Yes, t’was indeed a ‘fair’ day at Randwick's Ecoliving event, with fine performances at the live local stand and in the Main Hall. But top marks must be given to Mother Nature herself who really stole the show. Indeed, she (almost) blew us away with gale force winds.

Digital Eskimo Experience Architect/Producer Caryn Wilson, myself and DE's new Senior Designer Mark Elizondo represented, and were joined by live local members Gareth, Vaike and Jonathon.

Amidst gale-force winds we managed to spend the whole day promoting the website to the many brave people who blew in. The experiment jam table proved very popular with adults and kids alike, with a whole host of new experiments being dreamt up in technicolour texta.

Highlights of the day for us were presenting the live local project to enthusiastic Randwick residents and taking part in a ‘Sustainability Street’ workshop with its founder, Frank Fitzgerald-Ryan, whose theatrical showmanship was truly a sight to behold as he demonstrated the art of community building. We’ll be taking ‘play-lunch’ together soon (as Frank calls it!) to discuss collaborating: very exciting.

We also met a few people from the live local online community –  it was very nice indeed to say g’day ‘offline’ where local living actually happens. I also bumped into some old friends and Swapit, baby! founder Emma Jamvold, who also lives in the Randwick area.

Towards the end of the day we got the chance to address a panel along with the Transition Sydney guys, another amazing group who were one of the original inspirations for live local.

It was interesting to discuss the synergies between our various approaches to engaging with sustainability. live local focusses on individuals choosing to connect and share with their community, while ‘Sustainability Street’ projects encourage people to organise on the street or in small areas/groups, and ‘Transition Towns’ take the efforts up a notch to include an entire small town or even a city.

This multi-layered approach makes perfect sense as it provides a level of involvement for all. As Frank says, when it comes to climate change ‘We need everyone!’

A special thank you and big ups to Caryn, who produced the Ecoliving project for Randwick and also did a sterling job on the live local stall and support materials.

And great to meet many of you there!