24
April 2012 –
Chat
33
Dear Friends of Parks members
Dear Friends of Parks members
Friends
of Parks Inc AGM 2012 & related matters
Notice anything different with the letterhead? We’ve added Dene Cordes to our Patrons in recognition of his involvement with the organisation over our thirty year life span. As I said at the AGM last week, Dene was present at our birth, took care of us in our formative years and has worked tirelessly in our interests both as a departmental staff member, one time Board office holder including a term as President, member of several Friends groups and regular volunteer. We recently lost the inspirational Warren Bonython as Patron and the Board felt it timely and appropriate that we offer the role to Dene who readily and very graciously accepted. He joins Barbara Hardy, Jean McLaren and David Wotton who continue to serve the organisation well and maintain an active interest in all of our activities.
Our AGM went off well and filled the Ted and Molly Hughes Conference Centre at Para Wirra to capacity. DENR was well represented and John Schutz, Executive Director, Regional Services provided an outline of current developments and a progress report on the regional integration process. We lost a couple of long-serving board members in Dr Geoffrey Bishop and Cathy Potts. Both have contributed much over the past decade and we will be the poorer without their experience, knowledge and enthusiasm for the environmental cause. They have both decided to move on in their lives but will maintain their close links with Friends of Parks through their own groups of Ferguson and Kaiser Stuhl respectively. Notwithstanding their loss we recruited a number of new members in Kosette Lambert, Bill Heaven, Duncan Mackenzie, Don Ransom, and Gill Ross. Over the coming weeks it’s our intention to publish a brief profile of each so that you are familiar with their credentials and aspirations for Friends of Parks. I believe we have a good mix of talents to help move the organisation forward; high on our agenda will be raising the profile of Friends of Parks and finding ways to improve our regional presence and representation.
I’ve been busy sponsoring NRM Community Grants recently in cooperation with Pam Smith from the VSU. Good luck to all who have applied and I encourage all groups to avail themselves of grant opportunities as and when they arrive. South Australia has recently been successful in obtaining significant funding via the federal Biodiversity Fund and as a member of the NGO NRM Working Group I’ll continue to argue the case for Friends of Parks wherever and whenever I can.
Regards
President
Friends of Parks Inc.