Australian Fair Food Forum

Volunteering Opportunities

#1

Hi everyone! I am at ‘Pathways into the fair food community - networking night’ tonight! Super exciting to have all these awesome organisations all together. I am going to be updating this thread as each organisation speaks, so anyone who couldn’t make it tonight is able to access the info. All the speakers are also on the forum, so feel free to shoot anyone a question or continue discussion here!

Apologies in advance for any info I missed - they are rapid fire presentations! So please correct me / add more details if needs be!

https://www.facebook.com/events/120548051962591/?acontext={"action_history"%3A[{"surface"%3A"dashboard"%2C"mechanism"%3A"calendar_tab_event"%2C"extra_data"%3A"[]"}]%2C%22ref%22%3A1%2C%22source%22%3A2%7D

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#2

@emmy_grows - manager at Farmer Incubator

Their main aim is to help young people who are trying to get into agriculture.

They take young people through a whole season of growing, and run a whole set of workshops to get them sorted. The also run events, farm tours and other workshops.

In the next 6 months:

  • In middle of doing series of farm tours. Come along to learn what we do
  • Fundraising dinner in November. Putting together big panel of small scale producers and people in that space and creating discussion around that.
  • Pop-up kicks off in March next year.

Positions:

  1. Event management
  2. Media and Comms
  3. Volunteers to come in for different events.
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#3

Youth Food Movement
http://www.youthfoodmovement.org.au/

They are helping to grow a generation of young people demanding healthier food and ecosystems. They want to get more young people into the fair food space and get them engaged

They create communities of young people and support their creativity

Main program is Upstart - participants are given the opportunity to start community food events and build their skills.

They are taking on board volunteers to help roughly 3-5 hours a week ( including training bootcamp)

The structure of their upstart program is constantly evolving, and they take on feedback every year to make it better

If you are looking to host an enthusiastic bunch of young upstart people for a retreat, workshop or field trip get in touch.

Best way to get in touch is via their facebook, instagram or website

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#4

@serenity - Open Food Network

They support enterprises to create an alternative food economy. They are an online platform which helps farmers and producers connect directly with their customers.

Open source platform, not for profit

In the next 6 months:

  1. Moving Australian OFN to more democratically controlled system.
  2. OFN Spain, Canada and France coming in November to do intensive month of strategy.

Positions:

Candidates are people who are passionate about the space, and can commit a day a week, for about 6 months.

  1. Comms and marketing
  2. Software and customer support.
    (Also open to designing internships which suit people’s needs and the kind of skills they want to develop)

OFN is also looking for an office space - anyone interested in collaborative spaces get in touch!

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#5

@tammois - Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance

Supporting the right to democratically determined agriculture.
Have been going for 7-8 years.
increasingly focused on small scale agriculture

Positions:

  1. researchers
  2. microbiologists.
  3. lawyers
  4. policy - those who know gov and how to influence them
  5. soil scientists.
  6. epidemiologists.
  7. planners - suporting low risk ecologically sound practices.

Best way to get in touch / know more is via their website

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#6

@Daniyela - Cultivating Community
http://www.cultivatingcommunity.org.au/

They support local communities to access good food. Mainly focused on public housing / community gardens. At the moment support about 800 gardeners to grow their own food.

Projects:

  • Run school food garden program - outdoor classroom activities. Main project here is to support more sustainable programs. Want school food gardens to be more a part of the whole school eg. part of the canteen, utilised outside school hours

  • Food systems program - community food centre in fitzroy. Facilitate that space for people to do food related activities eg. meet and eat. Also support other organisations to use that space

Positions:

  1. Marketing, fundraising and comms
  2. Working with staff in community gardens and school programs
  3. Volunteers at the food centres - Wednesday lunchtimes
  4. Volunteer coordinator for volunteer program - help to streamline and make it more efficient
  5. Occasional vols to help out at events etc.
  6. Wanting to do baking group - anyone interested in that
#7

Ellie - @3000acres

Not for profit. We work to facilitate agriculture projects. Founded on the principle of reclaiming resources and vacant land. Looking at what resources we can develop

3 main areas:

  1. Political and Culturally - advocacy work. Promoting agriculture
  2. Idea of resource access and availability - understanding that urban agriculture and community food projects need many things.
  • Open sourced map of city of Melbourne - has existing community food projects and vacant land that has potential in the future. Map is functional eg. opportunities to connect, can download toolkit of resources.
  • built network of people with resources to make this happen. make progressive movement in space.
  1. Build community gardens. 18 projects to date. 2 more being built this year, 1 early next year.

Upcoming projects and positions:

  1. Someone to do photography. Not very demanding, just someone who could come to garden builds and take nice photos for the organisation.
  2. East Brunswick comm garden - -6 weeks time. Someone in the area - community champion to manage project as garden manager.
#8

@ChrisE - CERES Fair Food

Environment park in Brunswick. Place that helps people fall in love with the earth again.

Online grocery - build loving relationships with farmers, give jobs to asylum seekers, build community and return all the money back to CERES to teach people.

Positions:

If you have project in mind and a passion, CERES can help facilitate.

  1. Social impact measurement
  2. Basic website design
  3. CERES fair wood - an all rounder who is excited to be involved with starting of business.
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#9

I have formal position descriptions to pass onto those who are interested! :+1:t4:

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#10

@sophiehartjamieson - Right to Food Coalition
https://righttofood.com.au/

Work with many families faced with food insecurity. Working at forefront of food insecurity on grassroots level.

Free membership base - very diverse backgrounds and expertise. Common goal - want to see people have access to nutritious food, that is a human right which needs to be acknowledged.

Projects this year:

  1. Have consulted to Moreland city council on their food policy.
  2. Hosting forums to upskill communities

In next 6 months:

  1. Redeveloping key asks going to government
  2. Inviting UN Rapporteur on food insecurity to come to Australia to conduct experiments and provide recommendations. Looking for funding for her, and people to host.

Positions:

  1. Volunteers to help with fundraising and hosting rapporteur
  2. Workshop in November - people to help out with this.
#11

Laura - @thecommunitygrocer
http://www.thecommunitygrocer.com.au/

Non profit in Melbourne and outer suburbs. Pop up market once a week in housing estates eg. Carlton. New markets opening up in the future.

Provide very affordable fruit and veg to low income populations. Believe that food should be affordable to everyone. Also addressing outer suburbs and low access to fruit and veg.

Positions:

  1. Market - most of volunteer base. Can check website to see which markets suit your life. Help set up and run. A bit of manual labour, cash management, customer management. Packing market down. Pay you in fruit and veg!
  2. Translating - serve hugely multilingual populations. Need people who are fluent in any language to help serve their population. Especially African languages eg. Somalian, Ethiopian
  3. Community outreach / engagement - letterbox dropping in neighbourhood, going to community events and being a presence for the organisation.
  4. Bike messengers - delivering left over produce to people.
#12

Kip - Melbourne Farmers Markets @MFM
http://mfm.com.au/

Operate 7 accredited farmers markets throughout Melbourne. Work with 350+ local businesses.

Upcoming Projects and Positions:

  • Every saturday at coburg farmers market have vol assistant manager. Good to be involved, gain experience and meet local producers.
  • Communications
  • Event planning
#13

@max - Sustain: Australian Food Network
http://www.circlesoffood.org/

Works in community food engagement in Cardinia. Drawing everyone affected by the food system in the region to the table. Forging relationships and building trust.

Upcoming projects and positions:

  • Partnering with Community Grocer and other local producers to create a market in Pakenham. Looking for volunteers to help out with this.
  • Developing food literaracy. Helping people know about seasonality, where they can get local fruit and veg, where are farm gate sales etc.
  • Supporting farm school partnerships. Looking for passionate people to help kids learn to grow food.
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#14

@SophieLamond - Fair Food Challenge
http://www.fairfoodchallenge.com/

Working in universities to change campus food systems. Get universities to take responsibility for their food systems eg. reduce food waste, make food affordable. Systems focused. Get university to match its research - do things more sustainable.

Focused on people who are in university. Primarily focused on Melbourne Uni.

Positions:

Melb Uni specific

  • Comms - content coordinator eg. editorial role OR If you want to tell a story
  • Operations - day to day operations.

Other unis:

  • If you are interested in building fair food community in your own university. Want to support you to do this.
#15

Elise - @slowfoodmelbourne

Feeding people eg. asylum seeker resource centre with discarded produce.

World Disco Soup Day - April next year.

Good food, passion for gastronomy, food thats good for the environment, FAIR FOOD.

Abbotsford Convent Market - allow you to be involved and talk to producers / customers about fair food. Engage people with whats going on in our food system.

Want to support / help people in the slow food movement in whatever capacity.

We need to get together more often, and slow food can be a part of that to help foster that.

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#16

Awesome, that is correct!

#17

Its Daniyela here- I am on the forum! Please direct any question you have to me- thanks!

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#18

Thanks Isabel! Just thought I’d clarify what we do, what we need from volunteers and what we can offer them :slight_smile:

At Slow Food Melbourne, we’re all about good, clean and fair food for all! Passionate about gastronomy, we have lots of fun exploring taste, conviviality, food culture in all its forms and food sovereignty as they are all intricately connected.

We offer creative freedom for our volunteers, members and supporters! If there is a particular food passion project you want to start, we will support you in whatever way we can under the Slow Food banner, which brings with it prestige, respect and history.

SLOW FOOD MELBOURNE FARMERS’ MARKET at The Abbotsford Convent: get involved on market day talking to market goers about fair food, engaging people with what’s going on in our local and global food system. We also need a hand at our Breakfast Stall.

DISCO SOUP: Youth initiative in conjunction with ASRC to feed people with discarded produce whilst having a boogie, culminating in Slow Food’s World Disco Soup Day 29th April, annually.

SLOW FISH/ SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD: We run all kinds of Slow projects, but this is our current focus. With this project already in the works, having sent fisherfolk to Slow Fish in Italy, early next year we’ll be teaming up with chefs, fisher families, scientists and bloggers for our Slow Fish event. This is in the wake of the Victorian government banning all commercial net fishing in our bay. We need volunteers to organise and run these events!

CHEF’S ALLIANCE: Working with Victorian chefs and farmers to transparently and honestly use local ingredients in restaurants and cafes. Developing this project and would love volunteers to get involved.

SLOW FERMENT: Project being developed and would love more people to get involved so an event can be put on next year.

Look forward to meeting you all! Please contact us at sfmyouth@gmail.com in relation to Disco Soup, and slowfoodmelbourne@gmail.com in relation to other projects. Thanks!

Elise (Youth Advocate) and Miin (Comms, Advocacy and Market Management)

#19

@OpenFoodNetwork We have office space in Brisvegas!!! :wink:

#20

@BenMac Chef’s Alliance work mentioned above - looks really relevant to what you’re doing!