I’m dusting this here blog off for an announcement…

This is also my way of hoping you’ll all forgive me for being so slack in blogging and organising drinks nights… It’s all because my little brain has been busy plotting a big idea: Australia’s first Vegan Conference!

I love going to the Cruelty Free Festival and Vegan Expo. It’s good times, good food and a chance to catch up with people. But I’ve been craving opportunities for collaboration – a chance to get some of the brilliant vegan minds that exist in our community into a room to talk about what we can do as a movement.

This is all still very much a seedling of an idea, but I’d love to see speakers, panel discussions, workshops and interactive opportunities to really look at veganism from a whole variety of levels – animal activism, health, environmentalism, hell let’s get representatives from restaurants in to tell us how we can lobby for better vegan options, let’s look at campaigns that are working will within other movements, and the ways that veganism is going mainstream in the U.S. Let’s just all have a big ol’ campfire chat.

So there’s lots to work out still… like should this have more of a multi-day “camp” feeling which seems to be a trend amongst conferences these days or is that too big a commitment? When should we hold it? I’m pretty positive it’ll be in Sydney, so would you be willing to travel from elsewhere… And so on…

If you’d like to contribute your opinion you can take this here survey. Or as a replacement for this month’s Vegan Drinks let’s get together to discuss some ideas over beers. Friday May 27 I’ll be at The Courthouse Hotel in Newtown. Come swing by if you want to chat. Pretty informal. Hope to see you there!

Last week I got together with a group of readers to do a bit of vegaroo! brainstorming. It was a great session and I walked away with lots of new ideas, some short-term, some long-term, for how we can improve the site and make it a valuable resource for vegans in Australia, (or the vegan-curious).

Based on that meeting and my own ideas, here are the five goals I’ve set out:

1. In general, make vegaroo! more interactive so that users can post their own events, volunteer opportunities, notices, etc. I’m struggling a bit to find a good plugin for this so if anyone knows a good wordpress developer, that would be swell. We have started a mailing list feature though, so you can sign up (top right corner of this page) for a weekly digest of new articles and events listed here.

5. And this is the one I’m most excited about. Next week I’ll be launching a restaurant outreach campaign. There are lots of restaurants in Sydney that could easily become more vegan-friendly with some simple menu changes. I’ve chosen one that I’d like to specifically target and will be calling on vegaroo readers to lobby them towards a more vego menu. I’ll get into more details next week and we’ll take it from there in terms of developing a strategy for reaching out to more restaurants and what incentives we can provide.

I’ve also got some other event ideas cooking and truly long-term thoughts. I always welcome feedback either in the comments, or if you’d like to email me directly at sharon@vegaroo.com with your ideas. What does the Australian vegan community need?

Thanks to everyone who’s given me feedback so far. I’m still a relative newbie here, but have loved getting to know the community over the last six months!

You guys! This month marks a very momentous occasion – the 6 month anniversary of vegaroo! Since we launched back in March, a lot has happened. I’ve now eaten my way through Sydney, we’ve had new writers come and go, and we’ve launched the first Sydney Vegan Drinks event. (Next one happening 15 October!)

I thought it would be a good time to reflect and see what our readers, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, etc. would like to see happen with the site.

Unfortunately I started this site while I was new to Australia and still unemployed. Since starting work full-time I’ve had significantly less time to invest in the site. So while I love to dream big, I also want to be efficient about what I can accomplish with my limited time, so that means I want to focus my efforts on the things that matter most to the community.

That’s why I’m asking for your feedback! This Thursday evening I’m having a very informal vegaroo! brainstorming session!

When: Thursday 30 September at 6:30-8:00ish

Where: Iku Wholefood, Darlinghurst location at 62 Oxford Street

Anyone is welcome to come by and give feedback on what they’d like to see more of on the site, or just generally what they’d like to see in the Australian vegan community. And grab some yummy, healthy vego food from Iku! You can RSVP on our Facebook event  or just leave a comment.

If you’re unable to attend, I always welcome feedback. You can leave comments here or email me at sharon@vegaroo.com. Please let me know if you’re interested in contributing as well. The more we can collaborate, the more I think it benefits the community. Hope to see you Thursday!

Since launching vegaroo! in April I’ve been wanting to start up some vegan events in Sydney. The time has come!

Along with local website Inner West Live, we are currently scouting a location for an upcoming Sydney Vegan Happy Hour! If you know of any venues (or especially if you have connections at any) that mightbe suitable please let me know. Here’s what we’re looking for:

• In the Inner West i.e. Newtown, Marrickville, Enmore, Stanmore, Erskinville, etc… something not far from a train station ideally.
• Has some kind of space that’s a bit more separate where we could be sanctioned off.
• Either has a kitchen that is willing to make us some special vegan food or is open to us bringing in food from an outside vendor.

We’re thinking it’ll be a weeknight (Wednesday or Thursday maybe) in late July/early August around 6-8 or so. Be sure to check back here for details soon!

Anyone with ideas, interested in helping organise, etc. please feel free to contact me directly at sharon@vegaroo.com

UPDATE: We’ve found a venue and booked an evening. Sydney Vegan Happy Hour will take place Thursday 29 July at 6:30 at The Courthouse Hotel in Newtown. More details coming soon!

Amanda Benham - accredited practising dietitian and vegan business owner

As a vegan, you have to be well-equipped with snappy responses, compelling stories and often the latest scientific data when confronted with the all too familiar question: “So, why are you a vegan?”

We all have our favourite responses. Every vegan has a unique and highly personal story they are usually more than happy to share. I can’t recall the number of times I have described the story that changed my eating patterns forever. Those poor chickens scrambling from the overturned truck couldn’t possibly have known how their suffering splashed across the evening news helped me in my evolution to eat cruelty-free. I have no hesitation in trundling out that well-worn tale of woe as part of my quest to help other people find their way to a more animal-friendly diet.

But sometimes tugging at the heart strings isn’t quite enough. If people are to give up factory farmed flesh, they need to know what is in it for them. It appears to be the way of the world we live in. People want to know how they will benefit from making compassionate food choices. This is where Amanda Benham can step in to help us fine tune our argument.

Amanda (proud owner of the Brisbane-based vegan grocery store The Green Edge) is an accredited practising dietitian who has made it one of her life missions to alert people to the health benefits of a plant-based diet. Her expertise and compassion have assisted many people in their journey to live healthier lives in a sustainable, planet-friendly way. I caught up with Amanda recently to discuss an upcoming free seminar she is hosting at her store during May.

Titled The how and why of plant-based eating, the seminar will explore the concept of plant-based eating and why it is booming in popularity. Amanda explained to me how she intends to give practical advice on how to maximise the health benefits associated with this type of diet. She wants to share what she sees as “vital information for anyone seeking a happier, healthier future for themselves and the planet”. So not only will Amanda arm you with the tools to be a healthier vegan, she will be giving you a few trade secrets for the next time someone wants to know what’s so special about saying no to eating animals.

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The how and why of plant-based eating

Monday 10 May, 2010

6:15pm – 8:30pm

The Green Edge 3/191 Wardell Street, Enoggera

Email: info@greenedgeonline.com.au     Phone: (07) 3855 5755

This is a free event. Booking is required

[Editor's Note: You can find this event and others like it in Brisbane and all over Australia on the vegaroo! events calendar.]

Aww, you guys, vegaroo! is like ten days old or somewhere thereabouts! How terribly exciting. I thought we should take this momentous occasion to just point some stuff out that may not be obvious about this here site (especially if you’re reading from an RSS feed), and sort of generally ask what we can improve upon.

Vegaroo! Restaurant Guide
Our restaurant guide is a work-in-progress and right now primarily contains listings for Sydney. But the good news is that it’s a wiki, so anyone can contribute information. I know that sounds like a lot of work. Perhaps you’d rather send us links to websites of restaurants you’d like to see included? We’ll take that! Or perhaps you have photos on Flickr of meals you’ve eaten out in veg-friendly restaurants? We’ll take those too!

Send links to restaurants and/or photos to sharon@vegaroo.com or for a DIY approach, sign up here to edit our wiki!

Vegaroo! Event Listings
We’ve just added an interactive Google Calendar plugin to our events page. You just click on the event to see more info. Pretty straightforward. We like to think we’re on top of things and in the know here, but we can always use a helping hand. You can send event listings to us, even if it’s not your event, just something you think Australian vegans should know about. Please include date, time, location and description and send to sharon@vegaroo.com

Other Features (??)
What do you think the vegan community in Australia needs? By now you’ve probably figured out where to send your ideas. I’m hoping to revamp our Get Involved page as it’s a little sparse right now. Our wiki has the capability to include a discussion forum but I haven’t built it out yet because I wasn’t sure if there would be interest. Would a discussion forum be useful to you? What else would go on your website wishlist?

Lastly, if you’re a vegan Australian with a blog let us know if you’d like us to add you to our blog roll. We’re all about sharing the love and creating a community here.

Cheers!

Vegaroo needs you! We’ve set our sights high here, aiming to become a hub for vegans all across Australia, and to do that we need a little help. There are all kinds of ways you can contribute!

• Regular Contributor: If you’ve got the time to write for vegaroo! at least fortnightly we’d love to have you on board. Topics can include restaurant reviews (needed especially outside of Sydney!), product reviews, news stories, event coverage, editorials, basically anything relevant to this community. We’ll even put up a snappy photo and bio of you!
• Guest Poster: Don’t have the time to commit to writing regularly? No worries, we won’t judge your commitment issues. If you’re interested in writing a one-time or occasional piece, we’ll take those submissions too. See above for topics we’re looking for.
• Restaurant Guide Contributor: Have you seen our Restaurant Guide yet? We think it’s got the potential to be really useful, but we’re still missing information from lots of restaurants (again, especially outside of Sydney). We need photos most of all!
• Tipster: This last one isn’t really a position, but we always welcome ideas for topics you’d like to see covered, events you’d like listed, or volunteer opportunities to advertise. Don’t be shy, send ‘em our way!

If you’re interested in any of the above email me at sharon@vegaroo.com. If you want to contribute regularly it would be nice if you could point me to your blog or some other writing sample. We can’t pay our bloggers just yet, but isn’t the satisfaction of helping your fellow vegan its own reward? No… well, I’ll buy you a beer at Yulli’s sometime.

Thanks for checking out vegaroo! We’ve created this site to be a hub for vegans, and the veg-curious across Australia to find out the latest news and information in their area and network with like-minded folks.

In a country like Australia, known for kangaroo meat (kangatarians? wtf??) and throwing shrimp on the barbie, it can sometimes feel isolating to stick to your vegan guns. We hope that by banding together, we can make this a little corner of the internet where we can all speak the same language (who else talks about B12, Nuttelex, and tempeh so incessantly?) and help each other out with resources.

In a nutshell: being vegan is awesome, and we want to make it easier and more exciting than ever to be a vegan in Australia!

Here on the blog you can expect restaurant reviews, news stories, product reviews, and the occasional editorial and recipe. But we’ve also got a vegan-friendly restaurant guide, event listings, and “Get Involved!” page where you can find volunteer opportunities and more ways to make the world a more awesome place. We’d be remiss if we didn’t give a shout-out to our obvious inspiration site: vegansaurus! in San Francisco. It’s basically the best blog on the internet, vegan or otherwise, and we can only hope to one day come close to their level of hilarity.

Anyway, we’d love to hear from you, whether it’s comments or suggestions which you can leave here on the blog, or if you’re interested in contributing here we’ve got lots of ways you can lend your voice. We look forward to hearing all the awesome things you have to say! Do you think we can find one more way to squeeze the word “awesome” into this post? Get used to a lot of awesomeness around here.