Next week we will be announcing our wonderful workshop providers for our Homegrown Parkes event on 12 October.

We love being able to bring new workshops to the Homegrown event to provide opportunities for our community to learn about processes and concepts that allow ‘non-experts’ to make, bake and partake on your own turf.

We provide as many activities as possible free to the community at Homegrown Parkes because we don’t want any barriers to learning. There are pressures on our households and we want people to learn how they can be producing and processing at home to help cut some of these costs….and of course, we want to share some cool, niche demonstrations as well.

Our stallholder applications are open for our next Homegrown Parkes event on Saturday, 12 October. We have already received over 30 expressions of interest from stallholders. When an EOI is received, it goes to our committee for sign off. We want to make sure that we are keeping a variety of stalls and keeping the quality high. Stallholders who have submitted their EOI will receive a confirmation this week. You can submit your EOI via this link.

Remember, Homegrown Parkes is not just for established market stall holders, this event has kicked off stalls for some local people and we want to continue supporting locals. EOI close on 13 September.

The Expression of Interest form is accessible via our social media or Homegrown Parkes page on the Central West Lachlan Landcare website under the ‘Get Involved’ tab, or follow this link.

We were thrilled to have attendees at our March workshops from all age groups with over 90 people attending these educational events in the Pavilion. These are free, so make the most of it.

After this and previous fabulous lineups of demonstrations last year, we want to keep the bar high and are looking forward to sharing our educational options for the next event.

We also look forward to sharing more about some of our performances on the day. Encouraging locals is a big part of the Homegrown ethos and we are so thrilled to be able to welcome new performances to Homegrown Parkes.

Of course, Crop Swap will continue to be a huge part of Homegrown Parkes….and I have a fresh vegetable stallholder surprise that I can’t wait to share with you.

Homegrown Parkes events are supported by volunteers from our Committee, volunteers from Central West Lachlan Landcare, Parkes Community Arts Committee and with in-kind support from Parkes Shire Council. This event also received support from the Northparkes Evolution Community Investment Program.

For further information on this article, please go to www.centralwestlachlanlandcare.org, twitter, facebook or Instagram @cwllandcare or contact Marg Applebee on 0418 611 053.