Our Co-op Project

Hey Big Tree enthusiasts!
A huge thank you to everyone who came along to Beaufort for the recent outdoor bush doof gathering – what a smashing success it was! The feedback has been glowing: great times, great tunes, and epic community vibes. A big shout-out to Lincoln Kern, who shared how friendly, respectful, and light-footed everyone was on the land. He’s more than happy to host us all again – and we’re more than happy to say yes!

📅 Save the date: Last weekend of November, Saturday 28th & Sunday 29th November.

🌱 Where: Back out in the Beaufort bush (same spot).

As always, the invitation is open. Bring your friends – all are welcome.

This time we'll schedule a couple of workshop style gatherings in the yert on the Saturday and Sunday mornings. We hope to have close to all of the 21 deposit paid members in attendance, so we can have some good conversation about how we make this dream a reality. Let me know if you're keen to raise a topic for discussion or facilitate a group conversation on a particular aspect of the plan and I'll schedule it in. Now is a great time to join the big tree if you haven't yet done so - get in touch if you're keen. If you're not planning on joining, you can still come to our bush doof :)

Here's a link to the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/4044651685752357

Here's an important link to information about the site, please read this before arriving at the gathering: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kRwaQtk74fTiBchciEwSlFWoUDDYG_vn/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=117269947652503200606&rtpof=true&sd=true

You'll also fine the site address on the briefing document linked above.

This is a free party put together by The Big Tree community, which you're all welcome to be part of. Check out the Vision button below to find out more about us.

The land share co-op vision

The Big Tree Cooperative

About

A Bit of Background

We're a group of friends setting up a land share cooperative to purchase some land in country Vic, for sustainable living, recreation, conservation, events, first nations connection, and hobby food farming. We'll be 30 - 40 shareholders in total contributing $15k each, and an annual fee of $1250 each per year which means we'll have around $40k per year for improvements. We're planning to establish around 8 sites or 'villages' with temporary infrastructure, and central permitted shared infrastructure. We're really enjoying the process and looking forward to realising the dream!

After a few years of chatting, listening, imagining, gathering, planning, and admin-ing, we’ve made it! Thanks for maintaining your interest and sharing ideas around how our cooperative will work, it’s a big dream to have and it takes a community to realise it. Those who haven’t had much involvement, now is the time to get excited! You are now officially invited to become a member of The Big Tree Cooperative. See the link below for details on what becoming a member means. We're very excited to announce that we're all set to issue deposit invoices, and accept members! It's been a huge journey to get here, thanks for your patience, input, encouragement, and involvement so far..

So far we've ...

Expressions of Interest

... come together with initial expression of interest, shared vision, and shared videos of who we are and what we think of the idea.

Established a vision for the co-op

... we've had 2 face-to-face gatherings and many online sessions to define the parameters on the where, what, when, and how.

Registered the Cooperative

... we registered Victoria's 6th ever land share cooperative with the State Government/ ASIC, with a board of directors, rules, and constitution.

Opened a bank account

Opened a Bank Australia account based on a values alignment & support for our coop, the account signatories are board members.

We had a workshop in Feb

This is pretty much what we said:

We're setting up a weekender co-op within 2.5 hours of Melbourne, on a block of minimum 50 acres with water (dam, river, spring).

Why? For fun, celebration, community, activity, relaxation, indigenous connection, events. to build, be creative, to manage land, local community engagement, for conservation, regeneration, and to share skills.

In 5 years we will be part of an active, busy, fun community of ongoing celebration, with shared and individual spaces, indigenous space for first nations, evolving projects and activities, clear roles, a code of conduct, local outreach programs, accountability, and decision making transparency. We'll be swimming, building, composting, growing trees, making some $$, restoring, regenerating, hanging out, listening to tunes, and loving life.

We had a conversation with Phil from Commonground

Unfortunately we were unable to meet in person, but we did manage to chat with Phil about his experience establishing and developing common-ground over the past 40 years. Grab a cuppa and click on the image beside to watch the video.