Some don’t like it when you borrow their tools … but not Lismore City Council.
In fact, the council is encouraging residents involved in community projects to borrow its new Community Pride Trailer, which includes a mower, brush cutter, blower and wheelbarrow, along with assorted tools and safety equipment.
The trailer is available free to community groups undertaking working bees air special community projects.
The council’s Community Services Coordinator Casie Hughes said the trailer made it easy and accessible for community groups to get together and undertake gardening or beautification projects.
‘The harsh reality is that Council cannot do everything with the funds we have, so we are trying to help community groups take ownership of places, spaces and assets within their communities,’ she said.
‘People may wish to borrow the trailer to start an ongoing maintenance project or hold a one-off working bee to get a new community garden or some village planter boxes up and running. The sky’s the limit in terms of ideas and imagination.’
One such group eager to use the new trailer is the Dorrobbee Grass Reserve Trust.
Trust president Jally Hawthorn from Dunoon, who is a member of the council’s North East Community Panel, said her group would be using the trailer at its monthly working bees.
‘To be able to plan a bigger working bee and know we have this equipment to use is just fantastic. The Community Pride Trailer is a great idea for small community groups to have some Council resources at their fingertips,’ Ms Hawthorn said.
‘We currently use our own gear, and we have a volunteer mower who does some mowing of paths for us, and a volunteer tractor driver who does some slashing, and we often pull out weeds by hand. Having some extra equipment will make our working bees much more effective.’
Ms Hawthorn said the Dorrobbee Grass Reserve was a place that had a fascinating local history and the group was committed to maintaining it for everyone in the community.
‘The Indigenous people have looked after the reserve for thousands of years and it’s a very special piece of land,’ she said.
‘It has a 360-degree views and the kangaroo grass is the largest area of kangaroo grass left in the area. In the times of the Big Scrub there were 54 patches of this kangaroo grass scattered within the rainforest, but Dorrobbee Grass Reserve is one of the few left,’ she explained.
‘It was originally declared a reserve in 1878 so the bullock teams clearing the rainforest had somewhere to camp. The bullocks would transport the logs from the forest, stop at Dorrobbee Grass Reserve for the night, and then it was a day’s walk into Lismore where the logs were shipped down the river.
‘It’s always been public land and it’s a very special place for Indigenous folk as well as local Dunoon people – we walk our dogs, have community celebrations, do yoga, all sort of things.’
People using the trailer must be registered volunteers of Lismore City Council or an incorporated community group, and it must not be used for commercial use or on private property.
To book the Community Pride Trailer phone Lismore City Council on 1300 87 83 87. Interested people will need to have licence and registration details to hand.
If you want to get into the dirt and move some turf instead of being in the surf,
Then go to Lismore Council for any borough of Lismore and borrow a barrow,
and push it if you want to a barrow to borrow as it is no bother to borrow from Council.
Do you want a mower tomorrow or a hoe today or clippers to clip away, then borrow,
But when you are done, and have done the garden and groomed the bush
and of what the wife has said needs to done, and with her you want to be one,
then go back to Council in Lismore and put what you have borrowed back.
They have lots of other bothers and barrows to push that they have yet to pack.
And you have plenty of other days in the morrow to get down to the surf.