Narrandera Landcare Group held their AGM in the last week of August, when the only change in the executive positions was Sue Ruffles accepting a nomination as vice-president.

Peter Beal remains resident, Ken Murphy as secretary and Glenn Currie as treasurer/urban activities manager. David Marshall was happy to continue in his role as Clean Up Australia Day Co-ordinator.

The group received and accepted a healthy financial report from the treasurer. A pleasing increase in membership numbers was noted, as were the grants received from Landcare Australia for NLG’s propagating and planting out activities, and Local Land Services for nest boxes.

Peter Beal delivered his President’s report in which he thanked everyone who helped keep Narrandera Landcare going and thriving. He mentioned how the group’s mailing list and Facebook profile were growing, and how more use was being made of the Community Food Garden for various activities.

Several people doing Certificate III’s in Conservation joined the group to help them with their courses.

Highlights and achievements of the year included well-attended Clean Up Australia Day, National Tree Day and Wattle Day Wildflower Walk activities. The group also held successful school holiday activities making seed bombs and frog hotels.

They won an award as Riverina’s Champion Landcare Group which enabled them to hold a workshop on Habitech nest boxes which included 12 of these nest boxes being installed at Narrandera Wetlands and local properties.

The native seedlings they propagated helped promote awareness of threatened species such as the Superb Parrot and Glossy Black Cockatoo and were planted by schools in Lake Cargelligo, Rankins Springs, Griffith, Whitton, Binya and Barellan.

Four local schools helped plant at the Narrandera Fisheries Centre.

The group was also able to supply some seedlings for a National Tree Day planting held in Griffith. The group continued their quarterly bird surveys of Narrandera Wetlands, participated in Narrandera Shire Council’s Volunteer Expo, the KoalaFest and helped plant seedlings at the Wetlands as part of the NAIDOC Week closing ceremony.

They saw a need for an updated tourist brochure for the Narrandera Wetlands and engaged Fran MacDonald to help produce and print a brochure promoting the site to be distributed to local Visitor Information Centres.

Narrandera Landcare is a community organisation and Peter acknowledged the support NLG has received from Leeton Toyota, Narrandera Pizzeria, the Narrandera Argus, Murrumbidgee Landcare, Landcare Australia and Michael King, Think Water -Leeton, The Shady Gum Nursery, the Murrumbidgee Field Naturalists, Wormtech and DPI’s Narrandera Fisheries Centre.

The group is planning for another active year of Landcaring. Anyone interested can go along to their monthly meetings held at 7:30pm, the fourth Tuesday of the month at Narrandera Ex-servicemen’s Club or call into the Food Garden on a Saturday morning. 

This article appeared in the Narrandera Argus, 14 September 2023.