Love Your Mountain Day planning underway

Kit, Audrey and April at the meeting with Paul

Planning for Love Your Mountain Day, Sunday 7 December 2014, has been progressing.  The use of the grounds at Government House for the day has been secured.  Audrey, April and Kit have met with Paul Majurey, Chair of the Tāmaki Makaurau Collective, and received strong support for the event.  Audrey and April will soon be meeting with the manager of Eden Garden to discuss the Garden's involvement.  Ideas for the various activities that have been proposed are being developed.

AGM on Tuesday 8 July

Ngārimu Blair, Ngāti Whātua kaitiaki of Maungawhau and a founding member of FoM, will be the guest speaker at our AGM.

Time: 7:30pm on Tuesday 8 July

Venue: Mt Eden Village Centre - Lounge
(access from Ngauruhoe Street)

This will be a great opportunity to learn about the changes coming up when the Maunga Bill passes into law on 24 July. The legislation transfers ownership of 14 Auckland maunga to iwi that have ancestral connections to the maunga and establishes a co-management structure involving Auckland Council and the Tāmaki Collective.

Everyone is welcome to attend.
Please contact FoM chair Kit Howden (kithowden[at]xtra.co.nz) for more information.

Successful planting day at Auckland Grammar School

The AGS planting day on Sunday went very well, beautifully organised by Mary Stewart and Roseline Klein, and supported by teacher Max Thomson and his brother Alistair. Steve Flynn (Habitat Restoration) who did the spraying, attended as a volunteer, bringing his trailer to ferry the plants to the site. Over 30 people came, most of them students, and did great work under Mary's guidance, with her colleagues Michael Ngatai and Rowena Gilchrist in support, all unpaid.

FOM was represented by Jean, Keith, Alistair and April, and FoM's general support was acknowledged. Jeremy and Dorothy came but we sent them home as there were plenty of volunteers already. Typically, they didn't go straight home but stopped off to get some madeira vine across the road.

Work went really well with all 500 plants in the ground by 11:30am, after which everybody was happy to wait for the pizzas to be delivered. The occasional shower was appreciated by the plants, if not the people. Plants are: coprosma, kanuka, flax and mahoe.The AGS website also has a report and more photos.

Community planting day at Auckland Grammar School, Sunday 22 June

The first community planting day at Auckland Grammar School (Section 1 on the map below) is the result of a unique collaboration between the Friends of Maungawhau, Auckland Council and Roseline Klein who first approached the school about their weed-infested grounds in March 2013.

By persistence and negotiation, Roseline managed to set up a weed removal programme and secured funding for native plants, with the help of Biosecurity officers in the council. In advance of the planting, several FoM volunteers (particularly Jean, Keith, Oliver and Alastair) have collected binloads of rubbish and bottles over a period of weeks. Jean remarks:

Not a pleasant job, but fascinating to see the amount of accumulated stuff, some of it positively historic, like ancient bottles - huge brown beer bottles, incredibly thick and heavy ones like Fanta and L&P bottles, flagons, green Barossa Pearl ones, and old rectangular ink bottles. Can't blame the current students as these things were out of production decades before they were born!

Guest blog by Roseline Klein

Over a year ago now, my friends Jen and Carl had a brilliant idea when giving birth to the lovely Abby. They asked their friends to celebrate Abby's birth by doing something positive for their community or for themselves instead of giving a material present. I thought about what I could do and realised that on my way to work, I was going past an area covered in weeds on Auckland Grammar School grounds, between Clive Road and the school's hockey turf and lower rugby field. This is very detrimental for the amazing Mt Eden just next to it, where volunteers from Friends of Maungawhau and great people from Auckland Council spend significant time maintaining the mountain and its native bush. But then as a school, AGS doesn't have the expertise to know how to best deal with the issue and understandably has other priorities. The community needed to help to make change happen. 

 

Section 1 – Pampas and moth plant seedlings.
17 May 2013

A year down the track, a joined weeding and planting project has been created between AGS, Friends of Maungawhau, Auckland Council and myself. Thanks to funding by Auckland Council (EIF) and Auckland Grammar School, weeding has been done on site in the past 8 months. Thanks to time and effort by Friends of Maungawhau, the cans and bottles thrown over time by people on the area have started to be collected.

The area is now ready to be planted with native bush, aiming at increased biodiversity, reduced weed issues and improved aesthetics for the enjoyment of all. How exciting! I would love for you to be part of it!

Our first significant milestone is the planting day on Sunday 22 June, 10am to 4pm.

500 shrubs will be planted on Section 1. The school's Environmental Committee and Communications team are advertising the day to parents. To make this day a success, there will need to be a lot of us. All help is welcome, yours especially!

If you feel like contributing to our beautiful Auckland and are free that day, please come along! It should be a fun day. If you know of anyone who would be interested, don't hesitate to share the invite.

I will send you more information closer to the date. For now, just rsvp if you'd like to join!

Many thanks,
Roseline Klein
027 512 4504