In the beautiful Anderson Gardens, Townsville locals and visitors enjoyed the sights, tastes and activities of Townsville City Council's massive biennial community event, Our Townsville.

Nestled into the Our Environment section, our site was a hive of activity all day long, thanks to our energetic and dedicated volunteers!

Pictured: Frank greets visitors to our stall with a smile! His colour coordination with our signage was a happy coincidence.

Our Bottle Cap Poll

Pictured: Sandra and Chris participate in the poll, using rescued bottle caps from Lids4Kids and water jugs borrowed from Complete Water Solutions NQ.

Our bottle cap poll asked people "What could make Townsville even better?", with three options for local environmental initiatives that could be supported by Townsville City Council: 

* Plant more trees (growing our urban forest)

* Green waste bins for households (introducing FOGO - "food organics, garden organics")

* Better bikeways and footpaths (improving our active transport network)

At the end of the day, Green Waste Bins came in first, with Trees coming a very close second and the Bikeways and Footpaths trailing a little behind. Interestingly, it was those who voted for improvements to our active transport network that had the most powerful stories about the need for this infrastructure, detailing issues with connectivity and accessibility.

Our Merchandise

For those looking to splash out, we also offered the perfect useful item/gift! Boomerang Bags are handmade, using recovered materials - each one is unique and full of personality! Initiated as a pushback on single-use shopping bags, Boomerang Bags has become a "global grassroots movement". We are extremely grateful for their support!

Pictured: A visitor to our stall is delighted with her new purchase and happily poses for a photo.

Our Sustainability Tree

Our Townsville Sustainability Tree came to life at Ecofiesta 2022 - painted by Dave Sewell, leaves and construction by Tiff Bond and ideas by members of the community!

We asked people to share their ideas for Townsville City Council to help make our city more sustainable - and our tree filled with leaves in no time at all!

Pictured: Our Sustainability sprouted its first leaves at Ecofiesta 2022.

At Our Townsville 2023, we presented our Sustainability Tree, along with a transcription of the leaves in a document, to Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill. Our hope for the tree is that it will be displayed at the Smart Precinct, where it can act as a reminder to all that our environment DOES matter to our community, and there are many things we can do to help it flourish.

Pictured: NQCC Coordinator (Crystal) presents the Townsville Sustainability Tree to Townsville Mayor Jenny Hill.

Pictured: The words that featured most heavily on the leaves of our Sustainability Tree appear largest in this word cloud. 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NQCC's presence at Our Townsville was supported by the following local organisations and businesses and volunteers - and we are mightily grateful!

Thank you to...

Bottle caps supplied by Lids4Kids

Water bottles supplied by Complete Water Solutions NQ

Boomerang Bags donated by Boomerang Bags

Our volunteers:

David Cassells

Manuela Andreatta

Sandra Croaker

Frank Dallmeyer

Linda Davis