Green Waste Collection date for 2015 is the week commencing 
Monday 26 April. 
So try to have your Green Waste out on the verge in 1m lengths by then. 

From October 13, 2014. 
This year the Bulk pick up will happen over 2 weeks, starting with the older part of Banksia Grove (the Mariginiup side) happening from Oct 13, and the other part from Oct 20. 

Check the City of Wanneroo website for more info.  www.wanneroo.wa.gov.au 

Green Waste Collection date for 2014 is the week commencing
Monday 12 May. 
So try to have your Green Waste out on the verge in 1m lengths by then. 

Watoto Friday August 30 6.30pm
Cheers Neighbours Network, Scripture Union with the support of the Banksia Grove Partnership are hosting a free performance of
 Watoto Children's Choir
at Banksia Grove Catholic Primary School Friday August 30 at 6.30pm. 
It is a free concert, but please bring some money, because there will be opportunities to make a donation to the choir and orphanage and also they will be selling some of their CD's and DVD's. 
Watoto will be performing Beautiful Africa: A new Generation.

Please contact Tanya via e-mail at tanyalang1@bigpind.com if you would like to help with the concert by providing a meal for the choir before the performance or lending a hand on the night. 
Stay tuned for more details.

At Cheers Neighbours Network in Banksia Grove, we do care a lot about the natural environment, but just like every other “Joe and Joanne Citizen” out there, we feel powerless to do much about it. When it comes to sustainability, we are profoundly concerned about water, peak fossil-fuels, oceanic titration and over-trawling, economic un-sustainability, Gospel justice and stewardship, as well as environmental limits. 

It seems that the Law is too micro-focussed to help, Business & Economics are too cannibalistic to help, and Politics just isn’t focussed enough to help. So I am a pessimist about humans’ ability to change before it is too late. 

But even so, here’s what we do as a matter of integrity.

• We enlist doubters of climate change (rather than argue) on the common grounds of conservation. Some may disagree that the climate is warming, but they agree that we can’t keep consuming fossil fuels at this rate. After this point, the rest is detail.
• Theologically (Cheers works from a Christian base) we suspect this earth (of time and space) may yet also be part of the new heaven and earth, or at least play a part in God’s plans for quite some time beyond its apparent use-by date. 
• We advocate:
  
  • We verbally explain the importance of using this current energy frenzy to invent and roll-out sustainable energy infrastructure. We promote solutions when we see them, across our neighborhood e-network, (Like www.wancrew.org, camp topics like natural wonders, the electric car, energy efficient housing.) We showed An Inconvenient Truth, and Who killed the Electric Car, Storyofstuff.com, Copenhagen 15
  • We call on business leaders to get with Dick Smith and figure out how to do the economy sustainably.
  • Politically, we know personally our Federal, State, and Local representatives, and we encourage them to work for legislation and infrastructure: a green economy; waste management; alternative energy research-development-promotion-installation; fossil fuel dependancy; ocean care; justice for the most vulnerable in all this.
    • We are fully aware that it will cost us dollars and a lowering of our inflated “standard of living.”
    • We consider that we must have serious legislation with serious sanctions, rather than leave the future to “economic forces” which are essentially cannibalistic.
• We harangued our local property developers to install mandatory caveats for energy-efficient building plans. We introduced them to the experts in energy efficient design. They did at least make their builders supply cheap energy-efficient house-plan options for prospective buyers. 
• We built our house along solar/energy efficient lines, and did it without paying more.
  
• We installed 13 solar panels that pretty much run our house.
• We dream of getting an air car or electric car for our own travel, but they are not yet available. We would pay a premium for them, as we did for the solar panels. It actually makes economic sense in the long run. Meanwhile…
• We buy LPG and low-consumption cars.
• We travel less by using Skype where possible, meeting locally rather than further afield, and using public transport when we can.
• We support our local government’s initiatives to recycle waste.
• We wash dishes, and recycle rubbish, rather than waste.
• We volunteer through the local residents association, and one of us runs the environmental portfolio.
• We plant trees on Tree Day, and pick up rubbish on Clean Up Australia Day in May
• We learn about, and plant, indigenous medicinals and edibles at home and in local bush reserves.
  
• We wear hand-me-down network clothes if we can rather than buying new.
• We explain about Jesus to help people become Christians, and
• We hope that, if we reach critical mass of trust in God, then God will heal the land.
• We grow our own veges and chickens, and plant fruit trees in reach of pedestrians.
• We buy local produce with a smaller carbon-footprint

So I’m feeling a bit better anyway, about our overall impact. If something is useful to you, feel free to ask me more about it. Probably our biggest story is our battle for energy efficient housing design.

Next Bulk General Rubbish pick up will be the week starting 28 October 2013

BGRA INC. Annual General Meeting (AGM) Monday July 29, 730pm.
30 Turquoise Loop Banksia Grove. 
If you are keen to be involved in making Banksia Grove an even better place to live please join us at our AGM to hear what has been happening over the last year and see how you can get involved going forward.The Committee positions of Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and  Treasurer will all be declared vacant open for nominations.
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/238034969669501/ is the link for the Banksia Grove Residents Association Facebook Page. There are over 250 people using the page now to help each other out and be in contact with other locals. If you're a facebook user it's worth a look. 

Spring in the GroveSpring In The Grove is on Sunday 10 November 2013 from 11.00- 4.00 pm at Neerabup Primary School and Peridot Oval. 
Also Spring In the Grove has a Facebook page to keep you up to date with what's going on as the big day approaches. https://www.facebook.com/SpringInTheGrove  
Spring in the Grove are involved in the Woolworths Giving Local program at Woolworths Carramar. With your support we will get a donation of up to $500 this month. So please as for a Giving Local token when you are next in store and vote to support Spring in the Grove. 

Coming to Banksia Grove, Sunday 28 July 2013, 1:30-3:30.
More details here:  http://treeday.planetark.org/site/54911

From John Quigley's office, 
Here is an opportunity to recognise the incredible work done in the community for and by seniors.  Please take time to acknowledge a senior in your community by nominating them in one of five categories. 
The WA Seniors Awards encourage support for seniors, raise awareness of the varied and many ways that seniors contribute to society and recognise those who work with and volunteer for seniors.  

Applications are available at www.communities.wa.gov.au and close on Monday 12 August.