Kereru is a weekly NZ e-mail for all community participants and organisations about ecological restoration. Relevant notices are very welcome, please contact us. Help bring back our natives.
Kereru is available at
http://www.bush.org.nz/kereru/
Monday, 2 December 2002
Welcome to Kereru.
CONTENTS
3. Noticeboard
4. Resources
7. NZERN News
8. How to contact NZERN
3. NOTICEBOARD
339. from Jorge Santos of Canterbury...
Canterbury Conservation Day
Held this year at the Motukarara Nursery Waihora Park on the 13 of April 2003.
The theme this year is "Down by the sea" and will focus on the Canterbury Coastline: guest speakers and workshops will cover subjects such as marine mammals and seabirds, coastal forest protection and enhancement, tsunami and sand dune rehabilitation.
For more information phone 03 329-7846 or email jsantos@doc.govt.nz
Jorge Santos or Annette Hamblet
340. from Greg Bennett of Canterbury...
Amberley Beach Erosion
Over the past 16 months Amberley Beach has eroded during 3 storm events. Plans are underway to renourish the foreshore. After renourishment Amberley Coast Care will be planting both fore dune and back dune, any assistance is appreciated with planning, planting, monitoring etc.
greg.bennett@hurunui.govt.nz
342. from Kerry Everingham of Canterbury...
Native Gardens Award for 2003
Award Information
The Christchurch City Council and the Canterbury Horticultural Society established the Native Gardens Award for outstanding gardens that represent and display New Zealand native plants and habitats in Christchurch.
The award is designed to promote and encourage the use, benefits and presentation of native plants in an urban setting. Its aim is to recognise gardens that demonstrate a notable contribution to Christchurch's natural heritage and biodiversity. These gardens will also contribute to the wider landscape and the city's international reputation for diverse gardens.
The closing date for entries is 20 December 2002.
For further details and entry forms see the entry form page at
http://www.ccc.govt.nz/Community/Awards/NativeGardens
contact the Canterbury Horticultural Society on 366 6937
or email chsi@xtra.co.nz
(Send your notices as you want them to appear from your password protected areas
more notices at http://www.bush.org.nz/notice/
4. RESOURCES
Web Site: BirdGuide.
An web based tool to aid bird identification and habitat creation. This is a work in progress.
http://www.bush.org.nz/birdguide/
More resources at http://www.bush.org.nz/resource/
7. NZERN News
30/11/2002
Pipi Update
Thanks very much Microsoft New Zealand for kindly donating software for our computer system. Multiple copies/licences of Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional and Office XP Professional are to be supplied.
NZERN now only requires 2 more software items to go to have the full capacity to act as a small non profit ISP and host our 5 web sites directly on our own servers. It would potentially mean being able to offer space to the multitude of small NZ groups out there that are looking for a place to host their web sites about their conservation projects. NZERN is frequently asked by members if we can do this. This could help the cause a lot by lowering everyone's costs.
NZERN is eligible for non profit pricing on stuff. This is what we need.
- 1 licensed production version of ColdFusion Server
- 1 licensed production version of MS SQL Server
Any offers???
Because some groups have web sites designed to run on PHP etc, a Linux based web system would also be required (We already have a spare suitable server for this). All that software is free (open source).
Feedback from members on all these issues would be appreciated....
30/11/2002
Pipi Update
Thanks very much Dave Evans of Native Habitats for donating a Hardware Firewall for our computer system. This will help protect Pipi against Trojan viruses, hackers and upgrade the level of service to be provided to NZERN users....
30/11/2002
NZERN Office
At the recent AGM, delegates voted giving a high priority to making NZERN a lot more professional so we can be of more use meeting the needs of our members/users.
NZERN is currently crammed into a temporary location with limited access.
The "Facilities Committee" has been established to set up a proper office for NZERN with room for the rapidly growing numbers of volunteers. Led by our Procurement Manager Jessica Peters, the committee is responsible for finding a building, sorting out funding, services, lease, security, fit-out and layout issues, organising the shift and holding an official opening. Chrissie Williams has been doing a great job with finding a building in Christchurch. Other NZERN members have been helping out as well with advice and potential leads. Things are looking promising.
If you want to help or know of useful leads please contact Jessica directly on (03) 338-5451...
30/11/2002
AGM
The NZERN AGM held on 17/11/2002 was very successful. Voting delegates from the 3 branches hooked up via phone conference to discuss what has been achieved and to set priorities for the next year. The minutes will be posted later on the web site and will be circulated via Kereru.
The decisions reached revolved around how NZERN needed to be organised to do a better job of meeting the needs of our members/users who are involved in restoration projects.
Decisions included:
The Management Committee needs to "get back to basics" by focusing directly on NZERN meeting user needs. Technical details to be handled by delegation to other bodies eg Bush Telly Trust, Pipi Steering Committee, Advisory Panel.
The National Conference is scheduled for October 2003 in Wellington.
The National Council to meet via Phone Conference every 6 months to monitor and discuss progress.
The local branches need to get organised and well resourced. To act as a resource for local users , collect local information and feed in what the users want.This will require trial and error.
A schedule of progress on the modules being added to Pipi over the next 6 months.
"Non-profit ($10/yr)" and "Small Business ($20/yr)" replace the "organisation" membership category in the constitution.
There was extensive discussion on the need to professionalise NZERN, raise serious amounts of money to meet all costs and raise the level of service. An extensive user survey is being organised by Edith Jones, a national speaking tour & presentation is to be organised for mid 2003.
Elected as National Officers were:
Mike Peters of Addington Bush Society (National President)
Simon Johnson of Travis Wetland Trust (National Secretary/Treasurer combined)
Edith Jones of Southland Forest & Bird (National Returning Officer)
Dr Colin Meurk of Travis Wetland Trust remains as the Advisory Panel nominee on the committee.
Special thanks were given to Matthew Carter who loyally filled in as Editor from the beginning. Matt is stepping down as Editor but will be continuing behind the scenes helping with many of the jobs to be done.
The positions of Editor and Treasurer will be filled by the National Council as suitable candidates are found....
30/11/2002
Pipi Update
Following the Pipi Steering Committee November meeting, priority has been made to get Pipi shipshape by fixing the obvious over the next 3 months. Steps include ensuring the UPS (giant back up battery/surge protector) and firewall are working properly, documenting the whole system, setting up an on-line developer area, obtaining more GIS software and enough operating system licences, working on help files for users, disaster recovery planning including backups. Once the existing system is documented, the system will be fine tuned, agreements signed with agencies for data sharing and a long term development plan written based on what our members/users need. This has been brought on by the rapidly growing number of users. The web site hit rate is rising 12,000 per month to 151,000 in November. Up from 40,000 in March.
A lot of progress has already been made. Pipi Steering Committee members are: Denise Ford - an experienced Cobol/SQL/Visual Basic programmer (Travis Wetland Trust), Dave Evans - hardware design expert/GIS (Native Habitats), Parker Jones - GIS manager (Miro), Mike Peters - ColdFusion/html/MS Access programmer (Addington Bush Society), Crile Doescher - GIS lecturer (Otamahua/Quail Island Ecological Restoration Charitable Trust), Greg Comfort - Webmaster (Landcare Research nominee)...
30/11/2002
NZERN Office
Jessica Peters is sorting out the Asset Register for warranty & insurance purposes. A number of members are currently storing equipment, office furniture or are obtaining more stuff including software. Please contact Jess directly so the details can be entered....
30/11/2002
BirdGuide
BirdGuide can be found at http://www.bush.org.nz/birdguide/
This is a web based tool to help you identify birds and find out more about them including how to create native bird friendly habitat as part of your project. It is still being developed. One thing it already does is enable users to create a bird list. There are a number of bird lists that can be seen already. To create a bird list for your site go to "Site Manager" in your password area. You need to have been given this role by your family or group. There is no help information available yet, but if you have a go, you will probably work it out.
The bird lists can be used for what ever reason you want. Eg: to list what was here before, what is here now or what we want to reintroduce. Any bird found in NZ can be selected by species name. Notes about each bird observation can be added.
An on-line administration area for editing details about birds has also been created for the contributors to BirdGuide.
More features will be added based on your feedback including making it more user friendly.There are currently no pictures, sounds or distribution maps on the web site, but these will be added progressively by members.
BirdGuide contributors: Harry Boufal, Mia Colberts, Edith Jones, Andrew Crossland, Simon Johnson, Mike Peters....
30/11/2002
Planterguide
Work starts on upgrading PlanterGuide on Wednesday 4th December. Some occasional problems may be experienced by users as work gets done. New features that may be added at this time include:
-an administration area for Dr Colin Meurk
-maps of ecological regions
-"Our PlanterGuide" as part of your Site Manager in the password area (select & save a plant list)
-on-line support for registered users
-soil identification module.
The work will take several weeks. More upgrades are planned for February, April and June 2003 including any features left to do plus a printed user guide & poster....
30/11/2002
Kereru
Kereru will continue to be published in a more restricted format every few weeks over December/January while other major stuff gets worked on. If you are looking for more information, please check out the web site....
For more NZERN news http://www.bush.org.nz/nzern/
8. CONTACT
NZERN's main on-line resource is at www.bush.org.nz. Please encourage people to use this and let us know how they would like to see it developed. People without easy access to a computer can still use this resource at most public libraries.
Useful Pages
* http://www.bush.org.nz/join/ - become a member or affiliate member of NZERN. Lets you subscribe to Kereru, add articles to the web site, etc.
* http://www.bush.org.nz/nzern/ - your NZERN Regional Rep. How to contact him or her.
* http://www.bush.org.nz/organisation/ - list of groups. Help with a restoration project in your area!
* http://www.bush.org.nz/site/ - list of restoration sites in New Zealand. Explains how to add sites to the list.
* http://www.bush.org.nz/planterguide/ - look up suitable plants for your area.
Newsletter Inserts
Brochures etc. relevant to restoration can be distributed on behalf of other organisations as inserts in the quarterly print newsletter. See
http://www.bush.org.nz/telegraph/ for details.
Addresses
Postal: NZERN, PO Box 9000, Christchurch., New Zealand
E-mail: office@bush.org.nz
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Next Kereru, Monday, 16 December 2002
Regards
Mike Peters
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A big thank you to the folks at Converge (www.converge.org.nz) and Plain Communications (www.plain.co.nz) for providing the list server for kereru, and also to the following organisations and sites for web site hosting: Landcare Research (www.Landcare.cri.nz); Converge; Enviroweb; freecfm.com.
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Kereru is published by the New Zealand Ecological Restoration Network Inc.
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