PRESIDENT’S REPORT presented at Friends of Oxley Common’s AGM 27/6/10 by Marion Forrest
Welcome everyone. My name is Marion Forrest, President of Friends of Oxley Common.
Thanks heaps to everyone for coming out today for our AGM, Morning Tea & Planting. Also a big thank you too goes to the last management team for their time and effort and dedication to Friends of Oxley Common Inc. Without those dedicated souls to help, FOOC could not run events or stand up for the common people on this our COMMON. The last years team was:- Fred Olsen, Marj Dixon, Karen Possingham and Faseny McPhee.
During the last 12 months, Friends of Oxley Common have run events which seem to have gathered more people interested in bird watching, fixing up the degraded wetlands, community farming and building community involvement on the Common. However, we were slow on the mark and missed writing a submission for substantial Federal Funds for the wetlands. Never mind - perhaps another opportunity to raise money for that will come again.
A GOOD thing was that last year Works Dept sent us a letter stating a strategy for dealing with the community was being drafted with full consultation with community groups. A SAD thing is that has NOT happened. No communication has happened – not written – not email – not even verbal. Instead just the opposite has occurred. That shed has arrived and it seems to have been donated to Corinda High School by the UNETHICAL Brisbane Markets.. And why I say unethical Brisbane Markets is that, in my opinion, the Brisbane Markets broke the Integrated Planning Act by putting their rezoning signs for that top high ground on the wrong street Martin Taylor Drive and on the wrong property but still managed to rezone the land.
However, we definitely do want to work hand in hand with Corinda High School on the rest of this 120ha of land still zoned for community purposes. Where as in 2006 Friends of Oxley Common had to move fences to keep Corinda High’s cattle from trampling down the edges of Pelican Lagoon, now the School wants to teach environment management together with animal husbandry. I think that is very good. So we are attempting to stay positive as we are very much interested in obtaining a positive outcome for this our Common. Birds Qld, FOOC, OCEG & Qld Naturalist groups showed out support to Corinda High School early this month by having our stalls at their Agricultural Show Day. So now all our positive energies are being focused on good local outcomes with logic at a local level being encouraged to help us forge ahead instead of actions by bureaucrats which could easily have an effect of dividing the community.
Right at this time, thank goodness we are working towards a functioning alliance of 5 community groups plus the Corinda High School Ag Science Teacher Tonia. We are only meeting now and again BUT by sitting face to face, understanding what is common amongst us all, I am sure we will get a good community outcome – or at least I hope so.
AND we have just come across info that inside the latest BCC Budget there is for 2011/12 an amount of $270,000 set aside and continuing upwards to 2013/14 $470,000 for the COMMON. If that means anything, who knows. You can have a look at what I have downloaded from the BCC Budget.
Now, on the community farm front, due to lack of any formal communications with the Government about our farm proposal formulated in response to peoples request at our Jan 2009 workshop, and with no government bureaucrat appointed to deal with our farm proposal, we have started planting passionfruit and beans. The passionfruit are doing fine but the beans are having trouble with the hard clay soil. The soil needs improving. So how about coming to the Family Fun Day here on 18/7/10 & help make some compost. Also, we need to gather more names and get the farm sub committee meeting regularly & working on producing food & ideas.
So once again we think we have had a very successful year. Land tenure issues aren’t sorted yet BUT let us hope our alliance with the other community groups and Corinda High can provide us with some sort of strong local leadership for building community on the COMMON.
Once again thank you for coming and thank you for listening. . That is the end of my report.