The benefits of this move, towards improving staff cohesion and working relationships, were anticipated and we hoped that our new prominent location would attract a greater interest and raise the profile of Landcare within the community.

Whilst the aforementioned goal is difficult to quantify, we have certainly had an increase in the number of face to face enquiries made at our office doors and we have definitely seen more of our Landcare volunteers dropping in regularly at the offices to have a chat and catch up, than at our previous locations.

Initially, we had concerns about reduced access to facilities such as photocopying and reception support and how we would maintain regular ‘office hours’ given the flexible work hours due to the staff’s field based work and evening commitments attending Group meetings.

In October 2007, the Maffra and Districts Landcare Network negotiated a partnership with East Gippsland TAFE through their Work for the Dole program and we were blessed with lovely Lyn Kilpatrick who was able to assist with general office administration duties.

Initially Lyn was required to do 15 hours per week and agreed to work from 9 am to 12 noon Monday to Friday. This enabled us to advertise regular office hours to the public and we devised a system of putting out Landcare Flags at any time staff were in the office, to indicate that we were open for visitors. Lyn is now only required to do 6 hours a week but lucky for us, she has been enjoying the work and has agreed to continue as a volunteer for the additional hours to maintain the 3 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Having sorted out the office hours the next thing we needed to focus on was the day to day office facilities staff needed to do their jobs, such as a fax machine and adequate photocopying facilities. A neighbouring business operator in Maffra, Workways, generously allowed Landcare staff to use their facilities up until December 2007 when we were fortunate to receive sponsorship funding from Endeavour Petroleum BP to purchase an all in one colour photocopier, printer, fax and scanner.

As we reflect one year on, it is clear that the move to our OWN space has been a resounding success with many additional and exciting benefits that we had not expected.

By having our own space, the Maffra & Districts Landcare Network has been able to grow its staff resource base without the additional overhead costs that are usually attached to corporate office rentals. We are now also able to offer more support to our volunteers so that they can come in and use our phones, computers and printers to do their meeting notices and other Landcare business.

Currently we have two highly committed volunteers, Beth Ripper and Sandy Morrison, who come in every Wednesday to work on network wide projects. They successfully organised the Networks National Tree Day activities in July 2008. Beth is now focusing her energy on assisting the Network to develop an equipment management strategy and hiring out process and Sandy is investigating opportunities for setting up an active and interesting Youth Landcare Initiative.

Being able to provide these volunteers with office space, access to resources and support means they are more willing and able to give their volunteer time.

So far we have managed to accommodate the 3 staff and 3 regular volunteers in our fantastic little shopfront, although it does get crowded if we are all here at once! If we keep growing, we may need to take over the vacant shop next door, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing considering some of our volunteers have toyed with idea of going into retail and selling environmental goodies… but that’s another story…..