Latest highlights:
Foundation North stumps up
Nursery activities
IKHMG Symposium 19th October
Kaipara Cares Eco Week 17th-24th November.
B+L Field day 30th November
Membership
★
Foundation North stumps up
The really big news for us in the last month is that our application to Foundation North for a grant to cover nursery operating costs for the next year was extremely successful. This should be reflected in the cost of providing plants to participating farmers next year (can’t say exactly how until our committee has discussed it…)
Nursery activities
The next growing season has now officially started in the nursery. This week we had two working bees, the first of which was attended by nine people. Special thanks to my wife Cindy, who has dived right in alongside the team now that she has retired from her previous job. I have to say that the quality and variety of the catering has taken a turn for the better too. I still rate my chocolate cake though – I’d better publish the recipe in time for Xmas J.
This week we got just under 3,000 flax and a few ake ake potted up, but there’s still at least that many to go. One of the new things to help out is a large second-hand potting table donated to us by Greg and Tina Holst. It means that more people can fit around the table together. I’m not sure though if it contributed to a couple of participants exceeding their word limit, if you follow my drift….
IKHMG Symposium 19th October
I put together a 60-slide power point presentation for the symposium. It ran on autopilot while I completed my spiel in under 10 minutes. Over a hundred people attended, and it was really interesting to learn about what other groups around the catchment are up to. Putting the slide show together reminded of how much we have been involved in since our inception in 2014.
There was some rather disturbing news from the NIWA scientist in attendance – he reported on the depletion of the scallop beds in the harbour in quite recent times. Whether or not you are partial to scallops (and I am!) you can treat this information as an indicator of the health of the harbour. Obviously there is much work ahead of us.
Kaipara Cares Eco Week 17th-24th November.
One of our KDC councillors, Victoria de la Varis Woodcock is organising this series of events across the district in a couple of weeks’ time. The focus is on people being provided with opportunities to participate in activities which have an environmentally positive intent. We will be participating with a nursery working bee. Be watching for the publicity about other activities in our area, including what Shaun Holland and Pest Free Peninsulas Kaipara will be up to.
B+L Field day 30th November
That leads nicely into the story about an initiative being co-ordinated by Beef and Lamb NZ. I was invited to join a group of people keen to advance ways of making farming both environmentally sustainable and profitable. This fits well with our Otamatea HarbourCare slogan: “A healthy harbour alongside productive land”. The farm where this comes into focus is Bryce and Aneta Lupton’s place at Marohemo. The property will be familiar to those of you who attended the community planting days there this year and last year. We have several participants in our programme nearby, and this initiative will (among many other things) help draw them together.
See the attached flyer for more information about this event, scheduled to take place at the end of this month.
Membership
Thank you to those people who have confirmed their membership for the current year. I realised after sending out the application form that, because it was in Word format, it would be possible to complete it digitally and email it back to me without the inconvenience of printing it off then scanning it after completion. A reminder too, that if your details haven’t changed from those on record, all you need to do is pay your sub by internet banking, and make sure your name and the word “sub” is included somewhere in the reference.
We can still be ‘Friends’ if you not a member J