Similar organisation
People visiting this site might also like to check out the site for CERES in Melbourne. It is a great organisation with similar visions and goals and has been operating for many, many years now. They are about to open the first section of their new building on 7th March. The name stands for Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Sustainability. Try typing ceres.org.au and you will probably get there. Maleny might be able to learn from them.
CERES
CERES is wonderful. My wife and I visited late last year and were bowled over at what they have achieved. A big, productive market garden and allotments, organic cafe, demonstrations of various 'sustainable' technologies and practices, regular tours, a permaculture consultancy business, nursery, food markets, fruit trees all over the place, a 'Sustainability Centre' under construction, a demo green home etc, etc, etc. All on badly degraded land.
It would be terrific if we could do something similar here in Maleny. However Ceres is in Melbourne, whereas we have a much smaller population to support such a project. We would have to come up with something that could support itself financially fairly quickly.
http://www.ceres.org.au