Our Mission is to foster a culture of respect for the environment and community.
To work with integrity, aiming to approach every challenge with enthusiasm and humour.
We are committed to modelling best environmental practices and to be innovative and relevant in our thinking and practices.
We strive for cultural and social inclusiveness and in working together, we intend for everyone to be heard, and do what we say we’ll do.
Yarra Valley ECOSS is a not-for-profit community organisation based on a 7.4 hectare permaculture designed farm at Wesburn, on Wurundjeri Country. On this beautiful property ECOSS demonstrates sustainable living solutions for the community of the Yarra Valley and beyond.
Our Vision is to promote local food production, food security, earth education, and multicultural living, and developing a vibrant, resilient, inclusive and sustainable community.
Groups of people living with disabilities come to ECOSS for our All Abilities facilitated programs, to volunteer in the Community Garden and the Nursery. Our Crops for Community program run by volunteers provides fresh food for both the Oonah Indigenous Tucker Bag Program and Koha Community Café.
UpCycles, operates from ECOSS, which is an exciting bicycle up-cycling hub, where we repair, sell and donate bikes, in an endeavour to support low-impact transport and physical fitness whilst reducing landfill from disused bikes.
Our Native and Edibles plant nursery sells direct to the public and organisations who require larger orders. We also sell BioChar; captured carbon from heating organic biomass without oxygen, which adds water and nutrient retention for the garden.
We host the ECOSS Valley Market every Friday, supporting local growers and the community to access locally grown organic and biodynamic produce.
ECOSS hosts a Practical Earth Education Program, suitable for early childhood, primary and secondary school students, along with adult and community education programs.
We have a ‘co-farming’ space called Pollination Place, where experimentation and various projects cultivate community involvement through learning with a view toward sustainable outcomes.
ECOSS values the creation of culturally diverse and creative projects that represent our diverse community. Local groups we partner and co-locate with include Permaculture Yarra Valley, Yarra Valley Bee Group, Warburton Environment, Upper Yarra Landcare, The Pottery Studio, Bushwood Creations, Silvertine Biodynamic Farm, Tonantzin chocolates and Sweat Lodge and Tipi Ceremonies, Beans and Bananas Food Co-op, The Dreaming Space Circus, The Pottery Studio, and numerous other local groups and businesses.
Many annual community events are held at ECOSS, including Ecotopia Earth Festival, Rhythms of the World, Children’s Week, Ngulu Indigenous Festival, Earth Kids Play Day, Twilight Market, as well as lots of events and workshops during the year.
The site can be hired for events and also our assets such as the Wash Against Waste kit and SmoothyCycle.
We currently have 6 part-time staff members supported by a Management Committee and volunteers. We operate via small grants and fundraising ventures, and through a partnership agreement we lease the site from the Yarra Ranges Council. We also work with local Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Kim Wandin to create culturally significant educational projects on site.
Our Site
Our Site – A Sense of Place
The 7.4-hectare site at 711 Old Warburton Rd, Wesburn, formerly a poultry farm in a previous life, is a lovely rural and bush landscape setting. It came with some established heritage gardens, substantial buildings including an old farm house and the frames of two massive chicken sheds.
For the first couple of years working groups made up of passionate volunteers worked tirelessly to clean up the site and renovate the old farm house for use as the interim site-centre. Many hundreds of hours of volunteer time have since been used in the maintenance and preparation of the old farm house, turning weedy grass into lawns and establishing demonstration gardens. Yarra Ranges Council upgraded the existing toilets and Eastern Health Indigenous groups have built our Indigenous Reconciliation Conversation Fire Pit and Koori Cubby.
Healesville High School built our Earthbag Cubby and local artists Sioux Dollman, and other community members built our well used Pizza oven. Other projects on site include a children’s playground, another pizza oven and other interesting features built by Cire Community School Students. We have had to build a larger carpark to support our expansion and erect deer fencing around the entire property to support the growth and development of our gardens.
There is ongoing potential for creative development of this site and we are currently building opportunities for more co-locating businesses and welcome initiative proposals that match our ethics and vision for the site.
The Coop.
The coop is our classroom in one of the refurbished chicken sheds, which is used by Ecoss to host groups and events. Built by the committee and a host of volunteers, it has become a valuable resource for the whole community
Community Garden.
Our Community Garden is managed by our volunteers. As part of our garden care, we collect the Vipassana Centre compost and convert it into soil for our own gardens. Occasionally we demonstrate new ideas or run workshops on wicking beds, permaculture design keyhole gardens, herb gardens, fruit tree pruning, propagating and garden management; receiving guidance and support from Permaculture Yarra Valley. We have a heritage fruit tree orchard, whose ground care is managed by our old varieties of foraging chickens.
Our Water.
We have a beautiful dam which collects much of the water on site filtered through our swale Bio-filtration plant planted by Cire Community School year 9 students. The terrestrial area has been revegetated, and soon we will revegetate the aquatic are with school groups. The plan is to take responsibility for cleaning and collecting water on site. With a vision to eventually collect all our onsite water. We have built a frog bog– with some financial support from Upper Yarra Garden Club. This has been maintained- and fence has been constructed by Cire school year 7 group. We host Melbourne Water Frog Census, and aim to data collect and contribute to the Frog Census project.
Our Co-locators.
The Pottery at ECOSS has built a community Pottery studio in one of the chicken sheds, where they run Wheel throwing and hand building classes and contribute to the Education Program at ECOSS.
Silvertine Bio-Dynamic Market Garden has created a bio-dynamic market garden on two acres at the back of the property, with Farm Gate sales on Fridays and they also participate in our Education Program.
Tonantzin Mexican Chocolate House has converted the old Arts building into their chocolate factory and cellar door sales, and offers traditional Mexican tacos at Friday’s market and at ECOSS events; also contributing to our Education Program. They honour their Mexican roots and also host a Native Mexican Traditional Sweat Lodge on site.
Upper Yarra Landcare, has an office in the Cottage, contributing to our Environment Hub. Beans and Bananas food Coop, pack locally grown vegetables fortnightly on site and distribute food packs to the local community.
Yarra Valley Bee Group meet once per month at ECOSS and host observation hives on site; and also participate in our Education Program.
Natural Building Centre’s Tom Neil hosts traditional Chair Bodging workshops and also hosts Natural building workshops occasionally including HempCrete, Straw Bale building and Fire Safe Building.
The Dreaming Space Academy is a creative arts learning space, offering dance, circus, magic, theatre skills and poetry evenings.
Bushwood Creations, is resident artist Shlomit Moria’s creative space where her chainsaw artistry and wood carvings emerge from, with many installations exhibited throughout Melbourne.
Community Park concept http://ecoss.org.au/our-story/
Those associated with the establishment of Yarra Valley ECOSS could see the potential to develop a Community Environment Park with a rural focus, using CERES Community Environment Park in urban Melbourne as the primary model. The steering committee was inspired by the potential of CERES to engender a culture of sustainability through harnessing the creative energy of the community (www.ceres.org.au). There are(take out) Other well established models overseas are the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales (www.cat.org.uk) and Auroville in India (www.auroville.org) and other Community Environment Centres are springing up across Australia and the world.
The rural property which is our home base, provides an opportunity to create an environment park with a rural focus to complement CERES and the other community environment parks in urban Melbourne. In 2009 a Master Plan for the site was developed in consultation with the community, which was adopted by the Yarra Ranges Council and forms the basic reference document for the development of the park.
Community Park Concept
Our Sponsors and Supporters.
Without the generous sponsorship of the organisations listed, ECOSS would never have achieved what has been made possible and in doing so we’ve been able to fulfil our vision and express our values. For all the support offered, be it big or small, ECOSS and its community is full with gratitude. It is with deep appreciation, that we say thank you for all that has been made available in the spirit of community contribution.
Yarra Ranges Council generously support us with a partnership agreement, and also with our large Ecotopia Earth Festival, the Ngulu Festival and our Crops for Community Program. We have access to volunteer training through council and we are also supported by various departments within local council. We would not be able to operate at the level we do without their support, including having their Community Development Officer on our Committee of Management.
https://www.yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Home
Upper Yarra Community Enterprise – Warburton and Yarra Junction Bendigo Bank branches.
Investing 80% of profits back into the community, they are the foundations for a strong Upper Yarra Valley Community and we are proud and very grateful to be supported by them. Over many years the UYCE have consistently supported our Ecotopia Earth Festivals and have provided us with grant projects, like the establishment of our community kitchen and laying a road to Pollination Place, or even providing funding for a wheelchair accessible porta loo, at short notice.
VicHealth have provided generous seed funding to support the ECOSS Crops for Community to Market project in 2020. This funding has been instrumental in enabling ECOSS to fulfill its mission and values, and has contributed to the success of our beloved Crops for Community Program and our ECOSS Valley Market, which both continue to thrive. To this they have also supported our Taste of Culture events, which were designed to engage kids with healthy eating; our partnership with Vic Health has been invaluable.
https://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/
FRRR Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal.
Some of the projects which have been supported by FRRR, are a Cert 2 in Horticulture for youth, employing a Youth Worker to administer past Youth Programs, and in Capacity Building through our Volunteer and Disability Grants, and a Program Development Officer. FRRR has also funded our School Program Operations Position, upgrading and making our Schools Program Sustainable, and through a $10,000 grant funded the solar panels to help us reduce our bills and spread environmental education.
http://www.frrr.org.au
Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation, which supports positive change in the community, has also generously supported our Crops for Community Program
We have also gratefully received significant funding from the following:
Sustainability Victoria Helen McPherson Smith Trust Fund.
Sustainable Table is an organisation of change makers, focusing on solutions to the social and environmental problems of our times, and who have also generously supported our Crops for Community Program.
https://www.sustainabletable.org.au/
Four Pillars of Community; (three times World’s Best Gin makers in Healesville,) have twice generously funded the Ecoss native nursery for $5,000
Mountain Views Star Mail Newspaper, supports our events and keeps the community up to-date with ongoing developments at ECOSS.
https://mountainviews.mailcommunity.com.au/
Gardening Australia, for accepting our invitation to visit ECOSS and for hosting a show on the grounds of our property, showcasing our programs and entrepreneurial endeavours.
https://www.abc.net.au/gardening
Domain Chandon, for support with volunteerism on site.
Melba Support Services who support our Crops for Community program with weekly volunteer hands on the ground.
https://www.melbasupport.com.au/
Interchange Outer East Services who also support our Crops for Community program with weekly volunteer hands on the ground.
https://www.interchange.org.au/
The Department of Families, Fairness and Housing, for funding to build our new artist’s studios; contributing toward ECOSS becoming more financially sustainable
Sustainability Victoria, for financially supporting the rebuild of our upcycles program.
https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/
Previous Sponsors.
Previous Sponsors who helped to get ECOSS off the ground, are the Hugh Williamson Foundation, the William Buckley Foundation, Vic Health and Powershop, whose generosity gave ECOSS the leg up we really needed, and whose support lives on, on site. We continue to be grateful for their help, whilst our fledgling enterprise found its wings, in supporting and fostering community engagement, whilst promoting sustainable practices; they have been an essential part of our journey.
