We would like to really thank everyone for coming out today for our AGM, Special Meeting and Afternoon Tea. Also a big thank you goes to the last management team for their time and effort and dedication to Friends of Oxley Common which has allowed for a common voice to be heard regarding this big patch of land.
However due to the floods, and being locked out of the Common we have not run as many events as past years. But Friends of Oxley Common did help during the floods with cleaning out Benarrawa Community centre’s building in Graceville. That was a huge effort – sort of wore me out . AND Benarrawa are only today running an event to mark the fact that they are back in their building and properly operating again. At that time, we did attempt also to contact other Friends of Oxley Common members who could have been flooded. I think we missed communicating and/or helping at least two other lots of folk and so to them I apologize. However, slowely, slowely things are returning to normal over this way.
A good thing we can report is that we think 7ha of dry rain forest will be planted soon down in the Secret Forest area. A company called Water & Carbon have secured funding from the Brisbane City Council under the Lord Mayors 2 million trees for Brisbane project. They also have funding to maintain their plantings for a further 3 years. To get to that stage has involved lots of meetings with what we call our Alliance partners (OCCA, OCEG, BIRDS QLD, CORINDA HIGH & INTERESTED OTHER PEOPLE).
In May the Alliance met with MP Simon Finn at his office. That meeting proved very interesting as Simon really only reported to us that he was really strongly attempting to get the COMMON over to the Brisbane City Council and out of his responsibility. So last week I called in to Simon’s office to ask for an update to report at this AGM. They checked with Simon and all he could report back was he is still working on it.
So, as result of that Simon Finn meeting and a subsequent Alliance meeting with the Agricultural Assistant of Corinda High, we have been prompted to attempt to try to figure out how the community could work with the Corinda High School on both environmental and financial fronts. For sure, once Brisbane City Council gets involved these hard questions definitely will need to be addressed. Who knows – maybe State Development might help with a business plan.
Last year we made a start to our community farm in the small fenced off area behind the BBQ area. Councillor Helen Abrahams advised us about 10 years ago now to just make a start on the Community Farm but instead we waited and waited and waited for approval to go ahead until last year that is. So, now we can report that the passionfruit are doing well and the soil has definitely improved due to the silt from the floods. However, the sweet potatoes we planted as a soil improver to break up the soil went berserk and we have only just been able to dig it out plus harvest sweet potatoes. We are composting the leaves and runners now and have learned sweet potatoe can get away from you easily if no one looks after it as happened during the flood. We have only just planted pumpkins and hardy climbing beans on the fence now which might hold out the wind from the paddocks. So we are now looking for helpers to keep this small area cultivated and productive. If you can help with the start of the community farm, please come and see us later.
We think we have had a very successful year in spite of the floods. As land tenure issues are at long last being sorted out I hope you will support Friends of Oxley Common again for the next year so some sort of strong local voice for building community on the COMMON can be possible..
Once again thank you for coming and thank you for listening. . That is the end of my report.