Aide-Memoire

Each year, instead of making new year resolutions, I pick a theme for the year. That way when I get sidetracked (as often happens) I can simply return to the theme. Also with a theme there are often many different things I can do to support it.

For 2009 my theme was simplicity and frugal living. The results here were pretty good on the whole. A big reduction in my carbon footprint; using public transport wherever possible; and living local as much as possible.

The idea for my 2010 theme came to me while traveling home via train from a lovely dinner with @mpesce – the words reinvention and reinvigoration popped into my head.

It seems to me that this is something that needs to happen on both a personal and societal level. We need to re-imagine the way we work, we need to reclaim healthful approaches to living, we need to find sustainable ways to exist.

The next step is to consider which areas of my life will be the starting point for reinvention and reinvigoration.

This year has been one of great personal challenges for me and my family. To have made it to the end of the year with all of us still on deck is a good feeling.

2009 brought home to me how truly important continued good health is, and how lucky we are in Australia with our health system.

The year saw many plans in train at the start of the year, with most of them deferred due to the aforementioned personal challenges. So it feels like I did not really achieve much that I’d hoped.

But putting all of that aside, it was a year that revealed the kindness of friends and power of online networks to create and build real relationships. Real life friends who supported me this year have made all the difference.

Another great example of that was the diverse group of people who’ve banded together for Northside Coffee Mornings – where online relationships have merged into offline ones and a supportive network has started to evolve.

The sheer number of kindhearted people who cared for & supported me, who helped me when I was down, fed me, nurtured me, worried with me, and rejoiced when the news was good is truly humbling.

Another thing that amazed me was how many people want to make make the world a better place. And how many of those people are willing to take action in that cause.

I was lucky enough to be involved in various conferences, unconferences and seminars, meeting a large number of fascinating people.

A big thank-you to all those people who were kind and inclusive, sharing ideas and working together. Special thanks to everyone who helped out with Cupcake Camp Sydney – it was great fun and we helped out the RSPCA.

Each year, instead of making new year resolutions, I pick a theme for the year. That way when I get sidetracked (as often happens) I can simply return to the theme. Also with a theme there are often many different things I can do to support it.

For 2009 my theme was simplicity and frugal living. The results here were pretty good on the whole. A big reduction in my carbon footprint; using public transport wherever possible; and living local as much as possible.

I’m still thinking about my theme for 2010, more on that later.

Since the early days of the internet revolution and web 2.0 I’ve been watching & participating in various ways.

And over the past few years I’ve seen its powerful properties of network amplification working in practice. My friend and colleague Mark Pesce has recently discussed these properties in his Big Ideas talk.

But with all of this I’ve also observed how the internet has amplified our anxiety as well as amplifying goodness.

For example, on Twitter over the past 12 months, it has morphed from a casual communication and community platform into a sales and spruiking platform, with increasingly desperate multi level marketing or affiliate schemes.

It seems to me that much of what we do as humans merely seeks to assuage anxiety, and the internet is the latest place to manifest that anxiety.

So much of the activity that I see online now reeks of desperation and striving to sell, be successful and rich. But it seems that we have the opportunity to create a different kind of world with this technology and its ability to connect people beyond borders and barriers.

Never before have we had technology that supports openness, collaboration and sharing on such a broad scale.  We have the opportunity to use this technology to do good & creative things – like Action Aid’s Project TOTO that I’ve mentioned before, or the recent Live Local Challenge.

Perhaps one way to assuage this anxiety is to use up our personal energy (and use the technology) to change the world for the better in little, local ways every day?  We could choose openness over constriction, expansiveness over constraint, collaboration over competition, sustainability over wanton waste.

It has been a few weeks since we did the Live Local Challenge and Rebecca and I decided to catch up for breakfast. We decided that our reunion had to incorporate local and sustainable foods.

Luckily the night before I’d stayed in Camperdown after Stilgherrian’s Project TOTO farewell gathering, so the Danks Street Depot was an ideal spot for breakfast.

It was lovely to have a chance to catch up with Rebecca again, and to enjoy our food while talking about life, the universe and everything. We’re both still trying to keep sustainability and living local in mind for our daily lives. It’s great to have someone to share ideas with too.

Rebecca had the polenta with rhubarb and Meredith sheep’s milk yoghurt – I had a taste of this & it was scrumptious.

I had the poached eggs with bacon hash, roasted tomato & sourdough toast. This was made with Cornucopia Farms Bio-dynamic Eggs from Lonstock in the upper Hunter Valley. Since I can never poach eggs properly at home, it was a delight to have such perfectly cooked ones.

All in all this was a very pleasant was to start a Sunday

By the way, my new vegetable patch is going fine – although with all this rain I’ve been worried it might drown.

Even though I’ve finished my Live Local 7 day challenge the amazing support from people both online and offline continues.

Pictured on the right is the very kind @jrobens who dropped off a new plant for my garden at lunch yesterday.

Now I’ve got a curry plant to add to my burgeoning garden, and below is a picture of the latest addition.  Will plant it over the weekend.

The community aspect to this whole thing has been great. And a really big part of that has been the Twitter community.

The more I get involved in things like this the more it clarifies that Twitter provides access to a remarkable breadth of people, who collectively know more than we can count.

The really amazing thing is how willing people are to share information, share goods, and offer support both online and offline.

Thus the support offered was not merely 140 character messages, rather it encompassed real life activity that people went out of their way to undertake.

One person posted a hard copy book to provide information about seasonal food, others sent links to useful websites, others sent emails with detailed helpful information, others shared food and plants, and many shared their own stories and offered moral support.

There is some research I came across recently that backs this up, check out ”If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help.” by Flynn, Francis J.; Lake, Vanessa K. B. in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 95(1), Jul 2008, 128-143.  The authors estimated:

“people underestimated how likely others were to help them by as much as 100%”

More info about the Live Local Challenge or via the Twitter stream, & don’t forget to check out Rebecca’s challenge blog too.

Approach
My approach was that of an ordinary outer suburban Sydney dweller. I wanted to see how easy it would be to live locally using the local shopping sources – malls, supermarkets, farmer’s markets – without travelling long distances to specialist sources. I also broadened my thinking to include other things I consume, such as power, cleaning supplies and cosmetics.

The other thing I wanted to test was how possible it was to use public transport in preference to a car for as many things as possible.

I wanted to find out how sustainable a live local life style would be in the long term and what challenges would arise.

Challenges
The biggest challenge was food labeling – it was often really hard to find out where foods actually came from. So many products simply say “made in Australia from local and imported ingredients”. Other foods say a location but you can’t see where the ingredients come from.  An example of this was the sourdough rye bread, which was baked in Fairfield, but for which the provenance of the ingredients could not be ascertained.

Another was how little I actually know about things I use everyday – electricity for example, where does it come from? And where other consumables, like cleaning products (mostly made in Australia from local & imported ingredients) and cosmetics (mostly not local) come from?

My addictions to products that are not produced locally were a big challenge: coffee (which I did not give up for the sake of housemates), chocolate (which I only had once but craved the entire time), olive oil, butter, and rice.

What I learned
Being conscious of small decisions I make everyday was my biggest lesson. The most important question to ask while out shopping is:

Do I really need to buy something from very far away if there is a locally produced option available?

I also had the opportunity to speak with neighbours and local shopkeepers to discuss where their produce came from. Some nice surprises, like that my local Chinese restaurant actually hand-make their spring rolls and use locally purchased cabbage.  There is a huge amount of interesting activity around sustainability and the environment going on in my own neighbourhood.  Many people are composting or keeping worm farms.  Several people keep chickens and many are growing vegetables.  We have lots of water tanks around the area as well.

There is actually a farmer’s market nearby, but is held on Thursdays during business hours, which is not much help to those of us who don’t work nearby.

My biggest lessons were:

Being conscious of decisions that I make, rather than just doing things blindly & without thinking.  Getting off autopilot and getting back  in touch with nature, the seasons and living consciously.

Issues to consider
Living local is an important thing to keep in mind.  But we really are part of a global community and we need to acknowledge this fact.  Some of us work on global projects and collaborate internationally.  Australia is a great distance away from many other places.  To participate in many activities, and for work, overseas travel is required.  Even with the best technology,  personal meetings are still often the best way to work with other people.  For example, I collaborate with people in Europe and north America – we do a lot online, but from time to time we need to meet in person.   One of the ways I manage this is to try to coordinate all the meetings/conferences into one trip per year.

History

My blog posts for each of the 7 days:
#livelocal day 1
#livelocal day 2
#livelocal day 3
#livelocal day 4
Where does soap come from? #livelocal
Neighbourhood vegetable garden #livelocal
#livelocal day 5
#livelocal day 6
#livelocal day 7
#livelocal wrap-up

More info about the Live Local Challenge or via the Twitter stream, & dont forget to check out Rebecca’s challenge blog too.

Here is a series of pictures that I took during the challenge:

Had long distances to travel today – starting with a meeting with some of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) folks at the Garvan Institute in Darlinghurst. We were discussing Smart Technology for Healthy Longevity.  It was nice to catch up with Craig Mudge & Gordon Bell there too.

But it’s a long way from my place – about an 80 km round trip. Again the public transport options are a challenge with three train changes and a couple of long walks.  And I wanted to combine the trip so as to accomplish more that just attending a meeting.  Thus, on the way home I stopped in at the Plant Bug Garden Centre and met the very helpful Vivian (picture to the right).

I told her about the Live Local project and before I knew it there was a nice selection of plants for the garden getting loaded into the car boot.

Immediately upon arrival at home I started moving them into their pots.  I’m using pots because, for some unknown reason, the dogs only dig up plants that are in the ground.  I have no idea of what to do next & suspect I’ll be asking Vivian for some gardening tips soon.

All of this fits in with my other Live Local projects – saying g’day and helping native bees . It also fits in with the 7 day challenge since I made the car journey serve more than one purpose.

Dinner tonight is just leftovers from last night.  It is very exhausting to have to plan ahead so much.  At the meeting earlier today I realised my local snacks were still on the bench at home, so I succumbed to a cup of coffee, biscuit & a sandwich.  Have continued to resist desire for chocolate but do think it is time for a restorative glass of local wine. I have been very grateful that the Hunter wineries are located so close to home.

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream & don’t forget to check out Rebecca’s challenge blog

One of the many things that this challenge has taught me is what season it is now. Up until this time I had never really bothered with little details like that because it did not matter to me.

There was no reason to pay attention, apart from the obvious weather extremes of mid-summer or mid-winter Sydney is a temperate place, and the supermarkets and greengrocers stock produce from all over the world. This last is the thing that kept me most disconnected from the seasons.  If the greengrocer has whatever fruit & vegetables you want, no matter what the season, then you don’t need to stay in touch with nature!

When I was a kid we waited until things came into season – cherries and grapes for Christmas, apples and citrus for winter.  Now everything I desire is at my fingertips & I have not idea what is actually in season where I live.

But now, thanks to the kindness of @kollektor who sent me his copy of The Foodies Diary 2009, I have the information! This tells me all sorts of useful things. This fabulous little book shows seasonal produce, recipes, festivals and farmer’s markets.

Now I know that in May eggplants, zucchini, celeriac, fennel, garlic & ginger – some favourite foods – are in season. One thing that disappoints is the dearth of markets on the north shore of Sydney, most are concentrated in close to the city or inner west/east.

A big thank-you to @kollektor for sharing his book with me. Now I’m starting to get back in touch with the rhythm of the seasons again – just like when I was young.

Dinner tonight is a vegetable casserole using all locally sourced vegies – but using up the last of the fetta crumble that’s been in the fridge since before the challenge. Really starting to hang out for some rice and chocolate!

Must note a protest – @frombecca was torturing me with her new website last night, it had some yummy looking hotcakes that definitely don’t fit within the terms of the challenge!

The rain finally stopped today and everyone in town took the opportunity to get out and about.

Parents had clearly sent their children out to run off some energy and it was nice to watch a couple of boys throw their boomerangs in the park.

The dogs finally got a chance to have a run off leash in the park too.

I had been invited to brunch in Bondi this morning, to consume exceptionally yummy chocolate products, but decided that I could not justify the approximately 80 km round trip. Nor could I consume the vast amounts of chocolate that I desired due to the distance it had travelled.

There’s no easy public transport options to get to Bondi from here either. Using public transport, the trip requires two trains and a bus, leaving home at 7.30 am to arrive in Bondi for 10.00 am meetup.

An alternative plan was to drive to the nursery to pick up some new plants – I’m doing another Live Local Challenge to help native bees. But decided that as the trip could not be done on my bike (too far & too much to fit in the basket) or public transport (none) it could wait and be combined with another car trip during the week.

For breakfast I had some boiled free range eggs that I found at the local supermaket (from Llandilo about 60 km away). Completely forgot to eat lunch & had a mid-afternoon cup of tea using mint from the herb garden out back. Dinner tonight is some more baked vegetables, including some nice corn from the local farmer’s market on day 1 – will be using rosemary from the herb garden out front for seasoning.

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream

Finally braved the rain yesterday afternoon to visit a neighbour – who’s got a nice vegetable garden instead of lawn in her front yard (that’s a picture of it on the right).

She’s been away and it was our first chance to catch up in ages.

We chatted about the Live Local challenge and stuff over a cup of tea. Ok so the tea was Lapsang Souchong! But I was weak & a bit damp after my walk over

This is a family who’ve really given sustainable living a lot of thought and effort. Amongst other things they:

• keep chickens in the backyard
• have a vegetable garden in the front yard
• use water tanks
• are installing a grey water system
• have solar panels on their roof
• drive a hybrid car

It has been raining so much here my water tank is full, and the rain looks like continuing for many days yet.  The rain did not stop most of Saturday so I didn’t go for a bike ride.  The weather does not look like clearing for several more days, so bike riding might be off the agenda until next week.

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream

This morning as we were washing the dogs I started to wonder where soap and the other cleaning supplies come from. 

Again, this is not a topic I’ve ever pondered before. But it is not just food that we consume. We consume many other products – almost unthinkingly – every day.

It is surprising how much of the cleaning stuff in my cupboard comes from Victoria (doesn’t NSW manufacture anything anymore?).

Also interesting to note was that every single product in my cleaning cupboard was made in “Australia from local and imported ingredients”.  And a  surprising number of products only had “Australia” as their origin noted on their labels, with no street address and only a customer care phone number.

Anyway all of this made me remember that my mother sometimes made her own vegetable soap and we children used to help.  In fact, she made a lot of stuff from scratch.  We often made our own sweets – toffees, marshmallows, coconut ice, jubes – as well as baking bread, cakes and biscuits.  We also had a friend, an amazing woman called Maria, who taught us how to preserve olives and make granita.  It was lovely to be reminded of these two great women who’ve been such a strong influence in my life.

One of the things I’ve been wanting to do is catch up with the neighbours about the challenge, but some are away on a long trip and everyone else is holed up inside waiting for the incessant rain to stop.

Normally this is a pretty social suburb and families get together to play soccer after school or to let the dogs run around off leash at the park.  Many others go for walks together or walk their dogs together.

But the rain means none of that is happening.  Sadly this has crimped my simple plan to pop over to the park and talk to everyone about the Live Local challenge.

If the rain stops today, the plan is to ride my bike to get some fresh bread from the local bakery.  Otherwise will need to take the car.  I will also check where the bakery gets their ingredients from.

On Monday I’m going to walk up to the local school (hopefully the rain will have passed) and see if they are interested in hearing about Live Local stuff.  Suspect they will be interested to hear about it as the school kids already have a vegie garden and make their own compost.

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream

Since today was a big work from home day I had the opportunity to take a break and explore the origins of some of the foods already in my cupboards.

For example, during afternoon tea breaks  I’m partial to a particular 99% fat free chocolate drink that comes in sachets.  Previously I’ve never bothered to ask where it comes from or where the ingredients come from.

Today as I made a cup of hot chocolate (using my nifty Girl Geek Dinner mug pictured) I read the packaging. According to the very helpful woman on their customer service line, this product is packaged in Rowville Victoria (about 1,000 km away)  using Australian ingredients, except for some milk powder imported from New Zealand.

Then encouraged by this exercise I continued my exploration of the cupboard.  It turns out that we have three kinds of honey:

1. rainforest honey from Bateman’s Bay NSW (about 230 km away)
2. organic outback honey from Dubbo NSW (about 390 km away)
3. iron bark honey from Stockleigh QLD (about 1,000 km away)

Next time I head to the store I’ll be checking out locally produced honey – but it might be a while since we’re already got three jars.  I’m still not sure how easy it will be to find locally produced honey in the big supermarkets near my place.  The only wholefoods outlet that is relatively close to me is Macro Wholefoods, and it was just acquired by Woolworths. It will be interesting to see what changes there.

A good example of how you can get caught by inattention was at the large supermarket yesterday looking at canned tomatoes. There were two almost identical cans from same brand, but closer inspection revealed that one was imported from Italy and the other was Australian.  It was very easy to confuse the two.

Dinner tonight is some more of the vegies I picked up the other day, together with some chick peas from Bathurst NSW (about 190 kms away) and cheese from Bega NSW (about 450 km away). The cheese & chick peas were already on-hand and it seems wasteful not to use them. Thinking about doing a vegie bake with tomatoes & cheese, and a glass of Hunter red from Pokolbin NSW (about 120 km away).

The interesting thing about this challenge is that it is really making me think about where things are really from.  The package might say “Australia” but closer inquiry often reveals “imported ingredients”. At the mall yesterday it was interesting to see the huge variety of foods in the deli – they came from all over the world. I’m starting to wonder how sustainable all that choice is in the long term?

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream

Well a lot more planning went into today after yesterday’s experiences. Due to my schedule there’s been some interesting decisions to make about transport too.

Wins

• finally made it to the shops (a 30 km round trip) by car and combined the trip with taking a sick friend to the doctor
• had conversations with people at the market stalls to find out where their produce came from
• got zucchinis and carrots from Wallacia, free range eggs from Minchinbury, and mushrooms from somewhere out near Penrith (I can’t remember the place)
• finally remembered to take my calico bag

Fails

• could not find any tasty tomatoes from any closer than Hanwood (600 km from here, but they are really tasty) – suspect we’ll be growing our own tomatoes soon
• nor could I find limes from any closer than “Australia” (who knows what that really means?)
• discovered I need more reusable shopping bags than I currently own

Challenges
Found out that quite a few people in shops don’t know where the stuff they sell comes from, it just appears from a wholesaler – so knowing the provenance of produce remains a challenge.

Still drinking my imported coffee (mainly because it was a 1 kg bag and there’s a lot left, it seems wasteful to buy more at this stage).

Due to business commitments I need to be in the city all afternoon and evening. This means that public transport is not an option for getting home.

The choice is between driving there & back or catching the train there and getting a (very expensive) taxi back. A combination of personal economics & the current rainy/cold weather led to a decision to take the car.

Learning
The entire Live Local process is causing me to be much more conscious about so many decisions that are typically made automatically. I’m definitely thinking more about journeys and how a single journey can be made to achieve more than one thing at a time.

The use of public transport in Sydney is really easy if you are on spoke and going straight into the city. But it is really hard and time consuming to go across town. I have regular business meetings in Parramatta, Ryde, North Ryde and the city – and this makes trying to bundle up meetings important but not always possible.

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream

~ well today has included a bit of win and a bit of fail for the challenge …

Wins

• caught the train to the city & back for meetings
• walked between meetings (even though it was raining)
• had a good chat with the blokes at the takeway shop about where their produce came from – turns out their spices are the only thing that comes from far away (overseas via Bankstown)
• decided against using the heater to keep warm (see picture on right)

Fails

• did not manage to purchase any food for the house so resorted to takeaway
• did not manage to buy any local wine either (suspect Hunter is closest for north side Sydney folks – does that mean I have to drink red?)
• forgot to take my calico bag with me in case I bought any stuff (no good if it’s on the kitchen table and you’re in the city)

Learning

Things I have learned today include that living local requires more planning and forethought.  Everything I pick up needs to be thought about, labels to be read and trade-off decisions made.  In summary, better planning & lots more thought is on the agenda.

More info about the Live Local Challenge or follow the Twitter stream

Just back from catching up with everyone at the livelocal challenge launch dinner tonight after a busy 3 days in Melbourne for the Future Summit.

Lovely to see @frombecca in real life! All of the food was served on communal dishes on long shared tables, the wine was from Mudgee, and ice cream was divine. That was the fun bit.

Now it is Wednesday and it is time to start my challenge. The rules are simple and follow below. The first thing that’s got me thinking is where the food I eat comes from. There’s not much food in my house so it’s off to the shops tomorrow to have a chat with the greengrocer.

Here’s some background on the challenge: The challenge is to live local for a week – seven days – and to document your efforts to do so. You can do this anytime.

What is living local?

To live local is to make the most of your community.

• meeting your neighbours and the people who work in your community
• eating delicious food grown as close to where you live as possible
• minimising use of fossil fuels, especially for transport*

* This will be the hardest one for a lot of people. Walking, bicycles and public transit are good ways to reduce (and to keep you closer to your own neighbourhood!). But this challenge is about experimenting and being creative, not about absolutes. See rules #2 and #3 below.

Rules

1. Send an email to info AT livelocal DOT org DOT au and tell us when you’re starting or post a comment here. (You don’t have to do this, but we’ll offer you love and support if you do.)
2. You can’t be disqualified or fail. You are merely trying, and thinking about how hard and/or easy it is to live locally.
3. If you HAVE to drive a car somewhere, we’re more interested in you discussing the factors that led to that. If you’ve gotta fly to Melbourne, what reasons made this necessary? And when you do manage to avoid driving or flying, what compromises did you make?
4. Document! We want people to share in and get inspired by your experience and your victories and trials and tribulations. Blog, Twitter, call your friends, talk about it during meals.
5. Or, why not add an experiment to tell the stories about some or all of your adventures?

Go on – join in!

I’m taking the challenge to live local for a week starting next Wednesday.  This seems like a good way to build consciousness of the various choices I make on a daily basis that have an impact on the environment. There will be some tweets from me, @frombecca & others – they’ll be tagged #livelocal.

Why not take the challenge yourself?

Here’s the brief:

Your challenge is to live local for a week – seven days – and to document your efforts to do so. You can do this anytime.

What is living local?

To live local is to make the most of your community.

• meeting your neighbours and the people who work in your community
• eating delicious food grown as close to where you live as possible
• minimising use of fossil fuels, especially for transport*

* This will be the hardest one for a lot of people. Walking, bicycles and public transit are good ways to reduce (and to keep you closer to your own neighbourhood!). But this challenge is about experimenting and being creative, not about absolutes. See rules #2 and #3 below.

Rules

1. Send an email to info AT livelocal DOT org DOT au and tell us when you’re starting or post a comment here. (You don’t have to do this, but we’ll offer you love and support if you do.)
2. You can’t be disqualified or fail. You are merely trying, and thinking about how hard and/or easy it is to live locally.
3. If you HAVE to drive a car somewhere, we’re more interested in you discussing the factors that led to that. If you’ve gotta fly to Melbourne, what reasons made this necessary? And when you do manage to avoid driving or flying, what compromises did you make?
4. Document! We want people to share in and get inspired by your experience and your victories and trials and tribulations. Blog, Twitter, call your friends, talk about it during meals.
5. Or, why not add an experiment to tell the stories about some or all of your adventures?

There is lots more info at Live Local