PETER BARGE

'Farmer Pete'

Meet Farmer Pete, a man with seemingly infinite energy! When he’s not jetting the globe on business, he is knee deep in the veggie garden here at Springfield Farm. During the past six months, he has set up our beautiful chickens in the coop of their dreams and is growing mealy worms and crickets for their food. He’s passionate about mycelium and has planted a superfood mushroom farm. He’s always got his hands in the dirt, growing veggies for our retreats, and recently became a beekeeper! He is especially excited to have taken Springfield Farm off the grid with our own solar energy, and will be happy to take you on tours to explore all of his projects while you’re here. 

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JILL COCKRAM

Permaculture Guru

Since obtaining her Permaculture Design Certificate with Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren in 1997 and the Permaculture Teaching Certificate from the Permaculture Institute Jill has been an inspirational local teacher. She is renowned for her skills and expertise in growing food seasonally in the backyard, preserving the surplus fruit and veggies, breeding rare chickens and ducks and designing food gardens.  

Since 2004 Jill has coordinated the Local Seed Network for the Southern Highlands Shire. The local seedbank boasts over 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, around 50 varieties of beans and sundry seeds of other food crops that are not found in seed catalogues.
Currently Jill oversees the Moss Vale Community Garden project which organizes garden tours for school groups and workshops, talks and hands-on activities for adults including Bread Making, Composting, Wormfarming, Edible Weeds, Grafting Fruit Trees, Making Beneficial Bug Motels, Seedraising, Seedsaving and Living Simply. She is also co founder of the local farmers market.

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SHANNON ROSIE

Clinical Nutritionist

Shannon is a certified Nutritionist with a Bachelor of Health Science: Nutritional Medicine. ​Nutritional medicine is an evidence-based and patient-centered practice that applies a holistic framework to health.   

Shannon will inspire you with her own personal story, as well as many stories from working with her clients, to demonstrate that Holistic Nutritional Medicine can aid in both the prevention and management of a wide variety of health conditions, such as weight, wellness, gut health, and diagnostics. Her practice uses what she calls the inside out method, a process she used to heal herself when our traditional, western medical system failed. Instead of aiming to alleviate symptoms, the focus is on supporting and enhancing your body’s innate ability to heal itself. By identifying the cause of your symptoms and treating from the inside out, symptoms will fix themselves.​

Shannon will teach you how deliciously it can be to become your healthiest self. You will learn all about balance and even enjoy creations from her book Conscious Cocktails. Learn more about Shannon www.livingwithrosie.com

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CHEF EILISH

Food Magician

Chef Eilish was born and bred in the quaint village of Moss Vale, Eilish’s passion and natural culinary skills surfaced early whilst working at Onesta Cucina, when just 17. Only a year after completing her apprenticeship at one-hat restaurant Nomad in Surry Hills, she jumped on a plane for a once in a lifetime opportunity at The Ledbury, Notting Hill, London - ranked as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world.  ​From there she went on to tackle the challenges of a global roaming  pop-up restaurant; One Star House Party, working in south Africa and Sweden before returning to Australia as sous chef at St. Peter of Paddington; a sustainable seafood-only restaurant.

We feel very lucky to have this wonderfully talented woman join our little team and we can’t wait for you to be delighted by her creative signature style, just as we are. She is currently spending this down time creating some incredible dishes for us to all enjoy together once we can reconnect.

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KINCHEM HEGEDUS

Director

Kinchem is the Director at Springfield & Co, and develops the retreat programs on offer. Kinchem is thrilled to be putting down roots at Springfield after living overseas in New York, Chicago, Singapore and Bali for past 25 years. She has worked in venture capital, product development, start-ups, banking/finance, education, real estate and non-profits.  She has an MFA in Fiction Writing and Grad Dip in Permaculture Design. As well as managing the programs at Springfield she facilitates Inner Landscaping groups.

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