Celebrating Excellence at the VEFN Awards Ceremony! On November 18th, we had the honor of recognising individuals and groups who have made exceptional contributions to our community. Join us in congratulating the winners of the VEFN Awards: Best Friend Award: Tony Castle, Friends of Mt Worth State Park Highly Commended: Robert (Bob) Thomas, Friends of [...]
Dear VEFN Community, It's with great excitement that we unveil the steadfast team leading the charge for a sustainable future—the 2023-2024 Victorian Environment Friends Network (VEFN) Committee. Elected during our AGM on Saturday, November 18th, these passionate individuals are set to build upon the green legacy established in 2022. Meet Your Continuing VEFN Committee: Convenor: [...]
We love hearing how the funding from our Best Friend Award is put to good use in the environment. Here is an excerpt from the City of Kingston's Community Newsletter about Nina Earl, the recipient of the previous BFA Award. "... Friends Group put grant funding to work - Local environmental volunteer, Nina Earl, recently [...]
When myself and Jodie from the Friends of Kororoit Creek attended the VEFN AGM in 2022, we rocked up not only because we were keen to attend but also because we had a project that seemed daunting and insurmountable and we were seeking guidance. We piped up at the end of the meeting and asked the room [...]
Thank you to everyone who came along to our AGM last Saturday. We are pleased to announce that Anthony Bigelow from First Friends of Dandenong Creek has stepped forward to be our new Convenor with Laura Mumaw as Deputy Convenor. There are still opportunities to join the committee if you wish to participate or know of [...]
In July 2022, Parks Victoria and the VEFN conducted two workshops (face-to-face and online) to address the concerns of Friend Groups with the Parks Victoria Volunteer Manual. The workshops were facilitated and enabled everyone to put forward their experiences in a constructive manner with time in the face-to-face workshop to put forward solutions and ideas [...]
A deep dive into environmental volunteering in Victoria with and for youth. https://youtu.be/DZnV_v84rMc What a jam-packed webinar! We covered: research into volunteer engagement including how to recruit, keep and motivate young people with VEFN Project Officer, Lucinda Cameron; inspiring stories from Sam Russell and team from the Urban Guerillas and their journey to help the [...]
There’s a lot of work happening behind the scenes at the VEFN. Here’s a quick update of our Annual General Meeting and our planned activities for 2022. Our AGM was held on the 27th November last year and the following people were elected: Laura Mumaw (Gardens for Wildlife Victoria) - Convenor Anthony Bigelow (First Friends of [...]
Advocacy in Action: Parks Victoria Volunteer Manual Behind the scenes, VEFN committee members have been working on your behalf to address key issues in the Parks Victoria Volunteer Manual which was released in April 2021. Many Friend groups raised concerns about the additional administrative burden placed on volunteers with the requirement to [...]
Parks Victoria (Parks) has now released its Volunteer Manual 2021 (available here). This document attempts to provide a framework for volunteer groups working on public land managed by Parks for the community. Although the document presents a list of groups with whom Parks had meetings about the manual, including the VEFN, we have never had [...]