Annual General Meeting 2011
Saturday 30 July, 1:30 pm
Woodend Neighbourhood House, Forest St, Woodend
followed at 2:30 by:
Tales from the Twitchathon
speaker Tim Dolby, coordinator Victorian Twitchathon, Birds Australia.
Afternoon tea follows. All welcome. Gold coin donation.
Our last bee was with the Woodend Scouts on an overcast day. They all mucked in
and did a great job clearing blackberry thickets and fallen trees from their special location.
We especially loved the bonfire and took the opportunity to warm ourselves
by it.
Thursday’s work crew now have as many as 12 blokes sharing the work. They have begun to look for new fields to conquer, as their early efforts have had such good results, that only general maintenance is now needed. They have spent several mornings cleaning up a patch of woody weeds around the Jeffreys St bridge, on the northern side of the Creek. They have also helped Brian Christie in clearing the area of Urquhart St below the ‘No Through Road’ sign. A grant we received will enable this project to continue and expand.
The next bee will be on June 26th at Wood St.
Just before Easter, we wrote to Mr Dale Thornton, Director of Infrastructure and Operations for the Shire, to express our concern about some of the flood-related problems that have arisen in our working areas. Dale was on leave, but he asked the Acting Director,
Brendan Pearce, to meet us; so on Friday May 13th , four of us took Brendan on a tour
around Woodend.
The most important item was the damage to the bridges across the Creek between the
tennis court area and Jeffreys St, on both sides of the Creek. The Jeffreys St bridge appeared to be in a very dubious state and some of the smaller wooden slat bridges on the
north side had been washed away, while the only remaining one was definitely unsafe!
The Walking/Cycling Track has suffered considerable damage in many places between
Jeffreys St and Romsey Rd, including in the newest section of granitic sand track between
Pyke St and Bowen St.
Brendan listened carefully and observed for himself the problems that exist. He also
took a good look at some of the areas Woodend Landcare volunteers have been caring
for in other parts of the town. Our Thursday Work Crew is finding it difficult to continue
mowing Quarry, Sullivans, and Bawden Rds with domestic ride-on mowers.
At Brendan’s suggestion, we wrote a formal submission to the Council about the mowing
problem, and also wrote to the director for Environment and Planning to formalise our
working arrangements on public road reserves.
We appreciated the time taken by a senior council officer to listen to our concerns. Now
we await a formal response from the Shire – which will come, we suppose, after the
dreaded Budget has been sorted into priorities!
The Woodend Lions Club recently presented the president of Woodend Landcare with a cheque for $1000 to help us in our work. We had asked them for a grant to purchase a new, heavy duty wheelbarrow and some stakes, guards and weed mats for spring planting.
The amount of the cheque was more than double asked for.
Our heartiest thanks and appreciation go to the Woodend Lions for their generosity. It’s not the first time they’ve helped us. This is yet another example of the great community spirit that exists in Woodend. We have had similar help from the Rotary Club of Woodend, from several businesses, and from so many individuals.
It’s good to live in a town that cares.
Well, we can’t complain about too much rain this season, can we! Our little creek has contributed its share of the water pouring down the Campaspe towards the Murray, and causing flooding on the way. Fortunately we didn’t have any major problems locally, but we are all acutely aware of the difficulties many people are facing in other parts of Australia.
Rainfall recorded in Woodend was 202 mm from the 10th to the 14th of January which is thought to be a record for January. This is on top of the 5 months of record rainfall (from August to December); so the ground everywhere is saturated. There have also been many days of strong winds.
The consequences of this weather have been that large numbers of trees have fallen, causing problems for the Council and blocking paths, Five Mile Creek’s shared track between Shirley Park Weir and Romsey Rd has been washed away, leaving deep guttering (picture below). And also the sand track on the south side of the Creek between Wood and Pyke Sts has been damaged.
The worry is that Council’s budget will be overstretched. There are plenty of potholes to fix in addition to the tree removal and paths to repair. We can do our bit by clearing up
around our plantings—that’s why we are having 2 working bees in February!
Track along 5 Mile Creek damaged by floods
Woodend Landcare 