Ringing in a new era at Bell

We spent a delightful Saturday out at Bell, about 200km west of here, with a group of ladies, and two men - Hanno and one of the husbands. A while back I received an email from Karen asking if I'd do a workshop there. She and two friends, Kate and Annette, had bought the old local hall, set up a vintage themed cafe in the front and the back was given over as a space for community events such as workshops, playgroups and bartering sessions. I was happy to say yes - because saying yes to Bell meant I would be helping Karen, Kate and Annette with some much needed community development.

Here I am with (from left) Annette, Kate and Karen.  All photos by Hanno

I think 52 people booked for the session that ran from 9.30 am till 3pm. A few women from the Down to Earth forum came along to meet up, share and learn and I finally met Callecat and Sussan. I have "known" Sussan for about eight years, she lives fairly close and yet we'd never met till now. It was also great to meet the infamous Callecat who learnt to make soap from my instructions here and then didn't stop making it.  LOL

During the workshop, I talked about simple life, that it can be done any which way, I demonstrated how to make laundry liquid, and we made strawberry jam and tomato relish. We discussed water bath processing but true to the Australian way of preserving, we didn't do it for our jam and relish - we talked about putting sterile jam in sterile jars and then let it be. I didn't get to taste the relish, even though I told the women there to taste as you go along, but that strawberry jam was delicious. Everyone got to take home enough for at least a taste and as we made up 40 litres of laundry liquid, we had enough to send home about a litre each. That's plenty to try in quite a few washes.

The hall was set up beautifully. It is a great space for workshops - it's roomy, bright and has the special feature of coffee aroma wafting in from the cafe.

A break for morning tea -  the ladies are filling their containers with laundry liquid.

All of us need inspiration and motivation to carry on. You get that by talking to people who understand what you're doing, by reading about people living simply and by watching women and men at their work.  Simple life may be called simple but it involves work and commitment to succeed. Luckily for us, the work is meaningful and enriching and it allows us to remove ourselves further and further from the materialistic mindset of ever-shopping consumers. Here at Bell, I found a group of people who were striving, just like Hanno and I are, to live true to our values, to be respectful of the land we live on, to become increasingly self-reliant, and content because of it. We may all be living different lives in different parts of the State but we have something in common that binds us together. We all know that it is possible to move away from from conspicuous spending, we are saving money through our efforts and paying off debt, and we value home and family and the work that goes into maintaining them.

The ladies who own the Pips 'n' Cherries at Bell - Karen, Kate and Annette, put such effort into that event. Thank you ladies. Their welcoming attitude was inspiring, the hall was decorated beautifully, the morning tea and lunch were homemade and delicious. Apart from the fact that we all wore modern clothing, we could have stepped into a scene from the 1950s where the CWA had put on a demonstration afternoon tea for the town's women. The hall itself was immaculate, obviously a lot of tender loving care has gone into it. The organisation, welcoming atmosphere and attitude towards sharing and learning resulted in a wonderful event. I was so proud to be a part of it. And what of Hanno, you ask? Well, he had his own little table, close to my demonstration table, he took photos and talked to everyone who came over to introduce themselves and he was spoilt by the Bell ladies who set him up nicely with good coffee and plates of food. Yes, Hanno enjoyed it too. Very much. ;- ) 

There was a lot of talking, sharing, questioning and open minds eager to connect with one another and to go home having seen how easy it can be to move towards making more from scratch. We talked about ripples there. The ripples that tend to move out from such events towards new people. I hope the people who came to Bell and those from the town, keep those ripples going because it is all of us who will make this movement towards a simpler life happen. I am just one person, it needs all of us to talk about what we're doing, and to take the time to show what we know for change to happen. I hope those ripple are still moving and won't stop for a long time.

If you were there, drop me a comment. I'd love to know what you thought of the day.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Tomorrow I'll be going to hospital with Hanno while he has an eye operation. He's having a cataract removed. It's day surgery and we have to go back the following day for the doctor to check his eye. Because of that, and a few other things I have going on, I'll be taking a short break from the blog. I'll be back with you next week. In the meantime, I'll pick some posts from the past that I think you may enjoy reading - either again or for the first time.  Take care everyone. We'll see you soon.