There are many ways to skin a cat – hold on, I have to digress here, because although we use this saying widely it occurs to me that there may not have actually been a time when a kind of cat skinning-economy existed where the skinning of cats was so widely practised that it generated passionate and regular comment on competing skinning styles. And though I’m not entirely certain, after some preliminary research, contemporary cat skinning experts agree that there are really only two accepted ways to skin a cat, both difficult and fiddly, and that as far as these sort of activities go, squirrels and rats are generally considered to be much easier to work with.
Okay, sorry, back to my point, which is there are a lot of ways to go about learning at CERES. Of course most people know we have our schools program where children get hands-on in places like the Human Powered Classroom pedalling their little hearts out to discover how much energy our everyday appliances use or the CERES workshops with heaps of short courses on food producing, processing and alternative energy.
But there are other ways, other avenues, not all immediately obvious, where one can learn things at CERES – things like Monique (that’s her in the pic above) holding this informal preparation for Krautsourcing Day workshop down at Joe’s Market Garden in Coburg yesterday. Coming up on the 24th of Sept, Michelle Garita (Joe’s daughter) is doing an informal Potato and Nettle Gnocchi workshop at Joe’s Market Garden.
For the digital self-seeker you can wander around CERES with your smart phone hooked intoThe Chook app and get an insight into the goings on at CERES and also find out how it was transformed from a quarry/rubbish tip into one of the most eccentric and beloved environmental education centres on the planet
And if you are an everyday regular Joe you can be a volunteer farmer at Joe’s Market Garden or if you have the kind of workplace that dedicates a day for each staff member a year to volunteer in the community – the whole office can come to CERES to get down and dirty on any number of projects going on across the park.
Then there’s the Bike Group, the Bee Group, the Zen Group, the LETs Group where for free or very, very little you can, in the company of like-minded folk, learn how to fix up your bike, keep bees, get all Zen or trade in an alternate economy.
So there many only be two ways to skin cats but there are at least seven or eight ways to learn things at CERES.
