All BREAZE

October has been another massive month for BREAZE Board and Members. The Community Power Hub Ballarat project was launched with our public meetings in Beaufort, Ballan, Daylesford and Ballarat gathering information on potential community renewable energy projects for our region.  This has involved participation at multiple events and workshops to help ensure the success of this project.

The BREAZE Market committee undertook a strategic review of the Ballarat Farmers Market, as the current permission to operate the event expires in June 2018.  BREAZE needs to be ready for the expressions of interest process to be run by the City of Ballarat next year.

We had continued success with the  Smart Living Ballarat October Workshop featured Stephanie Davison presenting on the topic of indigenous plants for Ballarat followed by a tour at the Ballarat Botanic Gardens.      This month we have a talk with a focus on bikes.

The Committee for Ballarat, City of Ballarat, Shire of Hepburn, Central Highlands Regional Partnership, Federation University and BREAZE have been collaborating to develop a prospectus for investment by renewable energy providers in our region.

BREAZE’s New Energy Jobs Project managers (Jane Lean and Peter Reid) have been investigating the feasibility of selected wood wastes being used to produce heat for two disability support organisations and potentially supplying a number of institutions over time, thus creating new jobs and reducing our regions greenhouse gas emissions.

As we head towards our Annual General Meeting to be held this month at the Barkly Motor Lodge on Wednesday 29 November, we will encourage members to attend so that we can acknowledge our many volunteers and reflect on another successful year of BREAZE. We hope to see some new faces nominating for Board positions and encourage all members to attend.

BREAZE AGM

6:30pm 29th November

Barkly Motor Lodge

(43 Main Rd, Bakery Hill)

Finger food will be served from 6:30

Refreshments available from bar

AGM starts at 7:15

All members encouraged to attend

RSVP by 22/11/2017 to

Getting to know our volunteers –

 John has been involved in BREAZE from the start and has participated in a range of activities, from community engagement and bioenergy sub-groups to the literature group, and to promoting urgency and ideas for action through Smart Living Ballarat shop-fronts and workshops.

Q&A by Tarn Kruger with John Petheram

Getting to know our volunteers –

Most of you know Peter is our treasurer and is also one of the driving forces behind Social Solar. Peter has volunteered on the BREAZE board for three years, he has a wealth of experience in committee management and his fantastic organisational skills provide a great support for our organisation.

Q&A by Tarn Kruger with Peter Reid

August has been a month of mixed emotions for BREAZE members. Delighted by the announcement last month by Victorian Minister for Environment, Energy and Climate Change Lily D’Ambrosio of BREAZE’s funding to conduct the Ballarat Community Power Hub, we had a thought provoking inception meeting with stakeholders to plan our structure, governance arrangements and vision for this important regional project.

We were shocked and saddened by the news of the death of Rachel Browning, one of our former employees and committed volunteers.

We have been delighted with the level of interest and attendances at our Smart Living Ballarat Lunchtime Workshops with again in August attracting large crowds to John Ditchburn’s Backyard Food Gardens presentation.

The Climate Council has written to all it's members, as we write to you, to encourage you to protest about the proposed reforms to Environmental Charities.

Can you help us fight back against the proposed reforms that will force environmental groups to spend 25% of their funding on remediation work by sending an email to your Local Member of Parliament?

The proposed reforms include mandating all groups like BREAZE, to spend 25-50% of their funds on direct environmental remediation, such as tree planting and weed control.

In the Ballarat area, groups like Landcare, and BEN, run this type of operation, and we are right in there supporting all that they do, but it is nonsensical to alter our charter to undertake tasks that we have no experience or expertise in, like environmental remediation, and clash or worse, compete with Landcare programs!

On the 17th of August, some members of our BREAZE community heard the awful news that our friend Rachel Browning had died the day before.  We are in shock, and so, so sad.

BREAZE sends condolences to all Rachel's friends and family.

Rachel worked with BREAZE, as general and financial admin support when we were big enough to have an office. Everyone who worked with her was impressed by her work, her helpful nature and how warm, passionate, and incredibly patient she was.

When the office closed, and later when the family moved away from Ballarat for Tim's work, Rachel continued to support us as a volunteer, by helping with admin tasks, and the social media presence of the Farmer's market when it started up as the Smart Living Market. 

More details, and go-fund-me information below.

Can you fill out a grant application for us?

BREAZE is looking for a volunteer (or two) to fill in a grant application. In particular, we want to apply to VicWest Telco for funds to advance our Social Housing project. Applications are now open and close on 31 October.

Members may not be aware but, over the last couple of years, BREAZE has applied for at least 20 grants of varying values and has been sufficiently successful that the grant writing team of Peter Reid and Jane Lean are now busy administering the project dollars. As a consequence of this success, more grant writers are needed. What Peter and Jane have found is that writing applications is a lot easier if a team does the work, although this is not essential. So if you are interested in helping out, BREAZE has a lot of material you can use to prepare the application, you just need to let us know by emailing .