By MARG APPLEBEE

CENTRAL WEST LACHLAN LANDCARE

Thank you to those who joined us at Homegrown Parkes on Saturday at Cooke Park.

Our Community Survey is now open. We would love to hear from you if you attended the Homegrown Parkes event on Saturday, 26 April 2025.

The link can be found on our Homegrown Parkes page on the Central West Lachlan Landcare website or via our Facebook page.

We have two lovely Homegrown Parkes gifts for two people drawn from the survey results.

Our stallholder survey has also been distributed. Both of the surveys close on Saturday, 10 May 2025 at 5pm.

A massive thank you to everyone who has already responded to our request for feedback.

We try to factor in your suggestions moving forward, particularly around demonstrations, workshops, educational opportunities and stallholder suggestions.

This was the first event where we have encountered significant rain and we were so thrilled to see how the community still showed up for us.

Homegrown Parkes events aren’t about being bigger for every event.

The ethos behind the ‘homegrown’ concept is more about quality.

Whilst having 80 stalls in our park would provide a lot of diversity, it is really important that we maintain a standard that focusses on promoting local and regional businesses, not for profits etc.

These events would not be possible without many volunteers contributing on the day.

Thank you to our Central West Lachlan Landcare volunteers and Parkes Community Arts volunteers.

Thanks to the Parkes Shire Concert Band, Parkes Music and Dramatic Society and Spicy Mercury for providing our fabulous musical entertainment.

We love being able to showcase our local talent.

The Reptile Display and Bee Man were wonderful new inclusions.

Central West Lachlan Landcare have committed to delivering Homegrown Parkes events for the next three years, twice a year. This is for our community.

We are supported by volunteers from our Committee, volunteers from the Parkes Community Arts Committee and with in-kind support from Parkes Shire Council and for this event, funding through the Open Streets program.

We will be holding our next event in conjunction with the NSW Keep Australia Beautiful Tidy Towns Awards, on Saturday, 11 October 2025 and look forward to sharing those details with you shortly.

If you would like to keep up to date with Homegrown Parkes and other Landcare activities, follow our social media or join our newsletter mailing list.

For further information on this article, please go to www.centralwestlachlanlandcare.org, twitter, facebook or Instagram @cwllandcare or contact Marg Applebee on 0418 611 053.