It has been a busy time for Central West Lachlan Landcare with the NSW Landcare and Local Land Services Conference in Albury last week and farewelling our Green Army Team this week.

The Conference is held every two years. Some of you may remember that Central West Lachlan Landcare played host to the Conference in 2011. We were fortunate to have an opportunity in a plenary session to show case our relationship with Parkes and Forbes Shire Councils.

As with any relationship, it takes trust and commitment and it is good to be able to see outcomes as a result of any partnership. I will go into that more in next week’s column.

We were also excited to be supporting the Soil C Quest project crowdfunding launch on Generosity, which has been ticking along steadily since it was launched last Thursday, so far reaching 41% of its target. I would urge readers to go and check it out and look at supporting this research.

This project is particularly unique because it’s birthplace was in Parkes and Forbes and they hope to keep the research and trials based as locally as they can. This is an opportunity to really show the potential that lies in farming communities.

As many of you would know, our last Skillset Green Army Team completed their programme on Tuesday. We have spent 18 months working with Skillset Environment to provide work for and support approximately 20 young people working over the Parkes and Forbes Shires.

Whilst the Teams have undertaken significant planting and weed management work in both shires,  the particularly dry winter that we have had this year, did not provide us with ideal planting conditions and we were grateful to have a partnership with the Parkes Solar Farm where ongoing watering has been undertaken to ensure plant survival.

I have been fortunate to work with a fantastic bunch of people through the partnership and look forward to being involved in other opportunities in the future that may benefit our area.

These Teams of young people have taught me heaps and I will miss having them around. Our communities need to encourage and support our young people because they have potential that they don’t even know they have, they just need the opportunity.

Coming from a similar programme when I was a lot younger, gave me confidence in myself when there wasn’t a job opportunity for me and I will be forever grateful to the poor supervisor who convinced us that we had potential and we could make a difference.

We need to be taking opportunities that allow us to ‘pay it forward’. Don’t be always looking for ‘how is this going to benefit me’.

I already see many of our previous Team members in our workforce, helping to keep our communities ticking. How fortunate we are to have you out there. Make a difference!

Another group that are getting out and having a go are the National Parks Association Lachlan Valley Branch. Their next walk will be held on Wednesday, 8 November. Walkers are asked to meet at the Lions Park in Parkes at 9am and need to contact Walk Leader, Peter Cannon on 02 6866 1225 the evening before the walk to check final instructions and requirements for the walk.

This Billy Goat Ridge walk is rated as a hard and is approximately, 4 – 6km, so not for the faint hearted!

For more information about anything in this article, please contact Central West Lachlan Landcare on 02 6862 4914, cwllpo@hotmail.com, facebook or our website at centralwestlachlanlandcare.org

Until next week, happy Landcaring!