By Callum Ludwig
Yarra Valley ECOSS is facing some trying times, with financial concerns creating uncertainty for the organisation’s paid staff.
While programs and events are being prioritised and there’s no danger of ECOSS folding, staff hours have already been reduced.
Executive Officer Chelsea McNab said ECOSS operates mostly on grants and it’s tough, and seems to be getting tougher, to get grants at the moment.
“That’s the feedback that everyone seems to be getting, and another thing about grants is that they generally want you to invent a new project and it’s very difficult to just retain staff and the current projects that you have if you’re trying to invent new projects all the time,” she said.
“We’ve been through a planning process which is nearly finished and soon we’ll be able to take new tenants so that will increase our viability but we’re not at that point yet so we’re in a bit of a hump for the next six months,”
“We are still going to continue rolling out our programs that we’ve planned and our events that we have funding for but just the day-to-day activities are very difficult to fund and so unfortunately we’ve had to reduce our staff hours and our capacity is very stretched so we’d like to get our staff back so we can operate in our normal capacity.”
Yarra Valley ECOSS’ entire Committee of Management is made up of volunteers, while the limited paid staff members also spend extra volunteered time on-site to help run things smoothly.
Ms McNab said keeping their staff on is important to them because they try to offer as much as they possibly can to the community for nothing.
“We really value doing that and we do have a lot of volunteers but when you’re looking at writing policies, keeping programs running safely, consistently and reliably and keeping the space beautiful and maintained, you do need a staff base and it’s used so much every day,” she said.
“We want to keep the market going that runs every Friday here and supports our local producers and people accessing locally grown food and our Crops for Community program is one of the most valued programs that we offer where people living with disabilities garden in the community garden and grow food for food relief but it takes coordination and takes us to supply everything needed for that program,”
“We do have a little bit of funding but it’s not enough to keep the staff on the two days a week that we need to run that program so we’re always looking at different ways.”
In a letter to friends of ECOSS and current tenants, Ms McNab outlined that Yarra Valley ECOSS has faced significant delays in the planning permission process to allow for new tenants while having to absorb planning consultant fees and associated works costs to meet planning requirements.
All the while, Yarra Valley ECOSS has received under half of the grants they have applied for in the last year, significantly less than ever before while facing rising running expenses such as utility, maintenance and staffing costs, as well as work cover which has risen to about $8000 per year alone.
Ms McNab said supporters of ECOSS can donate directly or attend and support their upcoming events to help the organisation in this time.
“We’ve got tree planting days, biochar workshops, fruit fly workshops and some grant-funded festivals coming up but it’s hard to have enough staff hours to do all the planning and everything for those things,” she said.
“We’ve got the Valley Youth Fest on 13 September here which is such a great event to engage lots of the youth of the region and we’ve got Rhythms of the World which is a big multicultural music festival here on 19 October and then we’ve got the Christmas Twilight Market on 20 December, as well as Costa [Georgiadis] coming back to do his kid’s book launch here,”
“We’ve got lots of things coming up and lots of great things in the pipeline but we just need to be supported through people coming to the events, people buying plants at the nursery, people, buying biochar and donating and coming to the market and supporting the farmers.”
On top of tenancies, Yarra Ranges Council also provides Yarra Valley ECOSS with $18,000 per year that can be put towards operating costs.
Yarra Valley ECOSS aims to improve its financial stability in the future (once planning permissions are granted) by:
Renting the blue site shed near the office, the bottle room, the Studios next to UpCycles once built and other spaces at ECOSS
Tendering for Native Tubestock Supply on a large scale
Growing its Corporate Volunteer Program
Introducing User Pays systems for some programs
Growing the Market and Shop.
A fundraising goal of $15,000 has been set to help Yarra Valley ECOSS and direct donations can be made at: ecoss.org.au/donations-page-frrr/.
