Category: Uncategorized

AGM on Wednesday 13 May at 7.30pm at Castlemaine Community House

Come along to our AGM and hear what we’ve been up to.  The formalities will be pretty brief and we have a great guest speaker – Karl Just will talk about “A Special Frog: The Ecology of the Bibron’s Toadlet”.

Karl is a botanist and zoologist who has over 20 years experience in the ecological industry.  He runs his own consultancy, specialising in flora and fauna surveys, and is actively involved in environmental advocacy and ecological restoration projects across Victoria.   
 
Karl will explore the ecology of the endangered Bibron’s Toadlet, including where it is found, its fascinating life cycle, threats to its survival and how we can help protect the species and other aquatic life.  He will also discuss a current citizen science program led by Friends of the Box Ironbark Forests (FOBIF), which aims to engage the local community and improve records of the species across Mount Alexander Shire.
This notice includes links to the AGM documents – clicking on a link will download the document for you to peruse.

The Agenda is here, and it includes the usual AGM things, as follows –consideration of the minutes of last year’s AGM;consideration of the Committee Report and the Treasurer’s Report, available to be downloaded;setting of membership fees (no changes proposed); andelection of office bearers and other members of the committee – please consider whether you can contribute and nominate yourself or someone else for the committee (here is the nomination form, or you can nominate yourself during the meeting).Please note that you need to be a financial member to vote at the meeting – you can pay your membership fees now (see form here) or at the meeting.  But, if you don’t wish to pay the fee, you are still welcome to attend the AGM.

Please also note that a financial member may appoint another member as a proxy for the meeting, using this form.

Our planting plan

We aim to put in over 1000 plants (mainly grasses and ground-covers) over the next 10 weeks.

We start on 27 July at the Indigenous Food and Fibre (IFF) area, and then continue there and other places in August (10 & 24) and September (7 and 21) and finally October 12.

The plant numbers will vary across our sites and we hope to make our planting days enjoyable by having achievable targets for each site. We may need to dig holes for some of the sites.

You may have noticed that our first planting is on National Tree Day (July 27) but we are not heading to a big community event this year. Our largest planting will be on 24 August so if you cannot come any other time, that would be the one to join. But we would love to see you all, and see you often!

Annual General Meeting (AGM)

The Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Castlemaine Landcare Group Inc (CLG) was held at 7.30 pm on Thursday 8 May 2025. The speaker (Graham Stockfeld from Turtles Australia) was great and he brought some friends with him.

We did the normal business matters and elected the following committee:
President – Christine Kilmartin
Treasurer – Elizabeth Eager
Secretary – Gerry Egan
Committee members – Rosemary Hooke and Malcolm Robins.
We thanked Jack Piper for his stint on the committee, and noted that he was unable to renominate due to pressure of other commitments.

We would like some more committee members – if you are interested please email or ring Christine on 0418 325 350.

Forest Creek Revitalisation Project Grant

The recently received grant for the Forest Creek Revitalisation Project—Castlemaine under the Australian Government’s Urban Rivers and Catchments Program will be a major focus for 2025.  It will enable the partners [North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA),  Mount Alexander Shire Council (MASC), Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), DJAARA, Friends of Campbells Creek (FoCC)  and Castlemaine Landcare Group (CLG)] to work together over the next 3 years to deliver a more natural stream and streamside within the channelised section of Forest Creek and additional upstream and downstream benefits to habitat and biodiversity.  NCCMA will manage this grant.

Under that grant, we will spread the CLG work from 2025-27 at –

  • The Wilding Site behind Best Motors, between Patterson Bridge and Ten Foot Bridge, to enhance vegetation, improve access to viewing areas of the creek and monitor water quality and wildlife including aquatic species;
  • The Indigenous Food and Fibre (IFF) site, expanding its upstream and downstream riparian treatments, creating a series of ponds and riparian areas to provide refugia for wildlife including Bibron’s toadlet and expanding informal walking and viewing along the creek;
  • The lower section of the Montgomery Street grasslands, to reintroduce some threatened and rare species (note that we also anticipate a cultural burn by DEECA / DJAARA to the upper grasslands where there is kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) but this is not part of the grant);
  • The footbridge waterhole and surrounds, to increase aquatic habitat and species and provide a viewing path and additional planting to the currently hidden anticlinal fold area; and
  • The junction of Moonlight and Forest Creeks, in the Copses area, to improve native grassland habitat.

FoCC will also be doing considerable work downstream, especially to reintroduce threatened species and protect platypus.
More of that as we go, but also will assume “weeding” is still part of the task, although it will be shared with contractors.

For 2025, we will also –

  • Continue our work on the existing section of the IFF site, with a small planting – mainly grasses;
  • Follow up, via a small planting by volunteers, on work to be carried out by DEECA along Moonlight Creek that will enhance an existing waterhole and place some tree trunks and limbs to slow water before it reaches the washaway; and
  • Set up some citizen science opportunities for our volunteers.

2024 AGM

We had a very successful AGM at Castlemaine Community Centre. The feature speaker was Dr Peter Rose from the North Central Catchment Management Authority talking about actions underway to preserve and promote native fish in waterways.
The committee was elected, being the same members as last year, except for the retirement of John MacIntyre (who will however continue to do our website and social media – thanks John). The ‘winners’ are Christine Kilmartin (President), Gerry Egan (Secretary), Elizabeth Eager (Treasurer), and committee members Malcolm Robins, Rosemary Hooke and Jack Piper. There is still space on the committee if you are interested in helping out in that way.

Needle Grasses

There are three species of Needle Grass, Nassella spp., along with Espartillo, Amelichloa caudata, found in the Castlemaine area.  All are highly invasive and should be reported to the relevant authorities.  Chilean Needle Grass, N. neesiana is a declared noxious weed and classed as a restricted weed across Victoria.  Volunteers from the Castlemaine Field Naturalists Club have been working to eradicate these weeds from the Castlemaine Botanic Gardens and along streets throughout the town.  This poster provides information about needle grasses in general and you can find more specific information about Chilean Needle Grass in this brochure or from Agriculture Victoria.

This information has been reposted from https://castlemainefieldnaturalists.org.au/important-weeds/

Chilean Needle Grass, Nassella neesiana. Photo: Euan Moore

Victorian Landcare Grant

We are very pleased that we have been successful in obtaining a Victorian Landcare Grant to continue work along Moonlight Creek. The project is called “Linked by Moonlight Stage 2: ‘twixt La Niña and El Niño”, indicating some of the challenges we expect to face.
The project aims to build on the outcomes of work done, and weather experienced, during 2022, to

  • repair flood damage to 2022 plantings through removal of new weeds, additional soil preparation and further infill planting
  • continue to reduce Phalaris aquatica across the site to open up more areas for natural recruitment and new plantings, including increased spread of native grasses to provide protection for kangaroos from Phalaris Staggers
  • build habitat, especially for phascogales, sugar gliders, woodland and grassland birds and pollinators
  • work together with neighbouring private landholders to reduce weed competition and expand complementary habitat
  • develop options for future reparation of streambank erosion arising from 2022 floods • consult with DEECA, NCCMA, MASC, Djaara and other partners regarding additional natural upstream works to reduce ongoing flood damage and retain water in the landscape
  • keep contact with the wider neighbourhood by letterboxing an update on our 2022 work and providing a further invitation to help improve the area
  • continue to provide an annual planting opportunity in conjunction with The Good Op Shop to the students of Castlemaine Secondary College
  • Maintain a focus on building a biolink from the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park to Forest Creek through this investment.
    The grant has been obtained through the North Central Catchment Management Authority (NCCMA).
    This will keep us very busy for the next 9 months or so.