What the Prez Sez

AGM brings me to the end of another year as president. Another busy year with a varied and interesting list of activities as I look back.

Insects with Dennis Crawford, garden lover insect photography expert and local Radio celebrity. He is passionate about his subject and a great macro photographer

Deer with Daryl Panther others have jokingly referred to him as a poacher turned gamekeeper. He was never a poacher but he has great knowledge from years of deer farming and hunting. This is why he is a contractor to Parks Vic. Aiding in hunting and exterminating introduced pest species. And he had some interesting stories to share.

Clam Shrimp investigation with the worlds leading expert Dr Timms, ably organised and coordinated by Bill Gardiner.

Annual Park catchup with Dave Roberts, the area chief ranger. He gave us some amazing facts and figures about visitor numbers, earnings and expenditure within the park.

Mabel’s Plant Out.  An amazing thing was accomplished by a dedicated group. We planted, ate, drank many cuppas and even got the watering system up and running! A great arboreal memorial to Janbert, Mabel and the participants. In my head I think of it as Janbert’s Arboretum.

Mount Abrupt and its unexpected events.

Cleanup Day a success as always, with Caity O’Reilly’s efforts much was achieved through the park, with many groups participating, even some European backpackers wading in the creek and cleaning out large quantities of rubbish.

A Sallow Wattle research presentation by Samantha Barron.

Videos presented by the students documenting the history of the Stawell Field Nats. We have learned from this that backups are incredibly important (Unfortunately the only copy of the edited film has now been lost due to car theft), as is the attendance of a parks staff member with keys, and pre testing the film/projector operation. Thank you to Margo for keeping us occupied, Judith for feeding the kids, and the Brambuk cafe for ensuring we didn’t consume too much food, by not preparing it. But we all ate well later as we had our Christmas breakup at the hotel.


We have ordered a newer, lightweight sign through Wimmera Printing and Design. This will be very useful for marking activity gathering points, even in crowded areas.

Fellow FOGGs you get out what you put in. If you have an idea for an activity, feel free to run it by the committee and help organise, or even run the event. Don’t just make suggestions for others to act on. Get involved. Everyone on the committee has a say, can organise activities, write reports etc but you don’t have to be on the committee to do this, any member can take on activity responsibility with committee approval, we would love to see what great activities you can come up with, and what direction the group can take with newer input.  As such we are asking for people to volunteer to write activity reports, and represent FOGG at other activities and report back via the newsletter. (Round table attendance? If someone is interested in replacing Wendy please let us know) And I’m sure you would all love to read someone else’s ramblings in this newsletter, without me on my soapbox.

We do still have the option to reprint Ian McCann’s field guide, but we need someone to project manage this. We also need a few dedicated people to aid office bearers in their duties, we need a succession plan in order for the group to survive in times where many volunteer and community groups are struggling. One day Margo may decide she is doing too much, so we’ll need an editor as well as our other office bearers.

I have been doing much thinking, and soul searching since John Clarke passed away at one of our activities. It raised thoughts about how we deal with emergency situations. I feel we need to have a PLB or personal locator beacon at all our activities. Just for piece of mind in case of an emergency on a walking track or somewhere away from the main roads through the park. In years gone by this was a high cost purchase, but currently somewhere less than $400, with a long life battery. By the time the battery runs out (8-10 years) the technology will be so much improved we would be wanting to do an upgrade anyway. This will definitely make us look better to emergency services if an incident occurs, and to potential new members we will look well organised and prepared.

We have had some good promotion of group and activities this last year. Janbert’s efforts began a trend for us getting radio time. I was interviewed twice by Dave Lennon on ABC local radio a couple of times this year, as was Ben prior to his archaeology activity. Previously Margo has also had the pleasure. Its only a short stint in the early morning “What’s on?” segment, but it gets a wide audience, and this seems to bring potential new members to activities.  The number of attendees at Daryl’s deer session was proof of this. They may not have been our usual cohort, but their eyes are opened up a little. They now know we don’t hate them for hunting deer, surely its good for people to come into contact with us and change their preconceived views.

I think if Dave and his producer can be convinced, it would be good to make this a regular chat before each FOGG activity to promote us to the region. It also gives us more community recognition, and legitimacy. I must follow up on this, maybe if we can get Dave or his producer to attend some activities it might get even wider appeal. I have no desire to become a radio star, but I do want FOGG to grow and evolve with new, younger members so that our future is secured.

I am once again humbled to be elected as president again, and will continue to do my best to steer the FOGG ship for another year. This time with a new secretary and treasurer. Many thanks from all of us to Wendy and Mabel for their work over the past years. Yes that’s right you are stuck with me again!

Feel free to email me with your thoughts.

Thank you
Cheers
Rod