Working Bees

Saturday 8 July 2023

On a gale force wind day, 5 hardy volunteers headed out to F Break on second surf beach to continue our work on keeping sea spurge at bay. By 11 a.m. we were sufficiently wind blasted to call it a day a hundred meters short of the big blow out. Plants that had gone to seed from the autumn flowering were removed.

Saturday 12 February 2022

An enthusiastic band of volunteers removed emerging plants from remnant seed load out of the dunes. Impressive to see that no flowering plants were picked indicating that as time goes on we'll be able to ensure that the natural habitat of spinifex grass is restored

Saturday 10 July 2021

An enthusiastic band of multi-generational volunteers carried out a lot of planting. Great to see a whole of community effort.

Sunday 11 June 2023

We had 16 volunteers for our Sunday working bee. We successfully planted 350 indigenous plants at the two locations (Allan Birt reserve and Opposite the Cape Paterson Surf Life Saving Club). The CPSLC site required a fair bit of cleaning up - it had obviously been a secret drinking venue for many years - we filled a full recycling bin with cans and bottles! At the Allan Birt reserve we augmented a lot of work that had been carried out there last year. There's some excellent wildlife habitat in there. Let's hope our plantings improve it.

Saturday 13 May 2023

11 hardy souls embraced the glorious sunshine to cut, grub out and lop invasive ti - tree (and coastal wattle) from the heathland on the east side of the Channel path. Approximately 9 cubic meters of vegetation was taken or dropped in situ. It had been 8 years since our last venture on this site and we effectively managed to get most of the regrowth in the area last covered. The thriving communities of small coastal banksias, casuarina and pink heath were signs that previous work has been successful. It was noted that a working bee should be scheduled to cover the western side of the path sometime this year.

Saturday 15 April 2023

9 hardy souls braved the jungle of the Cassia Street reserve for a general tidy up of rubbish and pulling/cutting mostly sweet pittosporum. We've done a very good job because there were very few mature trees fruiting and most of the seedlings coming up were from remnant seed load. There were also very few shiny leaf (coprosma) seedings appearing. As with sea spurge, we've been remarkably successful in keeping these pesky invasive weeds under control. After morning tea we strolled up Cassia Street to review a recent burn in the conservation reserve managed by Parks Vic and were impressed with the number of heathland species coming through.

Sunday 5 March 2023

We had a fabulous day of rubbish clearing, with many and varied items found including the world's smallest bong, a ceramic mug bearing the title "I survived another meeting that could have been dealt with by email" and a phenomenal number of milk crates. As for every year that CPRRA has been involved in Clean Up Australia, the amount of rubbish retrieved gets less every year.

6 August 2020

Complimentary Working Bee August A supplementary working bee was quickly added during the week, before Covid19 stage 3 restrictions came into place. Planting and setting up more wallaby guards. Please note this was not a normal working bee, a small dedicated group (committee members and partners). The working bee was more due to needing to get the plants into the ground before the planting season (mid May- late Aug) is over. The time frame is crucial for tubestock, as it should give the tubestock the time to get used to its new surroundings, before the frosts of spring and the hot dry days of summer.

11 February 2023

10 October 2020

October 2020 Report: October’s working bees were split into two locations: Working bee 1 involved four volunteers walking west from Wilson’s Road to Harmers Haven pulling sea spurge as they walked. Happily only a few hot spots were found; evidence that our contractor’s and volunteers’ work over the years has restored a significant amount of indigenous dune habitat. Working bee 2 involved 9 volunteers at the upper reserve at Undertow Bay undertaking the removal of hard rubbish from an illegal camp site, and carrying out english broom and sweet pittosporum removal. But for COVID restrictions, this should have been done during our April and May working bees. There is still more woody weed to remove from this site in future working bees.