Margaret River is a thriving Community with many overlapping groups striving to make this town a happier place to live in. I am proud to have been elected Councillor for the Town Ward and am here honouring my pre-election promise to provide a website where people could ask questions, provide answers, suggest solutions to issues.
I have a vision of a community which takes responsibility for the happiness and welfare of all of its citizens. One of my inspirations was the vision of Pam Warhurst who turned the small UK town of Todmorden into a garden on incredible edibles without seeking funding or permission from anyone. Watch this inspiring woman’s 15 minute TED talk which is really about building a community. An example. In Margaret River Six rubbish bins at a a parking bay just at the entrance of town were overflowing with rubbish after the Christmas holidays. There were cried of indignation that the Council should be more responsible for clearing this eyesore up especially as the rubbish seemed to have been dumped by tourists or nonresident ratepayers. The Council had been calling the Main Roads Board, which WAS responsible, for a week without success, but I was heartened by the number of residents who said if the ugliness upset anyone then they should take responsibility for cleaning at least some of it up.
Fair Harvest
The Organic Garden
The Organic Garden revealed how much a key part of the community it is with its 2014 Open Day An Organic AfFAIR, with stalls, musicians, entertainment, children’s activities, storytelling and of course potplants , organic hot dogs, and tea and cakes for sale. If you would like to help care for the garden, turn up at 12.30 on any Wednesday to share a convivial lunch and plan the afternoon’s work.
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Mike Hulme is entering the last stages of planning a completely self-sufficient Eco-Village just south of Margaret River, adjacent to Witchcliffe Village, and providing community gardens, fresh produce for sale, tertiary education in permaculture.
Local attractions
Augusta Margaret River Shire Community Connect Portal provides interactive maps to help you discover the joys of this community. The best place to go for information and bookings is the Visitors Centre at the north entrance to town. But there are fabulous bushwalks, visits to the caves, major events to keep you busy during holidays. The ABC recently showed this documentary on our Caves and its former megafauna.
Fair Harvest
Indigenous Connections
Indigenous people do not identify themselves in the same sort of categories as we do linguistic categories of Christian, wealthy, Australian, as we do as if such categories existed in the real world. Rather they see themselves as part of a vast interconnected network with the land and all its plants and animals for which they take responsibility. So that the Margaret River community is connected to the Wardandi tribe, but neither is the centre. The Noongyar, the Yolngu, the Pitjinjara are all connected by rituals of meaning-making, and maintain their connections through dance, stories and song. This seems to me the heart of community-building- to maintain the interconnections in an ex-centric manner.