2020 wrap up

Well what a year! Highs and lows but another successful year of planting, weeding and watering with more than 3,000 seedlings planted into Cottesloe’s dunes and natural areas. All up we did 1,300 hours of work and as volunteers are valued at $30 an hour that equates to about $40,000 worth of work.

We started the year with a fascinating visit to Apace nursery, who along with Nuts About Natives, grow our carefully harvested seeds. Then the  Cottesloe Film Festival, another highlight of our year and a mutually beneficial relationship – thank you Cott Film! In March Covid stopped us in our tracks but fortunately, by the time planting season came round in April, we were able to plant and keep socially distant! Our fabulous new auger made life much easier.

A proposal to build a skatepark in our precious Grant Marine Park shocked us but demonstrated how much the community appreciated what we have done. We are still hoping for a satisfactory outcome. May saw big storms wash away the beach and some of the dunes with big piles of seaweed washed up. Sadly the sea weed exposed how much plastic is in our ocean and bucket loads of little plastic pieces were collected.

In July our wonderful nature discovery space opened, thanks to the work of the inspired  Nature Based Play crew and funding from the Town of Cottesloe, the Community Environment Fund and Minderoo. This special place is an ongoing project for us but it is pleasing to see how well the plants are doing. We welcomed two new committee members at our AGM and it is great to have Julie and Martin on board.

We had lots of helpers for our planting sessions and extra sessions with schools. Christ Church and Scotch return to us regularly and provide lots of muscle and enthusiasm. Weeding and watering is always needed so we are never short of things to do and so grateful for our team of volunteers. Thank you to all our supporters, we look forward to an easier year in 2021.

And thanks to Robyn here’s some great pictures…..