Professor Hugh Possingham will lead a BIRD WALK on Oxley Creek Common on Sunday 23rd June 2013 from 7.30 a.m. This will be followed by Morning Tea about 10.30 then our AGM at 11 a.m.
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CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA DAY
Clean Up Australia Day for Oxley Creek will be held on Saturday 2nd March 2013 from 9 a.m. for the Oxley Creek Common component. Register by email or that morning. Gloves provided. Come along to help and stay for a volunteers’ lunch on the Common.
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AGM 12th May 2012 3.30pm
You are invited to
FRIENDS OF OXLEY CREEK COMMON Inc AGM
Saturday 12th May 2012 at 3.30pm on The Common
All positions will be declared vacant.
Nominations are called for the positions of
President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer
Committee Member
Please send in proxies and nominations by 28th April to
FOOCC, PO Box 319, Sherwood Q4075
In the event of insufficient nominations, nominations will be accepted from the floor at the AGM
Join us for afternoon tea afterwards. Everyone welcome.
Faseny McPhee, President
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Gardening
Every Sunday afternoon come along to join in a working bee in the community garden on Oxley Creek Common at 2pm. Bring some tools.
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Weeding Morning
Come and celebrate Australia Day on Thursday 26th January 2012 at 7.30 by weeding our vegetable area and plant some new seedlings. Please feel free to join us for Morning Tea afterwards, at 9 a.m. at the Red Shed on Oxley Creek Common. Gold Coin Donation.
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FOOCC Submission to Brisbane City Council regarding proposed bikepath
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June 2011 AGM Presidents Report
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.
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June 2010 AGM President’s Report
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.