What an exciting year 2009 has been for the live local experiment. The live local project and website were officially launched on the 19th of May 2009 and have received a fantastic response. 

Our online community has grown to hundreds of members, with 170 experiments in local living on the website, as well as 430+ Twitter followers.

Thank you for sharing your stories, experiences and resources; and please, keep them coming!

As you may know, live local was incorporated in early November and the foundation is now pleased to introduce its first volunteers: us! We are Radica Raeves and Amy Kludas.

Amy brings to the team a keen interest in social movements and a background in social organising around indigenous and women’s issues.

Radica brings to live local web based skills complimented by hands on experience in local sustainable living projects such as the Milson Community Garden.

Radica and Amy are very excited to be involved with the organisation and look forward to building the foundation and nurturing the live local community in 2010.

If you are yet to have a go at local living and would like to get involved over the end-of-year break or in 2010 we would love to hear from you. There are a lot of ways to keep in touch:

• Become a member – by creating an account and you will automatically receive the live local newsletter
• Follow our blog
  
• Follow us on twitter
  

Or, support the foundation:

• Share your experiments at http://www.livelocal.org.au
• Volunteer to help grow the live local community
• Support the foundation in kind or via financial donation

We’d like to leave you with some inspiration for local living over the festive season. Why not consider taking a ‘staycation’ and explore the attractions offered by your local community rather than spending hours in the car or on a plane?  A stay-at-home vacation means less time travelling and more time relaxing.

Still stuck for gift ideas? Here are a few gifts that are sure to be well received without a blow out to your carbon footprint.

• Give a worm farm or Bokashi bin
  
• Give a book that will inspire your loved ones to experiment with sustainable local living, like the newly released ‘No Impact Man’ by Colin Beavan
  
• Create a gift hamper of locally sourced products and produce

Finally, we’d like to wish you a safe, happy, sustainable and local holiday season. We look forward to sharing the live local experiment with you in 2010.

 

Photo by Flickr user R. Motti. Used under Creative Commons license.