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Monday 21 August 2006 – PRESIDENT’S REPORT TO 67th ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF WELLINGTON BOTANICAL SOCIETY
At the AGM I complete my term as president and as a committee member. I must say it will be a happy relief to revert to ordinary membership though a little saddened at not having achieved my goals. I have had to work with people with strong but divergent views and my political skills, such as they are, have been tested and sometimes found wanting.
I have two continuing feelings that I would like to record, firstly, that as a society I feel we are too prone to give our opinions on matters that are strictly not within our province. Secondly, that a committee should take a public stance on any matter only after ascertaining the views of the membership.
I wish to thank members of the committee for the great amount of time spent on managing the society and thank all members for the warm personal relations I have experienced in the last two years as president.
I wish my successor all the very best.
Joyce Stretton
Annual report 2005/06
Field trips August 2005–August 2006
We ran 19 field trips. Attendance totalled 278 people – average 14.6 / field trip. (2004 / 05 totals: 20 field trips, 317 people – av. 15.8 / trip).
| 2005 | |
| 3/9 | Ridge Track, Kaitoke Regional Park Leader: Pat Enright 15. |
| 15/10 | Lake Kohangapiripiri and Lake Kohangatera Leader: GWRC Ranger, Gareth Cooper 38. |
| 5/11 | Hutt Gorge, Pakuratahi Valley Leader: Pat Enright 15. |
| 3–4/12 | Eastern Tararua Range, Wairarapa Leader: Pat McLean 15. |
| 10/12 | Te Marua Bush workbee Co-leaders: Glennis Sheppard, Sue Millar 8. |
| 17/12 | Hutt City rata walk Leader: Dave Holey 11. |
| 28/12–6/1/06 | Ruahine Range & Western Hawke’s Bay Co-leaders: Gordon & Sheelagh Leary, and others 34. |
| 2006 | |
| 21/1 | Gilberd Bush Reserve, Newlands Leader: Robyn Smith 23. |
| 4-5/2 | Paton’s Bush, Wairarapa Leaders: Tony Silbery, Pat Enright 18. |
| 11/2 & 12/2 | Dench Garden workbee Leaders: Arnold & Ruth Dench 5. |
| 4/3 | Makara Foreshore Reserve Postponed to 2 September because of storm 0. |
| 11/3 | Otari-Wilton’s Bush Co-leaders: Barbara Mitcalfe, Chris Horne 3. |
| 14–17/4 | South Wairarapa – Rimutaka Range Leader: Sunita Singh 12. |
| 22/4 | Te Marua Bush workbee Co-leaders: Sue Millar, Glennis Sheppard 7. |
| 29/4 | Druce garden workbee Leader: Helen Druce 4. |
| 6/5 | East Harbour Regional Park Co-leaders: Barbara Mitcalfe, Chris Horne 10. |
| 3/6 | Wi Parata Reserve & Nga Manu Sanctuary, Waikanae Co-leaders: Barry Dent, Sue Freitag 22. |
| 1/7 | Jubilee Park & Percy Scenic Reserve, Lower Hutt Leaders: Stan Butcher; Jill Broome 10. |
| 5/8 | Queen Elizabeth Park Co-leaders: Barbara Mitcalfe, Chris Horne 16. |
| 12/8 | Te Marua Bush workbee Leader: Sue Millar 12. |
Evening meetings 2004/05
Victoria University’s Murphy Lecture Theatre M101 is ideal for our meetings. We thank: Professor Phil Garnock-Jones, School of Biological Sciences, and Jude Urlich, Director of Public Affairs, for making this room available, and for providing teaching aids; Richard Herbert for promoting our meetings via our web site, and George Jones for promoting them via the Royal Society website.
We had 10 evening meetings, including our annual members’ evening. Attendance totalled 352 people – average 35.2 / meeting. (2004 / 05 year: 10 meetings, 366 people – average 36.6 / meeting).
| 2005 | |
| 15/8 | A P Druce Memorial Lecture – the view from Tony’s shoulders Speaker: John Sawyer, Department of Conservation 42. |
| 19/9 | Teaching an old conservationist new tricks Speaker: Dr David Given, Botanical Services Curator, Christchurch City Council; Assoc. Prof., Lincoln University 38. |
| 17/10 | The DNA revolution in botany Speaker: Joe Zuccarello, Senior Lecturer, School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University 28. |
| 21/11 | BotSoc Student Travel Grant recipients Speakers: Speakers: Stephen Cox, Zoe Hawes, Veronica Howell, Sarah Newman, Vincent Woo 43. |
| 2006 | |
| 20/2 | Project Crimson Speaker: Speaker: Bridget Abernethy, Project Crimson Trust 35. |
| 20/3 | From plant depletion to restoration – from dune erosion to accretion – native dune-plant restoration experience Speaker: Greg Jenks, Regional Coast Care co-ordinator, Environment Bay of Plenty 46. |
| 24/4 | Members’ evening – botanical art, slides, readings Speakers/exhibitors: Joyce Stretton, Sheelagh Leary, Barbara Mitcalfe, Arnold Dench, Richard and Margaret Herbert, Robyn Smith, Mick Parsons 24. |
| 15/5 | QE II covenants – all you want to know Speakers: John Bishop & Robyn Smith, QE II National Trust 20. |
| 19/6 | Plant chemical systematics and evolution: iridoids in Plantago and Veronica Speaker: Rilka Taskova-Stamenova, Post-doctoral Fellow, School of Biological Sciences, VUW 25. |
| 17/7 | The genus Aciphylla Speaker: David Glenny, Landcare Research 51. |
Acknowledgements
We thank:
• Sunita Singh for organising the programme; speakers; field trip leaders; people who “recceed” field trips and prepared plant lists; landowners; land managers.
• Jeremy Rolfe for designing and formatting Bulletin No. 49, and three issues of the Newsletter
• John Sawyer for editing Bulletin No. 49
• Mick Parsons for summarising trip reports for inclusion in the NZ Botanical Society Newsletter
• NZ Print for printing 400 copies of the three Newsletter issues, and 150–200 copies of a summary of our programme
• Lithoprint for printing 300 copies of Bulletin No. 49
• Contributors to the Bulletin and the Newsletter
• Members who helped with mail-outs
• Wellington City Council for a $2000 Environmental Grant towards the cost of Bulletin No. 49
• NZ Post Community Post for 200 postage-paid envelopes to use when promoting our aims.
• Wellington Conservancy, Department of Conservation, for a grant of $250 towards our field work
• Richard Herbert for managing our web site
• Julia White for passing on e-mails from local and overseas contacts.
• Rodney Lewington for maintaining the membership records
• Barry Dent for preparing address labels
• Barbara Mitcalfe for designing and updating our display boards with photographs of our activities. The boards have been used at Otari-Wilton’s Bush Open Day, Berhampore Nursery Open Day, Conservation Week and the following week at Wellington Anglican Cathedral, in the Legislative Chamber’s Great Hall on the evening of the Conservation Week Awards ceremony, and at our AGM. Also for helping with the preparation of the newsletter.
• Barbara Clark, Secretary, for managing so much of our paperwork, and communications around NZ.
• Rodney Lewington, Treasurer for managing our accounts, and Darea Sherratt for assistance with the accounts
• Peter Beveridge for auditing our accounts
• Chris Horne, newsletter editor and Submissions Coordinator, helped by committee members, and Barbara Mitcalfe, and Arnold Dench, for analysing documents on which agencies sought submissions
• Joyce Stretton, who liaised with NIWA about the Wellington Secondary Schools Science Fair for which we provided a prize for the best botanical project. We congratulate Tom Armstrong, 11 years, pupil at Wellesley College, on his project on the density and strength of NZ timbers. We thank Joyce Stretton and Rodney Lewington for judging the projects on indigenous plants
• Prof. Phil Garnock-Jones and Rodney Lewington for administering BotSoc’s Student Field Grants scheme for botany students at Victoria University
Our hard-working committee members for sharing the considerable administrative workload
• Donors to the Jubilee Award Fund, including Arnold and Ruth Dench for their donations from plant sales
Membership
As at August 2006, we had 267 financial members.
WBS members John Sawyer, Mike Oates and Philippa Crisp are on the NZ Plant Conservation Network council.
Te Marua Bush
Since 1989 BotSoc has jointly managed the restoration of this 0.6 ha remnant matai-totara-black maire forest in Kaitoke Regional Park. We welcome the transfer of a triangle of land at its south end by Transit NZ to Greater Wellington Regional Council, and the fencing of it by GWRC. See 12/8/06 trip report. We thank BotSoccers Sue Millar and Glennis Sheppard, who live nearby, and keep an eye on the forest.
Awards
We supported the nomination of Peter de Lange for the 2006 H. H. Allan Mere Award. We nominated Southern Environmental Assn for a Conservation Award for revegetation work at Tawatawa Bush, south Wellington.
Appointments
Our nominee, Bev Abbott, continued her work on the Wellington Conservation Board, and reported on it at our evening meetings.
We congratulate Robyn Smith who was appointed QEII National Trust Regional Representative for Wellington.
Partnership
We value our continuing association with Greater Wellington Regional Council in our work at Te Marua Bush.
Conclusion – BotSoc’s work in the community
The plant lists we compile on our field trips help landowners and land managers to work towards implementing the NZ Biodiversity Strategy. The pleasure we derive from visiting natural areas is reward enough. The knowledge that we gain about our indigenous flora, and the threats it faces, then being able to communicate that knowledge to promote its conservation, is an added bonus. The ultimate pleasure is when areas that we deem to be of great ecological significance are given legal protection. As BotSoc’s founder, Dr W.R.B. Oliver, then-Director, Dominion Museum, said at our inaugural meeting that he convened in 1939:
There were many reasons for being interested in plants, and the native flora was one of the most interesting in the world. In addition it needed looking after very much. Since the colonisation of New Zealand large areas of forest had been destroyed, and a society such as they hoped to form could do quite a lot of good in assisting in the protection of what was left.
Members of the society could learn all about native plants through excursions and meetings, and the more they learnt the more interested they would become. Once they had learnt all they could about native plants they could then devote their energies to protecting them.
(Source: WBS Bulletin No. 45 – Jubilee issue, November 1989, page 10).
Chris Horne Vice-President 2005/06
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