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Bush Society News - Winter 1999 AGM The main business covered by the AGM was the need to separate the Bush Society and the Addington Bush Society Inc., and the offer by Landcare of Web site hosting. In the last issue of the Bush Telegraph, Mike Peters outlined the background of the Addington Bush Society Inc. and the diverging role of the "Bush Society" as a national network. At the AGM this was discussed further and the decision was made to establish the "Bush Society" as a separate legal entity. The details of how this is to be done are yet to be finalised, and it is planned to present options to members and invite their comments. This will be done over the next couple of months through Kereru, the Bush Telegraph, and the Bush Society's Web site at http://www.converge.org.nz/bush, to ensure the Bush Society's geographically widespread members all have the opportunity for input. At the end of the process, a constitution will be drafted and a founding AGM will be held for the new group. It is envisaged that most of the members, funds and resources will be transfered to the new group. The AGM also accepted the offer of Web hosting from Landcare, also discussed in the last issue. The meeting elected officers: Mike Peters as President, Pip Stevens as Secretary and Graeme Cook as Treasurer. Membership fees were retained at $10 per year.
Michelle Goodwin, Tanya Jenkins and Eleanor Bissell have been approaching schools and community groups in Christchurch to publicise free materials available for growing native plants for community projects. Seed and seedlings are for only the most common and easy to grow restoration species and are locally sourced. Potting mix and containers for planting are also available. The only conditions are that the plants are not to be sold and the school or group pay a $10 annual membership to the Bush Society. Anyone wanting more information should contact Michelle at Ph: (03) 379 5444 or email: goodwin_michelle@hotmail.com. We need fence palings... We have a stock of thousands of recycled containers for school and community group use in Christchurch, and need materials such as fence palings to make into storage bins (apple-bin size) for them. We also need more locations we can put a bin. Schools with a use for some of the containers are ideal. Other schools and community groups need to be have access to the bin once a year for picking up or dropping off containers. Please contact the Bush Office if you can help. Email office@bush.org.nz, phone 03 338 5451.
Plant fact sheets Development of this reference information on common restoration species has continued. We would especially like to thank Di Lucas for her work improving the concept. At this stage we need more people to help fill in questionnaires for the fact sheets. If you have some botanical or horticultural knowledge and would like to help please contact the office. The work involves completing the form using existing reference materials. The information will then be checked before being published in print and on the Web site as a copyright free public resource. The database and everything Work is proceeding apace on the Society's database. Thanks to some members' help with data input it has already absorbed a unwieldy mountain of handwritten details, and is making it much quicker to answer people's enquiries. The next "leap" will be when it is used to produce reports and indexes for the Web site, which Douglas Woods and Michael Peters expect to have it in shape to do very soon. This will put much more information on the Web site and it should be far easier than at present to find whether what you are looking for is there. At that point the database should be in good shape to publish the Restoration Directory in August - well on the way to being a useful uninteresting part of the office!
In Christchurch, staff and other interested members meet on the second Wednesday each month to work on shared resources. Meetings are held in the Environment Centre (above the Body Shop) in Cashel Mall in town, generally starting at 7:30PM. All members are welcome. Contact the Bush Office to check the starting time: email office@bush.org.nz, phone 03 338 5451.
These people are active in restoration in their region and are willing to be contacted with enquiries about restoration or Bush Society resources.
Noone for your region yet? We would like eventually to extend the network of Regional Representatives to cover the whole country. If you don't have a rep. yet, you are welcome to nominate someone - maybe yourself! The ideal person for the role will already know what is going on in the region and have an interest in keeping in contact with others. The role will be more an extension of what they are already doing than a new development. In the mean time, don't hesitate to contact the Bush Office - see the foot of the front cover for address details. Keywords |