Category: President Report

2021 May PRESIDENT’S REPORT or, as Rodney dubbed it, PREZ SEZ

Welcome to FOGG’s 1st newsletter for 2021, and to an action-packed year of activities …. except the action has been very slow to start with; post-Covid, health problems within the committee, computer glitches – and as Margo said, time pressure on Parks staff. We apologise for the lateness of notification of events so far, but I am providing a provisional calendar for the rest of the year (see below); although none of these activities have yet been approved by Parks. As soon as this happens, you will all be notified.

We have had two outings so far this year, with our third coming up on Saturday 8th May. After all the Restrictions last year, it has been wonderful to gather together again, see each other, welcome new members, and share our interests and knowledge.

Our February event, finding and looking at reptiles, led by David Steane (who has … Read the rest

2020 September President’s Report

Hi Friends,

I hope you are all going well. It looks to me like spring is here and we seem to have missed winter. I don’t know about you but our rainfall is non existent and our seasonal creek and wetlands are still dry. What a disaster for our wetland plants, frogs and water birds. I hope we get some rain soon.

Given the lack of rain, today was another glorious sunny day for the Grampians and I took the opportunity to go for a walk. What a profusion of flowers we have at the moment of all colours yellow, mauve, pink, red and white. We all have our favourites. We will miss our FOGG events and the wildflower show this year, so I hope you can catch up on some webinars and zoom meetings instead.

I have certainly been out in the garden a lot planting and weeding. Talking … Read the rest

2021 June President’s Report

Good Day to Friends of Grampians Gariwerd,

On Friday 24th I will be attending the Grampians National Park landscape management plan Strategy meeting via teleconference.  We have come a long way in a few weeks with telecommunications!

This session will focus on preparation of a Draft Plan for public release and comment.  So please watch out for this and to respond with public comments.

We hope that you still have work and that you have been able to spend some time outside during this very difficult time.

We hope that you will enjoy the newsletter and thank you to Margo and Leigh for putting it together.

Thank you also to Bill for providing us an update on shield and clam shrimps and a very interesting article on gnammas.

Powerful owl

This is the time of year that Powerful owls are breeding and the other night we heard them at our … Read the rest

2020 March Prez Sez

Welcome to Friends of the Grampians Gariwerd newsletter.

As I write this, we have had nearly 30mm of rain and it is still coming down. No longer can I see the hills beyond the paddocks. I hope you have all had some relief from this hot and dry summer.

As I look outside on the dry brown grass, I see the red necked wallabies browsing on our lavender bushes…it can’t taste that good or can it? Last year’s joey is still hanging around and still has a drink every so often from mum’s pouch.

In November 2019 Grampians Parks Victoria staff met with local volunteer groups and we went through the process of planning our year and how to get approval for our activities on Park Connect. Following this Rhonda and Hannah have met with FOGG committee members to discuss our monthly activities plus Hannah and Rodney have been out … Read the rest

2019 October Prez Sez

August 2019

This is an exciting time of year in Grampians National Park.  The wildflowers are stunning with the golden and other wattles flowering, hakea in bloom along the Halls Gap Road and the grevilleas starting to come out.  This is one of my favourite times of year.  Both greenhoods and helmet orchids are showing their flowers.

While we have had below average rain, at least we have had some rain and now we can hear at least 6 different frogs calling in our wetlands.   The ducks are happy and for the first time we have grey teal.  We have been noticing the ducks up trees and on looking them up we see that mountain duck, grey teal and black duck all nest in tree hollows!

This is certainly the season for cockatoos and we have been seeing large flocks of long billed corellas grazing on onion weed in our … Read the rest

2019 April Prez Sez

Hello Friends!

What a great start to the year with the wonderful talk by Neil about our great birds and animals and where to find them locally.  Thank you Neil.

Our next event is Sunday March 3rd, ‘Clean up Australia Day’ meeting at 8.30am in the Halls Gap Park opposite Visitor Centre.  I look forward to seeing you there.  For those who can’t make this please arrange your own community clean up – hopefully the Shires will have their tips open for free that day.

Well we’ve had our first committee meeting and have planned out a year of exciting activities.  These can be found in the Calendar.

In July, we invite Friends to our property at Fyans Creek for a plant out to coincide with Planet Ark National Tree Day.  Clive and I bought our place about 5 years ago and have slowly been renovating the farm house … Read the rest

2018 November Prez Sez

Another year of FOGGs comes to a close.

As the flowers disappear, the grass yellows off and the wildlife congregates around the shrinking water sources, it becomes obvious that summer is about to hit with a vengeance.

I have been reflecting on this year with my beloved FOGGs, and my last three years as President. We have done some good for our community, participated in shared activities, supported local events and promoted our group and its aims to the community at large, and provided some educational opportunities to the community and ourselves.

We have much to be proud of. And that’s just this year alone.

I have been proud to lead the group for the last three years, but for various personal reasons I need to step down at this years AGM. I feel that over the last 12 months I have not been as effective in the role as … Read the rest

2018 August Prez Sez

Winter is truly hitting us, but there doesn’t seem to be much wet, just a double dose of cold. It’s obvious through the park that things are dry, but it still looks verdant and green compared to inland NSW and Qld. So, dry as it is here, we haven’t got the worst of it. Our fungi location at Jimmy’s creek was a little disappointing, but the season just hasn’t been wet enough, and lots of frosts have taken their toll on the fruiting bodies of fungi. We were pleased to have young Dave and Lyn Munroe to share their knowledge. As protégé’s of Ian McCann it is always a pleasure to have their knowledge in the group on our Fungi Frolic. But even with experts present we still saw lots of bums!

I recently indulged in the pleasure of a big road trip through inland NSW and Qld. Beautiful country. … Read the rest

2018 August Prez Sez

It has been a dry time in the park, with only a couple of rain events so far this year. Particularly in the north, a lot of trees are under pressure and new growth after fires is dying in many areas, particularly where the rock layer is not far below the surface. Some hillsides look like autumn colours, until you realise that there are only natives growing, and they are suffering. Our summer has continued a long time but the weather has finally taken on an autumn feel with those beautiful pleasant days and chilly damp nights. Even the odd misty morning. I love this time of year! It also allows struggling vegetation to survive until winter rains arrive. I still worry about lightning strikes and careless fires with the current fuel load of dead vegetation.

                Combine this with grazing pressures the vegetation is doing it tough, particularly on the … Read the rest

2018 February Prez Sez

Hello foggies and welcome to 2018!

We are kicking off another year and I hope it can be an impressive one. As always we will be doing a cleanup day this year in March, and I hope we can see some PhD presentations from some of our esteemed membership. A working bee or two, some educational sessions too. A picnic on the mount… no wait wrong song! Our usual mix, sprinkled with some time outdoors enjoying the park.

Online stuff- this may be a year of technology for FOGGs.

Parks Victoria have launched a website called ParkConnect, to help people find and join volunteer groups and organisations. The idea being it will allow people new to an area, or travelling through to find a local group or activity to be part of. Three members of our committee attended a workshop to learn its operation, from the team that developed the … Read the rest

Friends of Grampians Gariwerd