The WCMG held its first Annual General Meeting at Kaiuku Marae on the 2d of August 2014. This first gathering was a good opportunity for the community to celebrate its achievements and reflect on this year’s activities. Jamie Cox, Chairperson of the Incorporated Society, was proud of the progress made both at a financial and operational level and was looking forward to this coming year’s achievements. He acknowledged the commitment and dedication of all the volunteers who have made this initiative an award winning project. His goals for 2014/2015 are based around the development of a strong governance structure with a succession plan further developed and the appointment of a community liaison officer whose role will be to engage more with the local community. The new committee members of the group have been appointed with Jamie Cox being reelected as Chairperson and Rae Te Nahu as Secretary. Pat O’Brien was elected as the new Deputy Chair while Leon Symes, Treasurer, indicated that he wanted to step down in a near future.

A video is now available for those who want to learn more about Rongoa and how the Mahia Community is keeping this knowledge alive.
If you want to check it out, follow the link or navigate to our communication tab.
Thank you to Rae Te Nahu, kathleen Mato, Edward Hammond, Jennifer Scothern and Te Mahia school team for their strong support.

The WCM group is having its first AGM on Saturday the 2d of August at Kaiuku Marae, from 10 am to 12. This meeting will be followed by a Hui a Iwi where a general update on the project will be given to the community (from 1 pm to 3 pm).
The agenda is attached below. If you want to know more about the group’s activities, please come along.

Agenda Hui a Iwi

The Whangawehi Catchment Management Group has been awarded a certificate by the Ministry for the Environment for their outstanding community based approach to protecting and enhancing the Whangawehi catchment.
Well done to you all.

Certificate

Pride of New Zealand, sponsored by the New Zealand Herald, TRN radio station The Hits and TSB Bank, aims to find and recognise Kiwi campaigners, volunteers, caregivers, teachers and other unsung heroes who have done something extraordinary to help others.
The categories are: Bravery/Heroism, Community Spirit, Fundraiser of the Year Award, Emergency Services, Environment and Lifetime Achievement.
Winners will be named at four functions – one for the northern region on August 4 in Auckland, one for the central North Island in Tauranga on August 5 (hosted by the Bay of Plenty Times), one for the lower North Island (including the Wanganui nominees) hosted by Hawke’s Bay Today in Hastings on August 6 and one in Christchurch for the South Island on August 7. From those regional winners, the overall national winners will be selected.
Kathleen Mato and the Whangawehi community have been selected as finalists and will compete on the 6th of August. A television crew came last week to film the school children doing water and fish monitoring. Thank you to all the volunteers from the Whangawehi Catchment Management Group and the Enviro school team for their help.

On the first of July, Te Mahia students attended a new workshop on Bugs and stream and drain detective. During this workshop, the students looked for bugs in a local stream and learnt to identify them. These indicators gave a good insight on the rivers’s health and will be followed over time to measure any change.
The drain detective session raised awareness around the different types of drains and the way the water was treated or not!

With our goat control strategy well underway it is good to update the community and talk numbers.
Since March 2014, 663 goats have been removed from the stage 1 area which is mainly located around the new planting area. Hares became a problem after our first community planting day. Extra funding was made available by HBRC to control them and to date 12 hares have been removed from the area.
The planted area is already changing with a lot of birds coming back and thriving especially King Fishers at this stage.
Our pest control strategy is key to the success of our project so thank you to HBRC and DOC for helping out.
Stage 2 of the strategy will start very soon initially with some ground musters followd up by ground control.
If you want to know more about our pest strategy clic on our “pest control” Tab