The Cameron Brown Community Innovation Fund (CBCIF) will award around $5,000 to the Bee BnB project for 2023. Eva Hilton, Juliette Bosscher and Phil Ma will work together to educate their fellow students about the importance of bees and involving them in making bee hotels to encourage native bees to the college grounds.

Established as an active way to honour Cam Brown (Wyvern 1999) who passed away in 2016, aged 35, the fund encourages Queen’s College students to engage in innovative, community-based projects that represent Cam’s personal passions, drive and integrity.

Cam’s sister, Felicity Brown assists the College to manage the fund, and the students to implement their projects.

“Initially the fund was about creating the opportunity for students to realise their ideas, contribute and see the difference they can make. I’m always impressed by how mature the students are and I enjoy seeing their commitment to their projects because they know what it means. They get to continue the things Cam would have wanted to see happening.”

With workshops for applicants generously facilitated by Dr Gary Veale, Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainability and Business at the Melbourne Business School, Felicity enjoys the brainstorming these evoke.

Dr Gary Veale, Executive Director of the Centre for Sustainability and Business at the Melbourne Business School, conducting an innovation workshop for CBCIF participants.

“Having Gary’s support at the Business School is fantastic as that’s his area of expertise. He’s so positive and generous with his time. For me it comes back to the learnings the students are going to get out of it. It’s about encouraging them to follow their interests and giving them the experience of working on a project and seeing it through. The feedback from the students is always so positive and that’s the great thing about being involved.”

The 2022 CBCIF winning idea of a bike shed at College is progressing well thanks to the work of Justine, Maddy, Lizzie and Will. Their goal is to have a working bike rental system operating in a sustainable way while aiding the health of our community.

Maddy said, “Having Felicity and keeping in touch with her throughout the process was a major support, it also helped us stay in line with the values and ideals of the Cam Brown Fund which was something that was really important to us and we have tried to keep close to our hearts throughout.”

To contribute, please visit http://bit.ly/CamBrownFund‍

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