Friends of Zeekoevlei and Rondevlei

Local is Lekker

Minutes of Annual General Meeting held at Rondevlei on 13 August 2013

Attendance:

Dee Cranswick (FOZR Chairperson) DC

Tracy Gibbs (FOZR Accounts) TG,

Liz Day (FOZR Committee) LD

Neil Major (FOZR Committee) NM

Nicki Stock (FOZR Committee) NS

Tom Schwerdtfeger (FOZR Committee) TS

Dalton and Kia Gibbs

Piet and Jill Groenhof

Val and Chris Bourne

Don and Mascha Ainslie

Jimmie Baigrie

Victoria Day (Rondevlei)

Nicole Georgiou (CTEET)

Zurelda le Roux (Rondevlei)

Agenda:

Welcome & Agenda – DC

Apologies

Zeekoevlei Community – DC

Minutes of last AGM

Introduction to False Bay Underwater Talk – NS

Chairman’s Report – DC

Treasurer’s Report – TG

Elections

Welcome & Agenda

Dee opened the meeting by welcoming all attending.

Apologies

The following were unable to attend and sent their apologies:

Emma Oliver

Dagney & Helen (on toad watch)

Keith Hill

Ingrid Baigrie

Richard Cammell

Catherine Schwerdtfeger

Helen Nankin

John Day

Theo Stock

Ilse Major

Zeekoevlei Community

Dee reminded the meeting that over the past year there have been a number of sad events, along with some happy ones. She reflected that we were all lucky to have such friends, in a well bonded community. She asked us to remember two of our members who gave so much of themselves to help uplift the environment. John Oliver and Dan Archer both passed away within a week of each other. She wished the community courage, strength, love and laughter in the coming year.

Minutes of last AGM

2012 minutes were passed around, and will be posted on the website. If there are amendments, they must be advised to FoZR Chairperson

False Bay Underwater Talk

Using Dr Geoff Spiby’s beautiful pictures, Georgina Jones gave a wonderful talk on the fauna and flora to be found under the water around the Peninsula.

Chairman’s Report

This will be posted to the website. Highlights of the year to Feb2013 include:

The NPO for FOZR was finalised. Now donations are tax exempt – this should help with fund raising.

Slight decrease in membership to Feb 2013

We are emailing ONLY to website subscribers – please pass this on

Watch Dog Activities: Mainly the odours from sewage works – working with other members of the community – SRA and individuals. In summary – this coming year we WILL be dealing with the odour. Jimmie reported from SRA that the ‘faecal stench’ introduced grounds for applying for rates reductions. This led to a letter being written to the Premier. This led to a report to the Premier, and a site visit by the Premier and the Mayor. They found the report satisfactory, but wanted to know if the SRA was. Jimmie has been corresponding on behalf of the SRA to the effect that the report is not telling anything new. Roger Godwin is pursuing a different avenue, and is communication with the SRA. Dee keen that we adopt a number of different strategies – this is fine with the FBEP committee who has also not been able to get anywhere. She asked for any other thoughts on this issue.

Dee thanked Neil for his on-going meeting attendance at the FBEP steering committee. Also for the sign board and planted boat that he and helpers arranged on the corner of Fisherman’s and Victoria.

Dee thanked Dalton for the sign.

Fundraising in FY2013 raised R9000 approximately.

The nursery is continuing with its financial contribution.

Annual beach braai was well attended.

RAMSAR – thanks to Joanne Jackson (Council) this has finally got through council, and now needs international approval.

Reserves – Dee commented that it has been disappointing and frustrating not getting the support of the Reserves that we would like. The reserves have lost employees, and it is an on-going struggle – during the Draw Down there weren’t sufficient resources to clean up the vlei properly. Lack of funding

CTEET – their funding has dwindled too. They have lost the educational officer, so the animal displays had to be closed. More money is needed to rekindle this.

Fund raising important to bring people to nature, and vice versa.

Report details donations and the talks that were held.

August 31^st – Dalton will be doing a Spring Walk

Van Blommestein Park – We have received offers to pay the salaries of staff in memory of John Oliver. This needs to be managed – CTEET was suggested by Dalton, skills development program in partnership with the city. He suggested that FOZR and CTEET discuss this. Liz in favour, but said that guidance would be needed for the training program in the park. Dalton explained that could be a 3 year partnership between FOZR, CTEET and the City, with CTEET reporting to FOZR re progress etc. similar sites are managed like this – Kenilworth Racecourse – so there are precedents.

Tea Room – the idea was well received, but difficult for FOZR to implement. FOZR no longer has the contract. It was supposed to run like the nursery, but wasn’t making sufficient profit for there to be monies available to FOZR. Jill Groenhoff pointed out that it was a nice venue, but needed to sell the right coffee etc

Toad Report – Dagney: reported on their activities during rainy evenings where she and Helen patrol the toady areas to try and protect them from motorists. Local communities becoming more involved in the project. If you see a frog/toad in the road, pick it up and pop it through the fence – breeding vlei is Rondevlei. They have had permission to close down Perth Rd during this time, but need more people to man the posts – so that fell through. TS mentioned the fencing options used overseas, these have been looked at. Dalton reported that City traffic decided that the fencing would get stolen! More toad patrollers are needed, Nicole – CTEET – offered their students who are keen to get involved.

Refurbishing of the Rondevlei Museum

AGM 2013-2014 Year

At last year’s AGM we spoke about our plans to refurbish the Rondevlei Museum. We elected to work through the official City of Cape Town channels rather than place the entire financial burden of this project on FoZR. The main problem with this strategy is that City channels are slow and complicated. None-the-less, we have made progress. The museum has been freshly painted and the black ceiling has been replaced with a much more attractive white ceiling. The lights in the middle of the ceiling have been a bug-bear as they have for some unknown reason been classified as “Furniture” and the independent contractor employed by the City is not registered to do “Furniture”. This has resulted in a portion of ceiling remaining unfinished for several months. Hot of the press however is the release of a large order to fix up all the lighting in the museum and resource centre so we trust that we should “see the light” in the not too distant future.

We received quite a set back in terms of our taxidermy specimens as the freezer that contained the specimens waiting to be taxidermied was accidently switched off and the specimens rotted before anyone noticed. The good news is that Pippa the porcupine had already been sent off to the taxidermists when the accident occurred. In addition, we have already managed to collect a few nice replacement specimens and Anne Wicks from the Izeko Museum in Cape Town has offered us some of their specimens. We have chosen to use Buck’nBass to help us with the taxidermying as they come highly recommended. It has taken almost an entire year for them to be approved by the City as vendors. They have now been approved so we can start the actual order process to get the taxidermy work started.

The fumigation of the existing specimens has proved a lot more complicated than one would expect. A specific type of fumigation is needed for the specimens on display & they cannot be considered for restoration until they have been fumigated. The Reserve staff has placed orders with at least 3 companies who have promised to be able to provide the required fumigation but the orders have been withdrawn as the companies cannot fulfill the contract. Each order process takes time, a lot of time, so in the last couple of weeks yet another order has been placed with yet another company and we are trusting that this is the company that will be able to help us.

While the past year has been frustrating in the lack of much visible progress, I feel confident that all the loose ends are starting to come together and that by this time next year, the improvements will be obvious.

Treasurer’s report for the year ended 28 February 2013

At first glance, income for the 2013 tax year appears to have dropped significantly compared to the 2012 tax year. This is primarily due to our securing funds to the value of R156 000 from the City of Cape Town in the 2012 year. All other areas of income have however increased in the 2013 year. Donations increased from R620 in 2012 to R2000 in 2013. Membership increased from 33 families in the 2012 year to 64 families in the 2013 year, bringing in income of R4695. Two fundraisers were held in the 2013 tax year – a Barn Dance and a BarleyCorn event, bringing in a combined total of R9 034. Plant sales are also up from R6 429 to R9 356. As can be seen on the Income & Expenditure statement, interest earned also increased from R136 to R315 due to R 20 000 being placed into an Investment fund from December 2012.

This R20 000 is earmarked for expenses that we expect to incur in connection with the legal action that is likely to be needed to deal with the irregularities at the Waste Water Works.

There was very little utilization of funds in the 2013 tax year. We had expected there to be expenses linked to the re-furbishing of the Rondevlei Museum but due to the slow progress on this front, this has not yet happened. In addition, there is a need to have funds available should the above mentioned legal action become necessary.

Elections

Activities Neil Major (Dalton will help)

Reserve Liaison / Environmental Officer Liz Day

Treasurer Tracy Gibbs

Fundraiser Tom Schwerdtfeger

Secretary Nicki Stock

Reserve Representative Victoria Day

Chairperson Dee Cranswick

Student Talk – Zurelda le Roux

Zurelda gave a talk on the micro frog

General

Dee mentioned that the Wandering Jew plant – not yet eradicated. And a year ago a solution / poison would be available, was it?

Mascha Ainslie congratulated the committee for standing again.

Tom asked for more support from the community

Jimmy asked that the minutes record gratitude to Zerelda, Victoria and other staff for all that they do.

The Treasurer Report and minutes of last year’s AGM were accepted.

Meeting closed: 10pm.