Working Bees

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.

14 November 2020

November working bee 2020 Over the last few months small groups of dedicated local volunteers have spent many hours planting the remaining indigenous seedlings in the Undertow Bay coastal reserve. Today’s Covid-safe working bee, our last for 2020, was revisiting the Cassia Street reserve to remove any weeds and rubbish that has accumulated over the past couple of years. 13 eager volunteers met at the Wonthaggi Lifesaving Club car park and split into small groups before heading to the reserve. It was great to welcome our Melbourne cohort who could now travel to Cape Paterson after 4 months of Covid-19 lockdown. Good rainfall over winter/spring has produced excellent growing conditions for the many indigenous plants that we have put in this reserve over the years. However it also meant that woody weed seedlings (sweet pittosporum and mirror bush) also flourished. So there was plenty of weeding for our enthusiastic workers. We removed a sprawling patch of nasturtiums, dug out a number of blackberry patches and attacked numerous other exotic weeds. Once again, Leone produced a superb morning tea in sunshine and a yummy bbq lunch. Thanks everyone for your efforts in what has proven to be a very difficult year.

12 September 2020

Planting and weeding in the Undertow Bay Reserve. Immature sweet pittosporums were removed that hadn't been treated by our contractors. All work was socially distanced.