From the Enviro Team

Pedal Powered Cinema 2023 Wrap Up

In a contrast to the 2022 pedal cinema event, blue skies, and a high of 34 degrees posed a different challenge for our powerful pedallers in 2023: Would we generate enough electricity to play the Parent Trap in its entirety?

The year 8 pedallers generated over 400watt hours of power, with Chisholm house providing more than 1 third of the energy, closely followed my team Melba. Thanks to Ms Stephanie Kierce, our Data and analytics staff leader for setting up our data monitoring systems that allowed us to view the electricity generation statistics in real time this year!

Throughout day, our enthusiastic year 8 students pedalled and rowed in 5 minute stints to provide the bulk of the energy required to run the movie. By the end of the summer school day, our year 8 classes had generated over 400 watt hours of energy, potentially enough to run the projector and electronic equipment. However the inflatable screen demanded 1304 watts of power to inflate, which made Mr Vance quite nervous that the guests may not be able to pedal enough to keep the screen afloat!

Energy produced by each year 8 class. 8A generated the most energy with several powerful contributors who benefited from starting early in the cool morning and pedalling through recess to gain extra time to generate power. Our most powerful individual pedaller, Ms Tess Dallimore was in class 8B, the second most powerful class! 8I will be generating their power in PE classes next week and will feed their contributions directly into the grid rather than our battery bank.

The hot summer day made for a delightful evening for our audience of MGC families, neighbours and community members who arrived from 5pm to set up picnics, pedal or row some human power into our battery bank and enjoy the pre-movie entertainment provided by staff and student musicians. The Parents Association and Paella pan provided some delicious dinner options and patrons were able to purchase a carbon neutral latte from the Corner Store Network or a pedal powered smoothie from the MGC Environment team. There was also plastic-packaging-free popcorn, cakes, fairy floss and soft serve ice-cream on sale to ensure that we followed our philosophy of zero waste to landfill.

While guests enjoyed the musical entertainment and eco-friendly food on offer, our fabulous Master of Ceremonies, 2023 Vice-Arts Captain Leanne Leong invited people to explore the information stalls hosted by MGC clubs and societies, Environmental action groups and businesses such as the Friends of the Earth, the Yarra Energy Foundation, the Australian Conservation Foundation, The Marine Mammal Foundation, Fly-by Night Bat Rescue, Biofilta, Richmond Rotary, The University of Melbourne, School Strike for Climate, Project Pair Up and Environmental Action Teams from Xavier College and Academy of Mary Immaculate. At 7pm, Ellergy Maguire and Sophie Hart addressed the crowd and shared our vision for a zero-waste to Landfill school and announced our successful City of Yarra Climate grant that will enable us to continue our revegetation and biodiversity management work on the Murnong Patch throughout 2023. We would like to sincerely thank all the volunteers from MGC and beyond who gave up their time to host a stall and share their knowledge.

At 8pm, as the sun started to drop behind the city skyline and the flying foxes took to the air, Phoebe Marshall delivered a beautiful acknowledgement of Country, then handed over to Assistant Principal cum-musician Rachel Robertson who welcomed Cr Edward Crossland, the Deputy Mayor of Yarra to officially open proceedings. Cr Crossland thanked the year 8s of 2023 for their efforts to almost fill the batteries completely on such a hot day and explained how excited he was that a new community battery would soon be built at Bendigo St community centre to reduce the community demand for fossil fuel generated electricity. 

Clara Batten and Elsie Falkiner then announced the winner of the “guess the energy competition” and revealed we had generated 600 watt hours before introducing Mr Don Vogt from the ACF Inner Melbourne Branch to present the most powerful year 8 pedaller award to Ms Tess Dallimore of 8B.

Professional musician Peter Vadiveloo and parent of MGC alumni then revved the crowd up with some uplifting singalongs that rivalled the noise coming from the Sugarbabes and Harry Styles concerts combined before Lindsay took to the giant screen and the enviro team crept quietly around the audience to pack down the food stalls and sustainability showcase.

So despite the heat, the extra stress of an inflatable screen to power and the competition from international super star musical acts in town, the 12th annual pedal powered cinema was a roaring success. Combined with the battery banks of the solar powered DIY HIFI sound system trailer, our batteries stood up to the power demands of the pre-movie concert and film. The screen stayed aloft, our raffle, ticket sales and food stalls raised funds for some exciting new recycling projects at MGC  and much fun was had by all- with zero carbon emissions and very little plastic waste!

The Raffle was drawn during the film and winners announced during the closing credits. Winning raffle ticket holders are published in this newsletter and have been contacted to collect their prizes. If you have not been contacted yet to collect your prize, then please contact Mr Andrew Vance: avance@mgc.vic.edu.au

The environment Team would like to thank the generous contributions from the Parents Association and Ausma Vilcins from the Paella Pan for catering the event, the enormous contributions from MGC staff who willingly gave up their time to organise stalls, sell tickets, paint faces, supervise students, wash dishes, pedal smoothies, sing songs, play instruments and stand under tipper buckets. Parents Mr Paul Shubb and Darryn Simcox gave up their time to resurrect and run the pedal-powered Backyard Carousel that added colour and movement to the pre-movie entertainment. Thank you to all our Sustainability stall holders and raffle donors. Finally, to Ellery Maguire, Sophie Hart, Clara Batten, Elsie Falkiner and Maggie Grossbard, our wonderful student Environment captains who ably- led our team of environment reps who made all this possible.

If you would like to be part of our 2024 organising committee, then please contact Sustainability coordinator Mr Andrew Vance.

Clean Up Australia Day

Sunday 5th of March was Clean Up Australia Day. MGC staff and students joined up with ACF Inner Melbourne, and Richmond Rotary to collect litter along the Birrarung and throughout Burnley Park. Thanks to all those volunteers who gave up their time. Pictured here is Environment Captain Sophie Hart (right) and year 12 enviro team member Elodie Dillon with MP Monique Ryan who was very interested to hear from the students about the Murnong revegetation project along the Birrarung.