise funds for the gardens – at no cost to us, which is greatly appreciated. We will still have a presence at the Expo manning our marquee and answering questions and selling seeds but we will leave the planning and the growing and the planting and the watering and the seven days straight at Nambour Showgrounds during Expo time to others. One of the highlights this year was having Costa sitting in the middle of our display being filmed doing a promo for Gardening Australia.

Talking about ends of eras, another big one for the gardens – and for lots of gardeners – was the permanent closing of Green Harvest Organics at Maleny.  Jeff and Frances Michaels have been very good friends and supporters of YCG for many years; Frances presented numerous workshops for us here in the BH. Following Green Harvest’s closure, they offered many of their plants to restock our gardens, numerous packets of seeds, reference books, work benches and storage shelf units for use around the gardens and for this we sincerely thank both Jeff and Frances and wish them well in retirement.

Another ending with a new beginning will also be happening here over the next few months when YCG goes through a rebranding exercise and comes out with a whole new look. We were fortunate to meet with two USC students who offered their help and expertise as part of their uni assignments – Esther de Schone, a marketing student, offered to transform our logo and redesign our website and garden signage. Esther came up with a variety of ideas, colours and themes for consideration and the one we decided on has the Blue House as the main feature of the logo, with a predominantly blue colour scheme.  The best part of this for YCG is that, not only is Esther designing our new look, but she has also offered to implement and maintain it, as a volunteer, without any cost to us. Our second student, Sarah Rogers, showed us how we can get more mileage via social media by using it smarter not harder; increasing our membership and volunteer numbers and providing the community with lots of interesting information through blogs and video clips relating to different aspects of permaculture and the gardens.

The members and volunteers lunches have now become a regular fixture on the calendar; we are holding them on the first Saturday of every second month and the next one in October will be our first pizza party in a long time. Reserve the date if possible and bring your family along, make new like-minded friends and renew past friendships.

Speaking of volunteers, and I include the dedicated group from SCILS and Jack from Multicap here as well – I can’t possibly finish this report without thanking each and every one of the amazing people who turn up here each and every Monday, Tuesday and Saturday to do what needs to be done, whether that be boring weeding; being on the end of a brushcutter or mower; propagating; pruning; working in the shop; seed saving; doing admin; organising the Newsletter; keeping social media up to date; organising workshops; presenting workshops; maintaining the membership register; doing the books and the finances, which put our treasurer, Penny, in a whole new world of pain as she learnt to navigate an unfamiliar and complex computer system, and a bureaucratic ATO, with the help of our asst treasurer, Michelle. Penny, by the way, isn’t standing for treasurer again this year, I really don’t know why. The proof of their perseverance and success is with you tonight in the form of the audited financial statements. Without all of these wonderful people, as well as our members who maybe can’t volunteer, but who support us financially, YCG would cease to exist and the thought of that is too difficult to contemplate.

As we go forward into the 24/25 year, I would like to thank once again, this wonderful current committee, who, after standing down as required at this AGM, have all put themselves forward to stand again so that YCG can continue to build on the momentum gained in this last year, to grow and prosper.  I think I have used the terms wonderful people or amazing people here a few times already, but there really are no other more suitable words that truly describe this team. So, thank you all for your support.

Finally, I want to thank Doug for not only supporting me, but for doing some of the heavy work out in the gardens and then working behind the scenes, helping the committee understand the computer system we inherited; and doing the work himself when we couldn’t – which was probably most of the time. Thank you.