Shepparton Statement discussion warms up a cold and windy gathering

It was a little cold and windy for the June gathering Beneath the Wisteria in Shepparton’s Maude St Mall, but the arrival of Cheryl Hammer and two senior students from the Goulburn Valley Grammar School brightened things somewhat and ignited the conversation.

Hugh Farell and Grace Sandells are pictured with those who gathered Beneath Wisteria in Shepparton's Maude St Mall. They are (L-R) John Pettigrew, Robert McLean, Terry Court, Bill Winters, Bill Brown and Greg Barnes.

Cheryl is working the City of Greater Shepparton CEO, Peter Harriott, to engage with young people throughout the city to create the “Shepparton Statement” and with her Beneath the Wisteria were two senior students who are the school’s sustainability prefects, Grace Sandells and Hugh Farrell.

Grace and Hugh have been working with twenty or so other students to complete what will be the school’s contribution to the statement.

They told those who had gathered Beneath the Wisteria about monthly lunch time meetings, combined with other research, that had resulted in a two page submission suggesting that the city needed to embrace the three-pronged sustainability process of “reduce, reuse and recycle”.

You can listen to Peter Harriott talk about the Shepparton Statement on the “Climate Conversations” - that interview with completed soon after the idea was announced and so that was long before Cheryl had been employed to engage with the city’s youth and school students.