Category: Meeting Report

Talks By Members – 24 February 2018

We started the year with two presentations by our own members, followed by a  picnic tea/ BBQ (bring your own)  in Halls Gap afterwards.

            The first was presented by Ben Gunn, an archaeologist residing at Lake Lonsdale. Ben recently gained a Ph D for his work. Over the years Ben has spoken to FOGGS about local art sites, and we knew he was also doing much work in the north of the country so we were very much interested in hearing about what he had learnt.

“Art of the Ancestors: Analysing ceiling art of Nawarla Gabarnmang in Arnhem Land”

Ben’s thesis was about the development of a new way of recording and analysing rock art by incorporating three techniques: DStretch from rock art, Harris Matrix from archaeology and the Morellian Method from fine art. Using the ceiling art from Nawarla Gabarnmang in western Arnhem Land he was able to … Read the rest

March Committee Meeting Report – 13 April 2018

New curtains in the Mural Room have been put up following our suggestion

Rodney has purchased an EPirb

Bill and Rodney attended the fire conference on 18.10.17.

Volunteer Parks Training Day: Rodney and Margo attended. Following up from this Rodney has established a FOGGS page in the Parks portal and will maintain it. (Activities and possibility profiles of members) see further article.

Treasurer’s Report:  Discussion re members who have not renewed,  decided to leave as it is now close to the call for annual subs in July.

General Business: The seat on Zumsteins to Fish Falls track is in progress, Rodney to follow up as to when it is expected to be completed. The funding for this originally came from the Friends of Zumsteins group.

Activities were discussed  and this quarters confirmed. It was suggested that we hold some activities on Sundays.

 Golton Gorge   FOGGs agree to … Read the rest

Mike Stevens’ Talk – April 13

When we had asked Mike to update us on environmental issues in the park, particularly on the overgrazing issue, he was not yet acting as Ranger in Charge, so in the end we got some of each.

Sallow wattle: The aim is to control as much as possible, using a mix of handpulling and mechanical mulching. We really have to do as much as we can as it potentially could cause huge problems. In Wilsons Promontory a weed teatree has spread and spread. We asked about the sallow wattle monitoring that some of us had volunteered to do while Ryan was in the position. Mike was not very familiar with it and asked each of us to collate what we had done so far and show him, so he could see what use could be made of it.

Predators: We have both foxes and cats. Fox baiting has … Read the rest

Advisory Group Report

The Advisory Group met on March 16 with Mike Stevens (Team Leader, Environment and Heritage)  as acting Ranger in Charge as Dave R is on secondment to the North East part of the state. We had two main topics to discuss with three visitors from Melbourne, plus of course a list of local ongoing issues.

Our first visitors were Tony Varcoe (Community Engagement and Inclusion) and Young Soo Kwon, an exchange ranger from South Korea who were  both interested to observe how an AG works as ours is one of the very few parks to have one. We introduced ourselves, the history of the AG and our own backgrounds and they then listened in as we discussed:

Community partnerships. There are 17 of these groups and the park benefits hugely eg the partnership with Deakin University costs $5000 but delivers $100,000 worth of projects.

Grampians Peaks Trail Progress:  Some … Read the rest

Advisory Group Meeting

The AG has met twice since our last newsletter. I missed the meeting at Mckenzie Falls and Zumsteins, but was able to attend the December meeting. (Quick summary: the green (middle) Zumsteins cottage will be well restored, with the western (blue) cottage partially demolished and managed as a ruin. The eastern (orange) cottage has had a protective, replica roof installed. The next state election may have some focus on McKenzie Falls options, particularly the carparking area.)

In December Mike caught us up to date with the dilemmas surrounding what to do with the Brush Tail rock wallabies, particularly in view of the fact that the male is about to begin breeding with his own daughters. DELWP have commissioned a review by Dr Graeme Coulson to be completed in April. The AG preferred option was rather than intervening by removing the older male and disrupting the existing colony, investigate introducing another … Read the rest

Annual General Meeting

We were lucky to have nice weather for our AGM on Saturday 16th September.

Thirteen members attended and we covered all the usual business, the president gave his report and it is covered elsewhere in this bulletin.

Our committee for the next twelve months was elected and is:

  • President – Rodney Thompson
  • Vice President – Leigh Douglas
  • Secretary – jointly Bill and Judy Gardner
  • Treasurer – Judith Thompson
  • Committee Members:
    • David Steane
    • Mabel Brouwer
    • Charles Kerr
    • Wendy Bedggood
  • Newsletter Editor – Margo Sietsm

Activities for the coming year were discussed and the new committee will work towards organising many of the good suggestions.

We had lunch then went for a walk to Fish Falls, along the way we checked out some potential spots to install a seat. Some time ago it was decided to have a seat installed along the walk to recognise the Friends of Zumsteins who folded … Read the rest

Reports From Our Reps On Committees

ADVISORY GROUP

Nothing to report this time as we have not met since the last newsletter. There’s one due soon but I won’t be able to make it and will have to rely on the minutes.

ROUND TABLE

Nothing to report this time as well. The scheduled July meeting was cancelled and not rescheduled.

If there is any member who would be interested in attending these meetings as the FOGGs rep could they please let Rodney or Wendy know as we feel it would be good to keep our presence at these meetings. There are only 2 to 3 a year as well as the annual fire conference.

This year’s ‘Fire conference’ is being held at the Laharum Sports Club at 10 am Wednesday 18th October. The day usually runs till around 3 pm with a catered lunch. For further information and to RSVP contact Danielle Leehane at   Any … Read the rest

Meeting with Park Management – 26th May

For our annual catchup with Dave Roberts, we had 12 members sitting around the board table at the Parks office in Halls Gap. As usual there were many topics, and lots of information covered. I’ll try and condense it down to a shortish report.

Dave began by giving us a summary of important numbers for our park:

1.3 million visits last year, of which 500,000 visited McKenzie Falls, the most visited site in the park. 40,000 children involved in school camps and educational activities come through the park. This makes the Grampians the third most visited park in Victoria. We are beaten by the 12 apostles, with 3.8 million, and Great Otway NP is the second most visited.

There have been 30,740 volunteer hours spent in the park on a wide variety of projects. (This is the equivalent of 18 additional full time staff!) This figure may well drop with … Read the rest

Advisory Group /Round Table Meeting – April 19

Neither Wendy or I, the usual reps from FOGGS, were able to be present but Ben Gunn and David Steane were able to take our places.

These are the official minutes, I’m sure Ben or David will be happy to fill you in.

Ecological Asset Discussion – David Roberts

Fire Ecology Strategy 2011/2012

What are the assets in the Grampians National Park?

  • Water Storage
  • Tourism visitation/economic
  • Cultural Heritage – European inc Pre Settlement, National Heritage Register, Aboriginal
  • Biodiversity – Threatened Species & communities, Diversity – flora, fauna, species, Iconic Species – Western Grey, Brush tail Rock Wallaby, small mammals etc.
  • Apiary Assets, species diversity, timing
  • Comments

Need to manage the park for its complexity and diversity – No single species driving the burn program in the Grampians National Park (GNP), not single purpose management

Protection/treatment/management of non-native species including, setting priorities & competing priorities. (Fellow & Red Deer, Fox, Cat, … Read the rest

March Committee Meeting Report

 

Financial report

Currently we have a balance of $13,811.26. Of that $4250.00 is  for the ‘All Abilities  Walking Track’ booklet (see elsewhere) and $1306.65 is money from Friends of Zumsteins which also is already spoken for. (see below).
 

Flora books for Grampians

Steffen Schultz is working on a Grampians Flora Book. He will let Wendy know what plants he still needs to photograph over the next 12 months and ask FOGG and others to let him know so he can go and photograph them.

Ian McCann’s book – In view of the fact that Steffen is working on a book and no one on the committee currently has time to organise the reprinting of Ian’s book this is not being acted on at this stage.
 

What to do with the money we received from Friends of Zumsteins

(Received in 2010/2011 financial year.) In September 2011 we had … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd