(Big) BANG News : beyond theory.

BANG -- the Beachmere Area Network Group  -- is a local community initiative less than 10 months old. Designed as a hub for local groups and individuals, BANG has been working on -- and partnering with -- a few  projects.

• Environment Park: With the intention of rejuvenating the Environment Park on Bishop Road, the campaign in motion is to try to get a designed walkway built in the bush so that the habitat can be better explored and enjoyed via a circuit As part of that process, it looks like a BushCare group will soon be established to monitor  the area and generate restoration activities. In like mode another BushCare group may soon be established for the much larger wetland area  beyond the Biggs Ave dog park at the mouth of the Caboolture River. For updates about both of these activities, keep watching this space.
• School Community Garden: In partnership with the Beachmere State School P&C the garden project at the primary school has had a great term. The garden has been completely renovated, new beds established and much planting out and harvesting engaged in.The children have been  passionate and committed, with the garden serving as an opportunity for feed-in projects like a ongoing mosaic art workshops that will proceed though the next term. The garden has also been supplying fresh  no-sprays herbs and salad greens to in-school activities (like the Beachmere Sandwich modeled on the Jamie Oliver 'Revolution' ) and the Club Beachmere Bistro. To come, the bush tucker garden --based on native plant species -- will hopfullty  be renovated to reflect Murri culture.
• Disaster Management: This has been a long standing fester in Beachmere and with the impact of the May 1st flash floods in our region, BANG has been trying to sponsor into existence  a local, community driven, disaster management plan.While I'll report more on this in a later post,  BANG was able to generate a meeting, called by Peter Flannery,  with regional professionals from police, fire services, SES, council et al that  will ensure that Beachmere has  not only a 'plan' to deal with disaster -- flood, fire, storm surge or whatever -- but an ongoing local organizing unit that can facilitate support and communication during those times we're  isolated by flood waters or must deal with some other disaster.
• Water Tower Art Project: Since a dominant feature of Beachmere township is our water tower, BANG in partnership with Artrageous Community Arts has begun the process of  creating a mural to festoon part of the structure. Now with Unity Water's in principle support, it looks like we will soon enough have more to look at than cement on our tower. Once a funding stream has been secured, artists will begin the process of liaising with community groups to generate community reflective content for the mural.
• Local Community Website: While this site, the Beachmere Blog, tries to fulfil some role sharing community information and news, we'll soon have a standalone website built on a much better  platform for that purpose with a more user-friendly means to access information. The site -- mybeachmere -- is  being constructed by Ricky Blacker.