This is the second edition of our Environmental Volunteer Program ENews, and it certainly doesn’t feel like three months have gone by since the first edition.

We hope that you enjoy the articles that we have put together for this edition. As always, please let us know if there are things that you would like to hear about. If you have stories to contribute yourself please do and thank you to Brian from the Palm Grove Ourimbah Creek Landcare group for the article that he sent us about cheese trees, I found it very interesting.

World Environment Day has just passed on 5 June and we hope that you were able to enjoy this in your own special way. The next big milestone day for us is fast approaching with National Tree Day occurring on Sunday 1 August. We have a couple of planting events coming up through our program and will be sure to send you all links with more information about these as our communications are published in the lead up to this important national day.

New CEO and Organisation Structure

Council now has a new CEO and we are settling into a new organisational structure. For our program team we are still within the same Unit at Council, within Environmental Management, but we are now working in the Natural Assets and Biodiversity Section. This places us alongside staff including Council’s Senior Ecologist, the Biosecurity Weeds Officers, Environmental Management Project Officers and Environmental Education Officers. This should be a great fit for our program and we look forward to the benefits that will come from working more closely within this Section and the collaborations that will come from the projects that this Section delivers.

Farewell Peter Lambeth

Peter Lambeth is no longer with our team and we wish him all the best in his retirement. Peter was with Council for over 40 years and spent almost all of this time managing Council’s nursery at our Erina depot. He is very much missed by our staff and the volunteers who had the pleasure to work with him through our volunteer nursery groups. 

Our nursery provides over 10,000 plants to our programs volunteer groups each year, as well as many more plants that go to specific events like National Tree Day Plantings. 

The nursery also provides opportunities for volunteers to come in and learn all about plant propagation and production and to help to grow the plants that go out each year. 

Thanks to Peter for all his hard work and for the great nursery program that he has helped us set up. 

Education and Training

Our focus for education and training over the last six months has been on bringing new volunteers through our Introduction Workshops, providing training to any volunteers who would like to use herbicide in accordance with their groups site strategy, and providing opportunities for representatives from each volunteer group to complete accredited first aid training. As we enter the new financial year we will continue to offer these training opportunities and would love to hear about any other ideas that you have. Are there things that you would like to learn that you think would help you with your volunteering? If so please send us your ideas, environmentalvolutneering@centralcoast.nsw.gov.au