Doing just one thing for the environment is a good place to start, two North Otago women told a crowd of more than 40 at Monday night's launch of new community sustainability group. 

Just One Thing (JOT), the brainchild of Ruth Davison and Ann Brown, is designed to make it easy to share good ideas and practice to help protect our environment.

“We were just two ‘crazy’ ladies talking about composting maybe”, Ann said, but they also shared a "sense of overwhelm about how to do our bit for the environment”.

Over time, the two came up with the idea that doing “just one thing” could be enough, at least to start with. 

They took their idea to Waitaki District Council waste minimisation officer Lucianne White for guidance on what to do next.

“Three days later, we had a logo, a poster, a venue and we were being launched,” Ruth said.

Ruth and Ann showed the group the United Nation’s sustainable development goals, comprising 17 key areas for change, and acknowledged that sometimes, “it all seems too big”.

As Ruth put it, “that’s the whole point of JOT, that we can share ideas and wisdom for a better future”.

Ann spoke about “tuakana-teina principles, where we learn from one another”. 

“Traditionally, that might have been older teaching younger . . . but we can all learn from each other," she said.

The pair introduced the philosophy of JOT - most importantly, “encouraging each other to become more sustainable individually and communally, by doing just one thing at a time”.

They emphasised everyone is welcome to join in, and focus on what could be achieved together.

"Rather than being overwhelmed by the negative stories of climate change,” Ruth said.

"We are all at different stages of our journey."

A positive, collaborative and non-judgemental approach is important to keep everyone doing what they can.

The plan for the future is to hold “interactive and practical” monthly meetings at different venues, on the 15th of each month.

“That way, it will fall on different days of the week so everyone will be able to take part," Ruth said.

Each month the focus would be on a different theme.

Both of them were keen to emphasise they want to be able to work with other like-minded groups “acting as a bridge” rather than reinventing the wheel.

Lucianne said Waste Free Waitaki was there “to support initiatives just like JOT” and the Waitaki Waste Minimisation Fund application round is coming up.  

“We can support in a variety of ways, including helping people to access some contestable funds.”

Applications are open for all of August, each year, with up to $5,000 per project available from a total pool of $30,000.

The full criteria is available on the Waitaki District Council website. 

Ruth and Ann encouraged everyone to follow the Facebook page Just One Thing Waitaki and distributed sign up forms to join the group’s email list. 

It’s clear there is a growing movement towards sustainability initiatives within Waitaki and there’s space for everyone to be involved. 

As Ann put it, when Pandora opened that infamous box and all the world’s evils escaped, so did “that one little thing called hope”.

“If we put all that hope together.” 

Lucianne summed the mood in the room when she said, “if you have an idea, we want to hear from you”. 

The Business Hive co-owner Alex Regtien managed to find a contact to take the building's food waste for their chickens on the night - just one more thing.

Lisa Heinz (left), and Irwin and Marianne Korten.

Waitaki District Council waste minimisation officer Lucianne White speaks about waste minimisaton while Ruth and Ann look on.