Category: From the Editor

From the Editor

Welcome to this Winter issue of the FOGG newsletter. An unusual one in unusual times. The Covid rules plus the pressure to complete the GPT means that  local park staff are under a lot of pressure, our FOGG committee needs to communicate at a distance, and as Leigh reports in Prez Sez we are having problems with Park Connect and the need for us all to have working with children certificates. But we have managed to put together an interesting newsletter I hope. My thanks to member Neil Marriott for contributing an interesting article on burning. Do remember that we welcome articles from members. So don’t be shy!

It is always a dilemma how many photos to put in. We realise that some members’ internet is limited so we don’t want to make the document too big. But what to leave out. I’m hoping to revive the FOGG facebook page … Read the rest

From the Editor

Welcome to our Autumn issue. Apologies that it is a bit late and has very short notice of our event next week, and it has no timetable of future activities. We may be doing so well against Covid compared to the rest of the world, but that certainly doesn’t mean smooth progress. Rules, rules. Plus, the pressures on staff with the management plan being due out soon, some illness in our committee and here we are!

In addition to group meetings, we are hoping to help Parks with some individual projects. Some of us have committed to updating some of the visitor information sheets, and we hope to assist in digitising the herbarium samples that were mostly collected by Ian McCann and the Stawell Field Naturalists. If you are one of those who volunteered to do these, how are you going? Do let Hannah know.

We would love to have … Read the rest

2020 From The Editor

Welcome to a summer edition of our newsletter, the first December one since 2012! I hope it finds you surviving all the Covid stuff and send my best wishes for Christmas and the new year. It’s quite short but there are a few fairly urgent items, and then another one will follow in January.

What an extraordinary year it has been, and it has not been an easy time for our committee, particularly our president Catherine and secretary Bill. As well as trying to organise activities with constantly changing restrictions on volunteer activities, we have also been following the progress of the Grampians Peaks Trail. Committee meetings have had to be via Zoom. It has also been a very difficult year for our Park staff, mainly working from home. We thank them for their dedication and perseverence. Particular thanks to our contact ranger Hannah, and as you will read later, … Read the rest

From the Editor

Welcome to this issue of the FOGG newsletter. An unusual one in unusual times. No reports on excursions, no photos of us out in the Park, but plenty of reports on meetings held mainly online. I don’t know about the rest of you but I find they work alright, if not brilliantly, for small groups who know each other, but are most frustrating for larger groups.

One positive result of being in lockdown is that both Leigh and I have been able to look back at history and the contributions to the environment of some of our quiet members. I hope you enjoy these.

What activities we’ll be able to do over the next few months is hard to forecast. We will need to have an AGM in November but it may have to be on Zoom. There will be another newsletter before then.

At the very last minute of … Read the rest

From The Editor

Welcome to our Autumn issue.

Despite the Covid 19 lockdown we have been able to get you quite a bit of news and interesting reading. Those of you who get the newsletter by email will have already received two quite lengthy articles, one on art sites by Ben Gunn, Jake Goodes and Leigh Douglas, and one on gnammas by Prof Brian Timms. If you are getting only a hard copy of this newsletter and would like to read either or both of these, do let us know and we can mail them out to you. But be aware they are both quite long. But most interesting.

Just today we learnt that the Park is now open -sort of. We have no idea of course when normal activities will be able to be restarted, but we will let you know as soon as we can. In the meantime, why not do … Read the rest

From the Editor

Welcome to our late summer bulletin. And apologies for the long break between newsletters. It has been such an incredible summer and although we have had no serious fires here, many of us have been affected. I myself got caught up in Kosciusko National Park, evacuated in plenty of time, but ended up spending much longer in Canberra than I had planned.

Our Park staff have been, and still are, flat out. They are in turns working in the fire affected areas, which means those left in the office are taking their roles as well as their own. So you will understand that there is nothing from either Rhonda or Hannah this time. We need to give them some time to relax, as there are still some difficult months ahead with the ongoing rock climbing issues and the Peaks Trail nearing completion. However we do have the general community update … Read the rest

Editor’s Piece

Once again there’s been no shortage of contributions to the newsletter, which is good news to an editor. But unfortunately there’s little room for the many photos which came with them. So there are just a few here, but we’ll get more up on our web page and our Facebook.

I myself am just recently home from visiting family in England and the Netherlands and had an interesting day in the World Heritage National Park in the extremely shallow Wadden Sea, puddling in the mud flats with a volunteer guide. She gave me a copy of their magazine (48 pages, out four times a year) and even with my rusty Dutch it was clear that her group was the equivalent of our Friends Group, and that we face some very similar challenges particularly “how to make tourism a blessing not a curse”.  They state their aim as:

“to protect the

… Read the rest

From The Editor

Welcome to our summer newsletter.  Please note that our first activity for the year is on Sunday March 3, We are having our annual cleanup activity followed by a BBQ lunch. See the poster.

We have a mix of familiar and new faces on our committee which is very healthy. A big welcome particularly to our new President Catherine Pye, and thanks to Rodney for his work over the last couple of years.

Some years back our dedicated volunteer webmaster set up a system that allowed us to have email addresses for President, Secretary, Treasurer, Editor etc @friendsofgrampiansgariwerd. We are finally starting to adopt them and as Rodney wrote last year “The legitimacy it lends us as an organisation when communicating with government departments, filing grant applications, and press releases etc is useful. It also is helpful for continuity when people change roles.”

After a quiet few weeks over the … Read the rest

Editor’s Piece

Welcome to our late late Spring edition. The last couple of months have been a very busy time for many of us, and I do apologise for the lateness of this issue. There’s only one important date as we head towards the summer period and that is our AGM on Friday November 30. We won’t have a December meeting, but will let you know in plenty of time how we will start the 2019 programme. I do want to emphasise the importance of our AGM where we will be electing office bearers, hoping to continue with mixing newcomers and longer term members. It is vital that we ensure that we remain relevant to both our long-term members and newcomers.

We have good news about Park staff, and funding, as you will read further in. We particularly welcome our new Ranger in Charge, Rhonda McNeil, and our new Volunteer Co-ordinator … Read the rest

From The Editor

Welcome to the newsletter, whether you are receiving it in the post or by email. Remember that you can also access previous newsletters via our website . https://friendsofgrampiansgariwerd.org.au

First of all I need to let you know that our Ranger in Chief Dave Roberts has resigned from Parks Victoria to work for DELWP in the Otways area. We all want to thank him for his leadership and vision over the last very challenging eight years. At this stage there is no news of who will replace him – or when. His farewell letter can be found here.

Next, an apology and an explanation: We have disappointed some of our members by not sticking firmly to a regular monthly time for activities, which has made it hard for some of you to get to things they would have liked to join in with. We’ve also had a request for some … Read the rest