Thames/Hauraki Branch of Forest & Bird:

Wetlands Activities Sep-Dec 2004

Halls Reserve Jan-March 2005

Halls Reserve Dec

F&B News 16-Sep-04

Pohutukawa home

WILLIAM HALL MEMORIAL RESERVE

Update: November.

A team of 20 students from the Wintec School of Arboriculture in Hamilton has recently spent three days in Thames to give the town's William Hall Memorial Reserve its first makeover since this notable arboretum was planted, in the 1870's.
They have taken out many upper limbs and branches and performed other remedial pruning. The material taken out is now lying on the ground and needs to be tidied up.

Thames Forest and Bird seriously needs helpers for this. For anyone willing please come to Currie St entrance, Mt Sea Road, at 9 a.m. Sat 13th Nov. Thank you.

Contact: Ken Clark, tel 8675344  kow@xtra.co.nz

Activities Apr-Sep 2004

General

Some events over recent months give rise to some guarded optimism over the future care and management of Hall's Reserve. The Thames Community Board has tightened its oversight of the Reserve. Its Parks and Reserves Committee is looking into recognising some form of "Friends of Hall's Reserve" as part of the wider involvement of Thames people in safeguarding their heritage. And, within TCDC itself, a really great achievement has been getting a line item of $35,000 into the budget for 2004/2005, for the cost of a formal cadastral survey of both the lower and upper parts of the Reserve, and their fencing. The fencing could be in place within a year.

The Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) has begun its programme focussed on care of Hall's trees. Wintec tutors in Arboriculture, Rob Graham and Andy, were welcomed to the area at a working lunch organised by Mark Bridgman at the Council offices. Thames Community Board Chairman Peter Calloway, and Parks and Reserves committee members Denis Rogers and Dennis Hodgson, attended, along with managers Mike Martin and John Rich. Wintec was assured of the Council's interest in their work and in their technical procedures. It was expected that the Wintec/Council/ Forest and Bird relationship would be extended into future years.

Besides such welcome financial and moral support from Local Government Thames, Pub Charity has sponsored through Forest and Bird a botanical survey of trees in the lower part of the Reserve, 1.07 hectares, through a grant of $4,800. The first phase of this work was done on 22-24 July by a group of about 15 diploma students under the direction of their tutors.

This resulted in each tree being:

recorded, numbered and ranked by condition
botanically identified
mapped by GPS and its position superimposed on an aerial photograph
rated by urgency of remedial work

Wintec's joining into support of the recovery programme is greatly welcomed, as it brings new ideas into management decisions, and will also help to position the Reserve into its proper national perspective. The Wintec School of Arboriculture is the only one of its kind in New Zealand and is beginning to attract students from other countries to its programme.

A copy of the Wintec report "William Hall Reserve - Technical Assessment, 19 July 2004" has been filed with the Thames Public Library. Another copy is with the Thames Historical Society.

Our thanks go to Graham Platt for suggesting Wintec in the first place. Graham has also agreed to lead the walk through the Reserve as part of the Pohutukawa Festival on 27th Nov (subject to his being in NZ at that time)

Future programme

Diploma students from Wintec will come to the Reserve for 3 days beginning 20 Oct to follow up the initial work. They will do formative pruning, dead wooding, and some removals

Talks with local government continue on possibilities of involvement of community in ongoing care and management of the Reserve

Appreciation

Our thanks to the Community Board for their budgetting provision of $35,000

Also to Pub Charity for the donation of $4,800 for the cost of tree assessment

(comments on the programme are invited to be sent to Ken Clark , Tel 868-8307)

Monday, October 04, 2004