The tenth iteration of the Winter Warmer annual working bee at Woodfordia was a smashing success with over 24 projects undertaken by more than 450 participants. From tackling termite damage in our Supplies storage container to making medallions for our Festival volunteers, the amount of work accomplished was a true testament to the goodwill of our people. At the end of the two days, organisers were feeling all the warm fuzzies one gets when witnessing such a massive collective effort as was seen at the Warmer.  

The following is an overview of each team’s accomplishments. You might want to make a cuppa and get comfortable because A LOT was accomplished! 

Amenities Attackers replaced heaps of old toilet seats, sorted a tonne of stock and supplies, cleaned floors, and scraped off old Blu-Tack. In the process of readying our amenities for another year of postering and all the other p-word things that happen there, the Attackers managed to get silly and create a fair bit of content for the socials – stay tuned for messages from the Intergalactic S-Bend Warriors! 

Carrying on with their artistic projects, the Arteries worked on a whopping 11 different art projects making decor for the Festival. They made 40 pom-poms and 23 wristband streamers, completed 6 Chai Tent tables with another 18 in production, finished 12 sets of toilet block signs with 11 more in production, constructed 2 Chai Tent shoe racks and 1½ hammock stands, designed 2 puppet theatres for Tin Lids, crocheted 23 hoops, sewed 55 accessibility chair covers and decor for 2 accessible buggies, and made much progress on 3 beetles and 4 dragons. This coming Festival is sure to be even more beautiful than the last.  

The Binfrastructure Beautification project mainly focused on the movement of bins; lots of bins were moved from A to B to C. They also did some work on the main base, tidying up Bintopia aka Pete’s Pad, the home base of the Garbology crews. 

Our bamboo forest is thriving thanks to irrigation from our wastewater treatment plant and the loving it gets from the Bamboo Harvest crew. They managed to cut 64 poles that will be used to hang our street lanterns and disposed of 4 trailer-loads of bamboo. The folks from Special Projects joined in to do some key-holing, helping the clumps to continue to thrive and provide much-needed bamboo for their structures.  

The Cloudland Lovers removed an enormous amount of lantana, clearing roughly ¾ of an acre off the third and fourth terraces on the west side of Cloudland. On the cleared ground, they did a bunch of replanting with the goal of beautifying the Build crew’s home. This crew will continue their good work at our monthly Weekend working bees. 

Another Conservatree project gave some love to the Forests of Goodwill, spreading the equivalent of 2 golf buggy-sized piles of mulch, and pulling roughly 20 wallabies-worth of weeds. Team leader Bri has great expertise in landscaping, but more notable is her unique system of measurement.  

The Sacred Forest team smashed their KPIs out of the park, or should we say of the forest, making a huge dent in the lantana, pulling weeds and spreading mulch. This is yet another project that works monthly during the Conservatree working bees on the last Saturday of the month.  

In its biggest ever mass weeding venture, the Weedos, who are also part of Conservatree, scoured the Eastern Bloc and removed 27 bags of fireweed during the first session. On day two, they moved to the Amphitheatre and tackled the nasty devil’s fig that is popping up in the gullies. This work is so important for the overall wellbeing of our beloved Woodfordia so hats off to them for this sometimes back-breaking work. Good thing they stopped regularly to do some ‘Woga’ (yoga for Weedos).  

Many thanks go to our EB Blitzers for their tidying and organising of our very visible storage area on the Eastern Bloc. They turned the piles of junk into a workable roof sheeting storage area, filled an entire skip bin with scrap metal, sorted timber and piled discarded wood ready to burn, and basically made all kinds of flotsam and jetsam more accessible. These folks transformed what looked like a junkyard into a very tidy storage area. 

Over in Area 51, although no aliens were spotted, the Flooring Fixerupperers sorted through and repaired a couple of hundred duck boards that are used in our back of house areas. They organised the piles of duckboards and will continue the repair work at future Weekends, extending the lives of these valuable resources.  

The Glamping Tent Maintenance crew did a frenzy of glam-work to ensure the ‘glamps’ stay glamorous, with 13 given a full clean including deep cleans of the BBQ covers and the PVC trim on the insides of the tents, vacuuming under the beds and couches, and applying a special coating to shower glass which will make cleaning easier in future. They also ironed labels on 80 bits of linen, properly naming the sheets and doona covers as belonging to Woodfordia.  

The Lake Lovers crew dispersed nearly 6 cubic metres of rock into the lake to cover exposed geotextile fabric, all around the waterfall and jumping rock beach. Two scuba tanks were consumed ‘mowing’ a big section of the eelgrass around and on the way to the waterfall. That’s roughly 3.5 hrs of underwater mowing! These folks also meet monthly at the Weekends to take care of our beloved Lake Gkula.  

The Library Landscapers planted 12 canopy trees to create more shade and worked along a 25 metre length of hillside behind the Library and Lettering House, removing invasive grasses, planting native grasses, and helping out the native grasses and saplings that are already there. In total, 90 native grasses were planted across 4 different areas. We look forward to finding respite among the grasses with a book in hand or a letter to write. 

And speaking of books, Woodfordia’s Library is going to have a stellar collection of books this year, thanks to the organising and sorting of the Library Lovers team. Not only were the Winter Warmer folks generous with their energy and time, but many also brought in old books to donate to the Library, now totalling close to 1224 books! Not surprisingly, there are some excellent books in our collection now.  

The Medallion Makers made a whopping 3,455 medallions over the course of the two days in what is a staple project held every year since the Warmer began. These medallions are a symbol of all that is good about Woodfordia, being made by volunteers for volunteers. We wouldn’t have it any other way, as each one is infused with love and gratitude by the Medallion Makers.  

Another essential annual project is the Office Beautification project. This year’s tiny team focused on the carpets, giving them a good ole steam clean. With the help of 3 hired steam cleaners, they managed to suck the dirt out of the carpets in all the common areas and 10 offices. Staff are very grateful to this crew for refreshing our working environment.  

Addressing a safety concern raised by many of the Build crew, a Stairway beyond Hairway to Stephan project was completed (nearly), with proper stairs being built from the upper terrace to the amenities. The steps were constructed from our stockpile of pavers made by Festival patrons and large rocks that came out of the ground when the site was prepared for construction. No more tripping up the hill on your way to the loo in the middle of the night – hurrah! 

Down the back end of the office, the Sunroom Shine project did a massive tidy up of all our IT equipment, testing and coiling many, many ethernet cables. These were also labelled in hopes of our Site Networks team having a much easier time this year when installing the temporary network required to operate the Festival.  

Approximately 100,000 termites were evicted from our Supplies shipping container. This number is based on the average density of nests and the approximate size of the nest removed. The Supplies! Container Reclaimers crew also sorted and did an inventory of many of our first aid kits. 

The Timber TLC crew splashed protective oil on all the decks and bridges they could find. They also managed to turn their brooms upside down to clean the ceilings of the front and rear decks at the front office. Another reason staff are feeling grateful. No more fear of spiders landing in our lunches! 

The Woodford Warriors, which is another group that meets monthly on the Weekend to do small carpentry projects, constructed and are at various stages of finishing: 12 small blackboards, 10 large blackboards, and one table that’s taken them 3 months to find bits for! That table alone was reason to celebrate out in the Shed of Sheds. 

And, last but not least, the Yarn ’n Darn crew salvaged 60 lantern socks, repairing many tiny holes and extending their life far beyond the manufacturer’s expectations. They darned them with love, so when you admire the lanterns on the streets of the Festival, remember these fine folks sewing away in the Duck. They also helped de-string old medallions so the strings can be reused and (hopefully) the leftover medallions can be used in some kind of mosaic or artwork for the volunteers.  

And aside from all this great work, we also had great fun, with this year’s poster being revealed and a fabulous showcase of artists playing at the Folk Club. We can’t forget the delicious food made for us, so special thanks to our Small Events crew for all the behind-the-scenes work that made this working bee weekend such a grand success. Thanks also to the Whittle Whizzes in the kid’s area for taking good care of the wee ones while their parents were off busy doing their projects.  

Phew! If you’ve managed to make it this far, you’ll know why we love the Warmer so. It’s a boost to the site and its infrastructure for the Festival and for us all. It’s an example of why the Woodfordia community is so darn special, and why we see such great care for the site when the Festival is on. Our Festival streets are clean, and after it’s all over the campgrounds are spotless, in large part due to the connection people feel to this place. The Warmer provides the opportunity to strengthen that connection and is truly a weekend overflowing with the Woodfordian spirit of giving.  

Organisers wish to extend a huge thanks to all who came. And for those that missed out but wish they could have been there, we have the monthly Weekend working bees which are tiny versions of the Warmer every month. Sign up here to find out more. 

A big thank you to our volunteer Media team of Jen, Chelsea and Will for capturing the weekend. You can see all the photos from the Winter Warmer on our Flickr.