Working Bee this Saturday 16th July

The monthly working Bee will be in the gully at the end of Sexton Road. (The road Odering Nursery is in). We will be weeding in preparation for planting.
8.45am to 12 noon.
Bring, if you have them: secateurs, a spade, gardening gloves and something for your morning tea.
It is not too wet so boots or gum boots should be fine.

Lots of seed trays planted out / Keep 1Lt milk bottles

Looking to the future we have a large number of seed trays sown in targeted native species that will be required over the coming years. There are a wide range of germination times from four weeks of the Kawakawa, Macropiper excelsum to one year or more for things like the Pokaka, Elaeocarpus hookerianus. These will be required to be potted up when the seedlings are big enough. This is why we have applied for funding for potting mix. We have a large collection of 1Lt pots that we have kept from all our planting out this winter however we will be short of the 500ml size which are ideal for the first potting from the germination trays. The 1Lt budget plastic or waxed cardboard milk or yoghurt cartons cut down make ideal pots for this purpose. If you, your mum or granny uses them it would be really helpful if you could wash them and put them aside for us. If you let us know when you have enough that they are getting in your way we will arrange for them to be picked up or for you to drop them off.

Long Tailed Bat Survey Oct

I caught up with Darren Le Roux (the Hamilton’s bat man) on the DOC stand at the Agricultural Field Days and had a good discussion about the likely hood of bats being in our gully. He felt there was a good possibility as they have been found at Taupiri and he has records of them roasting in willow trees. He has secured funding for a Hamilton wide survey to be done. This is going to be in October when the bats are more active and, rather than hand held monitors which rely on you and the bat being at the same place at the same time of the night they will be using fix positioned ones. These will be installed and left in place for about five nights then moved on to another location.
He is interested in working in with our group when he is doing Hamilton North.
For information on the Long Tailed Bat click on this link: http://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/Projects/Project-Echo . It makes good reading.
The photo our thanks to Kerry Borkin

Trust AGM

For a full AGM report please click on the page link at the right hand side of this page.

Trust progress and first AGM

We now have an IRD number and a Trust bank account, with nothing in it!! We have applied for some funding from Trust Waikato and should know by August whether we have been successful. We will be applying for funding from other funding organisations as well.


The deed for “MANGAITI GULLY RESTORATION TRUST” is available to view on the company’s office website www.business.govt.nz/companies our trust number is 2548109.

We are in the process of applying for charity status.

We will be having our first AGM on Wednesday July 6th at 7pm. It will be held at 7 Carisbrook Place (off Cate Rd) Rototuna. If you would be interested in becoming a trustee you need to be at this meeting or contact the secretary, Malcolm Watkins 854-3243 to express your interest. We have the minimum of three trustees at the moment. There can be a maximum of seven so there is room for others who are interested in becoming involved. Please become familiar with the trust deed particularly Clause 2 to 4
The present Trustees are:
Rex Bushell (Chairman / co-ordinator)
Tim Reardon (Treasurer)
Rod Lugton
Non Trustee office:
Malcolm Watkins (Secretary)

Planting on Saturday

We had a very successful day’s planting on Saturday. There were 15 planters and we had over 1000 plants in by 2.20pm. That is really good. The weather cleared in the afternoon just long enough to get the job done. All those that gave a hand will be able to see the result of their handy work and feel proud when they walk over the foot bridge as the years go by.
Universal Treez, 027-274-0089, are donating several truck loads of mulch so that we can mulch the top area that will be prone to drying out over summer. The mulch will also help keep the weeds down.

Trapping Rats

We have six rat traps out, four around the foot bridge and two at the back of Sexton Road. We caught four rats at the foot bridge in the first week then nothing.
Carpet Court went to some trouble to source a length of plastic pipe that carpet used to be rolled on for us so that we can make another 10 trap covers. If you are in the market for carpet please ensure you get a quote from them and tell Karen McGill you are part of the Mangaiti Gully Restoration Group.