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Welcome to the first edition for 2012 of the WSN

Restoring Our Waterways Croaker Newsletter.

This year should be another busy year of

Environmental activities. December 2011 was not so

busy but it was very rewarding. Firstly WSN Restoring

Our Waterways were finally successful with a grant

from the Victorian Governments 25th Anniversary of

Landcare, so we will be getting our own Waterwatch &

Macroinverabrate Kit. Official handover of the

equipment took place on Monday 30th January.

Training on how to use the new equipment will

commence shortly with Emma and Vanessa from

NECMA Waterwatch. If you are interested in becoming

a Waterwatcher or want to learn all about the living

Macros and Native Fish

in our waterways please

contact me. Copies of

ROWs short film

competition entry have

been given to NECMA as

it was requested by management in order to see how

a group from the community views our waterways. A

copy was also given to the Rural City of Wangaratta

Environment Department to view. The film was made

because some members of the community dont think

about when they drop their rubbish on the ground in

town it ends up in our waterways through the towns

stormwater system or if they dump it in and on the

banks of our Rivers or Creeks it pollutes our

waterways. Water is our most precious resource,

without it all things die. In order to help keep rubbishfrom our stormwater system entering our waterways,

we need some drain catchers along One Mile Creek

and a large campaign on littering through the schools

and the community in order to make them understand

how important taking care of our waterways is. This is

not just for the water we drink but the well-being of

our Native Fish and the environment. A summary of

why the film was made and a copy of the film may

soon be on the WSN website. It might not be the most

polished film made but the point is very well made.

Dont drop it, bin it otherwise our waterways will endup a rubbish dump.

MORE GREAT NEWS AT THE END OF 2011

Wednesday 14th December at Bunnings Warehouse

Wangaratta.

Thanks to the great work of Karen

Brisbane the Victorian Governments

first corporate Landcare facilitator and Kerry from

Bunnings, ROW will be going ahead with building nest

boxes as part of our project for 2012 with WHS

Schools CLC students. Bunnings have

come on board supplying all the material,wood cut to size, nails, paint & brushes,

wire, drills, hammers and anything else

required for building the nest boxes plus 2

workers to help put them together with the students.

There will be 2 Fridays during the Semester to make

them and one day working with Andrew Snowdon

Bush Regeneration Officer RCoW placing them into

trees where they are needed. WHS will give us a room

at the school where they can be built and a couple of

members from WSN have volunteered to also help

with this great project. With the removal of Alien Fish(fishing for carp) from our waterways, water quality

and macroinvertebrate checking, the CLC students

who volunteer to work with WSN Restoring Our

Waterways will be busy in 2012 but will also have a

fun time which is the most important thing when you

volunteer. So the pressure is all on me now to make

sure my presentation to the CLC in 2012 is very

inviting, interesting and successful.

Diane Farmer, Coordinator, WSN Restoring Our Waterways

diane.farmer@bigpond.com

0439 020 448PO Box 772, Wangaratta VIC 3677

WSN ROW meet on the first Monday of the month at The Centre,

Chisholm St, Wangaratta at 5:30pm.Next meetings Monday 6th

February & 5thMarch.

Contents

International Volunteers Day 2

Presentation of NEWater Bottles to WareenaPark Bowls Club 2 - 3

A Walk Along Our Waterways 3

Upcoming Events 4 - 5

The Centre Community Skillsbank 6

February , 2012 Issue #8

mailto:diane.farmer@bigpond.commailto:diane.farmer@bigpond.commailto:diane.farmer@bigpond.com

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The WSN Restoring Our WaterwaysCROAKERNewsletter Page 2

February 2012

INTERNATIONAL VOLUNTEERS DAYMonday 5thDecember 2011, Article by Diane Farmer

Sophie Mirabella (MHR, Indi), Esme Adams and Di Farmer

I received a letter from Sophie Mirabella MP inviting

me to morning tea at her office on Monday 5th

December, stating that I had been nominated for an

award by Linda Phillis manager from The Centres

Community Skillsbank and that I had been successful.I arrived at 10am and there were about 20 people,

some of which were also to receive an award and they

were from all over the Indi electorate. Sophie made a

very nice speech explaining that it was a special award

as it was the 10th Anniversary of the United Nations

International Year of Volunteering and only 100

Politicians took up the offer to hand out about 10

awards each all over Australia. Before presenting the

awards to each recipient Sophie told us what each

person was receiving the award for. Mine was for my

work with the environment. It was a very nicecertificate signed by The Hon Julia Gillard MP Prime

Minister of Australia, The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP

Minster for Human Services & Social Inclusion and

Sophie Mirabella MP as well as a beautiful

commemorative coin and stamp in a very nice folder.

We have some great volunteers doing great work for

their community from Benalla, Wodonga, Mansfield,

Springhurst and Wangaratta who were at the

presentation morning tea. Now mind you young

Joshua Newth was also nominated by Linda for all his

great work on Newsletters both Social and

Environmental and his IT work

as a volunteer with Skillsbank.

He was also successful but he

was nowhere to be seen at the

morning tea and presentation.

Why not you ask? Well you see

he received his letter but he

didnt open it because he

thought it was just junk mail from Sophie. He has now

learnt a very big lesson which is - that when youreceive a letter from a Member of Parliament in an

official Australian Government envelope to make sure

you open it. You just have to love Josh as he is one of

the nicest young men I have ever met. Both Josh and

I are volunteers for both Skillsbank and Wangaratta

Sustainability Networks Restoring Our Waterways so

we make a good pair.

PRESENTATION OF NEWATER WATER

BOTTLES TO WAREENA PARK BOWLS CLUBSaturday 17thDecember 2011, Article by Diane Farmer

What a great day. Rowan OHagan committee member

for NEWATER and I representing WSN Restoring Our

Waterways met at the bowls club at 11.30am. Walking

into the grounds it was great to see all the bowlers on

the greens having a game of bowls. We were greeted

by some of the members who were so friendly. The

setting of the club is magnificent, all nice and greenwith lovely gardens neatly kept

and right next to One Mile

Creek and the Wareena

Wetlands. Two of the members

took Rowan and I onto the

green to give us a little lesson

on how to play bowls. This was

extremely fun, mostly wayward

bowls by Rowan and I but it was our inability not the

fault of our instructors. Cheryl from the Chronicle

arrived and I knew we were in trouble when she saidI would like to take a different sort of shot other than

just handing over the water bottles. Well now Rowan

and I had a bottle full of

water in hand and then

two of the members were

to be the receivers of the

water. We were to squirt

the water into the ladies

mouths first (have you

ever had to do that sort of

thing and looking at the camera?), then we had to

squirt it onto their head looking at the camera.

Those poor ladies, they were just great laughing andgetting soaked. Thank goodness it was a hot day.

After that fun we went into the club house for the

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February 2012

presentation. Rowan did NEWater proud with her

speech talking about water, then presenting the

bottles to Marlene Thompson President of the club and

thanking WSN Restoring Our Waterways for organising

the water bottles presentation. Cheryl took some great

shots of us with the drink bottles (this time empty

thank goodness). A photo to mark the occasion will be

framed and given to the members of Wareena Park

Bowls Club and NEWATER from ROW. Any promotion

encouraging people to drink water while playing sport,

so they dont get dehydrated, and using the same

water bottle, so you dont have to keep buying bottled

water, can only help the environment. Thanks Graeme

for your phone call requesting the bottles after seeing

the ad in the Chronicle about WSN Restoring Our

Waterways Mini Expo called All Things Water.

L-R: Rowan O'Hagan, Marlene Thompson, Ellie Black,

Shirley Hintz, Di Farmer, Faye Rowe

I am thinking of catching up with Marie who offered to

give me a few lessons as it was fun and seems rather

a social game and it sure is much easier than being

thrashed on a racquet ball court which was my last

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