Firekeepers

Spring Village Camp!! Tickets on sale Wednesday 😀💚 It's nearly time to gather once again on the beautiful land at Riddells Creek - https://mailchi.mp/cc1373e407a7/spring-village-camp-tickets

Spring Village Camp bookings open 7 August!
The tinder bundle is nearly ready for your coal. Will you offer your skillful breath and kindling? Help rekindle the Village Camp in fire. Spring Village Camp 2-5 October. See link tree.

The tinder bundle is nearly ready for your coal, then nurtured by your skillful breath and placed within the kindling. Will you help rekindle the Village Camp in fire? Spring Village Camp 2-5 October. See comments for details.

🔥💧 Spring Village Camp Rekindled!! 😀💚 - Tickets go on sale Wednesday 7 August https://mailchi.mp/3a91e964b64c/spring-village-camp-rekindled-ticket-date

Ever wondered whats happening in those nest boxes? Explored the Darebin Parklands or somewhere else along the creek and wondered who's living in the water? In the mud? Hiding among the trees? Pete Grenfell's been overseeing the darebin parkland restoration and care for decades. Hear Pete's stories about local fauna at Preston Library on 8 August.

Protecting Darebin Creek Wildlife Learn about the fauna found along Darebin Creek and the everyday actions you can take to support it.

🔥💧 Winter Update and Spring Save-the-Date!! 💚 Read our newsletter for: a recap of our autumn renewal gathering, a very exciting save-the-date for spring, super important positions vacant (can you help us?) and our beautiful time with a school in Melbourne's west - https://mailchi.mp/f0f433c45414/winter-update-and-spring-save-the-date

We want to hear from you - please share your voice about Village Camp renewal. We want to hear from folks who can't make it for the weekend gathering. But if you can make it, you can still register to come along and breathe new life into the embers of Village camp! - https://mailchi.mp/172b400542f7/your-voice-for-village-renewal Link to respond to survey or to register in the newsletter or in comments below.

Will you be part of a renewal of the Village? We're bringing together new energy and inspiration to carry forward our experience and wisdom in building community and deep roots of connection. Come be part of the Renewal Gathering. Read more about what's happening at Firekeepers - https://mailchi.mp/8e99623f2d82/firekeepers-renewal-gathering-and-other-news

Spring school holidays - we will not be running a village camp 😢 but we have some school holiday programs happening! Read more here ❤️ - https://mailchi.mp/c62e323ad08b/announcement_spring_school_holidays

7 years ago, Firekeepers was born from a little spark in Mel's imagination. Over the years it has been tended by lots of passion and work and deep care and grown into this organisation and community. How has your life been touched by Mel and the beautiful Firekeepers community?

Read Mel's letter that speaks so much to this joyful and scary and rocky journey as they announce an important transition for themself and Firekeepers.
https://mailchi.mp/c50de01ac806/mel-announcement-resignation

And join us for a picnic and to celebrate Mel on Saturday 20 May 12-4pm at Darebin Parklands!
(Event linked in comments)

Sorry folks, this event as been cancelled.
Do you know a wild 7-13 year old who’d like to join a Firekeepers drop and leave holiday program in Forest Hill on Wednesday 19th? Scroll down the page on link in our profile for more.

We had so much fun Wildcrafting for the whole day with 12 wild ones yesterday! Insect hotels, hopping over stepping stones, being animals navigating ’fire in the forest’ and so much more!
Will your wild one join Wednesday 19th drop and leave program in Forest Hill? Scroll down the page on this link to find us:https://www.firekeepers.com.au/event/autumn-wildcrafting-at-strathdon-house-forest-hill-7-13-year-olds/

Bring your voice to the table as we review and renew our child safety practices and policies - https://mailchi.mp/515652c7aeec/reviewing-our-child-safety-practices-and-policies

Gratitude and respect to all our trans community members and friends today (and everyday).

Today is Trans Day of Visibility 🏳️‍⚧️

It's a day to celebrate our identities and the diverse experiences of being trans, while amplifying the voices of our community.

To everyone in the trans community – this is our day! Let's celebrate and be proud!

To our allies – this year it's more important than ever to be a visible ally and create safe spaces for your trans friends, colleagues and family members. Support them, listen to their experiences and show up for them every single day of the year.

Art by Zoe Lam

🍄🦗 School holidays - programs, mentoring opportunities and lots of fun to be had! 🌈⛅ - https://mailchi.mp/fbfd984cd011/autumn-2023-holidays-programs

Autumn Village Camp News - CANCELLED - https://mailchi.mp/8ad265c38e1e/summer-village-camp-tickets-6262621

Mel had heaps of fun with families at the Friends of Kalorama Park family picnic day today. Thanks to Aussie Wildlife Displays, we met some baby animals including a super cute wombat, and an incredibly agile salt-water crocodile. We all enjoyed a yummy picnic lunch and some of us made art while looking out from the park's awesome vantage point South East over the Dandenongs. Afterwards, we all found new nature names, spoke of what we all love about nature, expanded our senses with owl eyes and then created an incredible rainbow together. In the afternoon the kids got deep into playing nature and sensory and body awareness games: fire in the forest, firekeeper and nature ninja. The kids were great at moving with sleath and care. Thanks to support from Friends of Kalorama Park Yarra Ranges Council for making the day happen!

Are you looking for some rich professional development in the field of nature connection and nature play to inspire you for next year?
Get in touch with us!

Text in flyer reads:

NATURE CONNECTION MENTORING

Exciting professional development opportunity

Why mentor at Village Camp?

Mentoring at Firekeepers' Village Camp is a unique opportunity for a deep dive into supporting children in nature, based on the work of Jon Young and 8 Shields.

Enhance your practice

You will be guided by a passionate and experienced mentoring team to ignite child passions, be inspired to follow child-led experiences, be supported to allow the participation of nature and engage your own curiosity in your bush adventures. You will come away with a robust set of skills and understandings and an exciting framework to implement an effective flow-of-the-day in your own settings.

Who is this for?

This is an exciting opportunity for anyone who wants to enhance their experiences with children in natural settings and we’d love for you to join us! Family members welcome

9 - 14 JAN 2023
17 - 22 Jan 2023
Gembrook, Vic

Registration closes 12 Dec

Contact Becky
0401 203 110

www.firekeepers.com.au/volunteer/

Summer Village Camp Tickets on sale now! - https://mailchi.mp/997388d8a9d9/firekeepers-summer-village-camp-tickets-on-sale-now

📌🌞🌞SUMMER VILLAGE CAMP x2!!⛺⛺tickets go on sale Wed 23rd NOVEMBER!🌞🌞 - Will you be there? Do you want to be part of making it happen? As a mentor or a crew member?? If so, we'd love to hear from you ASAP! Read on for more details on all of the above ❤️ https://mailchi.mp/5d3725ce37fa/summer-village-camp-tickets

We are so excited to share these wonderful photos of our Spring Village Camp at Gembrook on Wurrundjeri Woiwurrung Country with you! Huge thanks to our incredibly talented photographer Tanja Milbourne 💚💚💚💚💚

This weekend was busy for us!! The adventurous Claire Mosley travelled all the way to Licola on Gunnai Kurnai Country and headed over a flying fox this weekend to represent Firekeepers at Wollangarra's annual Open Day. Wollangarra is a very special community place on Gunaikurnai land, hidden in a lush muddy valley!

Amongst all the other activity, Claire got into leading a bunch of fun nature awareness games on the special river flat. It was wonderful to play some eagle eye and fire in the forest with old and new friends.

The weekend was a celebration of the outdoor centre, a big fundraiser to help more young people get out into the mountains.

Thanks for having us Wollangarra!

Claire M and Mel are both Wollangarra ex-staff members, and having spent a while year each on this river flat, we have loads of love for these folk, the mountains, the river, the trees and the amazing community that this place connects. They are always looking out for staff, volunteers and participants- check them out 💚

For Victorian Youth Fest Mel and Ollie ran a pilot nature connection program with young people from Whitelion. It was wonderful to relax, slowdown and connect with these young people and their mentors in such a beautiful spot surrounded by the Birrarrung River. We acknowledged country and took in the river that encircled us, went for a bit of a bush walk, opened our senses, and met trees, flowers, birds and insects sharing the bush with us that morning, then we returned for a social lunch and had a go spinning some cordage.

Thanks to the Victorian Government for funding our event the awesome young people who helped co-design the event and travelled with their mentors (some quite far) to make it, to Bridget from Whitelion who worked really hard behind the scenes coordinating it all and to the Wurrundjeri Woiwurrung People, on whose unceded land we were on. The Sulpher Crested Cockatoos were screeching loudly all morning reminding us where we were!

Claire M and Mel and Strathdon House volunteer Bec had fun running our first holiday program for Whitehorse City Council at Strathdon House and Orchard Precinct in Forest Hill on Friday. It was so wonderful to be connecting to this new place, to be watched over by the Dandenong Ranges and Bunjil- we saw 2 Wedge Tailed Eagles circling overhead!
We got up high, climbing loads of awesome trees and right down low looking for snakes and edible weeds and interesting s**t!
We journeyed down the hill and played games, tested out our blindfold sensing skills and our keen observation of hiding kids and animals, and we got our creativity on making a yummy weedy pesto and capturing our day in art aswell.
Thanks to the awesome folks at Strathdon House and Orchard Precinct and Whitehorse City Council and all the kids and parents for being involved. We look forward to creating more programs together!

Steph and Katrina had a lovely meandering and climbing time with our Spring Wildcrafting holiday program at the Darebin Parklands last week.
They explored and climbed all over the mulberry Grove, watched swarms of harlequin beetles in various stages of growth- which challenged some folk's fear of creepy crawlies!
They found creek crossings across slippery rocks and onto a magical island with a calming waterfall and all sorts of treasures.
The wildcrafters made a bath house on the creeks edge, teamwork colleecting nearby rocks, branches and leaves.
They found Mud larks on their nest and shared their curiosity about how they got the mud up so hig as well as questioning tree roots that looked like branches, 🤔why are the branches so low, or how come the roots are exposed??? After their meandering adventures they came to a rock circle where they challenged themselves by making fire with flint and steel using only natural fibres and local twigs, ie no previously stashed cotton wool.