Another AGM is with us The Greenlink Oakleigh Annual General Meeting will again be held at its traditional venue, The Whitehouse, 61 Bevan Avenue, Clayton South, courtesy of Jeff, Dave, and Mark. The AGM will be held on Wednesday, 15th July 1998 at 7:30pm. There will be the usual election of office bearers for the forthcoming year, so if you are interested in filling any of the following positions please lodge your nomination (by another member) along with a seconder (another member again) in writing before the meeting, or in person at the meeting. The positions are: Ø Secretary Ø Treasurer Ø Publicist Ø Ordinary Committee member (3 positions) The rest of the night is a social affair, along the lines of a wine and cheese night, only we will not be limited to only wine or cheese! Please bring your own preferred drinks, to the value of $10, to go into a drink tasting selection. Greenlink Oakleigh will provide cheese and other stuff to nibble on. Hope to see you there! INDEX Greenlink at Langwarrin with Leon In a bit of a coup, Leon Costermans has agreed to conduct a guided tour of the Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve for Greenlink Oakleigh members. Leon is well known in the botanical field, in particular as the author of the pocket field guide "Trees of Victoria" and the comprehensive "Native Trees and Shrubs of South-Eastern Australia". With a diverse background in education, he is a master at relaying his extensive knowledge of plants. Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve is a former military site that contains heathland and woodlands that are remarkably species rich. We will be visiting at a time when we can expect to see a selection of the reserve's diversity of orchids, and some of the earlier flowering heath species. The tour will take us through wet and dry heathlands, as well as Silver-leaf Stringybark Woodland, and Thelma will be the chief orchid-spotter. The tour commences at 9:30am from the carpark in McClelland Drive, Langwarrin on Sunday 6th September, 1998. (Melways 103 D8) It will finish about 12:00 noon. For those who wish to carpool, we will gather at the nursery in time to depart at about 8:45 am. Leon is doing this for no charge and as a Friend of Langwarrin Flora and Fauna Reserve he will be staying on for their Working Bee in the afternoon. In return for his kind gesture it would be great if a few Greenlink members could also stay on and help out at the working bee. You will need to bring something for lunch if you plan to stay on after the morning tour. Also make sure you come suitably attired for the prevailing weather on the day! Leon will have copies of his books available for sale at a discount price if you wish to add to your library! Please let Doug know by Sunday, 23rd August if you intend to come on this tour, so he can let Leon know the numbers. INDEX The Jeff Smith talk show! It seems that the word is out that when Jeff gives a talk as a guest speaker you will get a witty and informative presentation (or something like that!). He is in increasing demand as a speaker, and has just completed an engagement for the SGAP - Heathland Group at their June meeting. He could be looking for a manager soon! INDEX Nursery Report Apart from a couple of new orders, Louise reports the following from the nursery: Ø The seed smoking apparatus has put into use Ø Some simple seed germination trials have been conducted for the City of Greater Dandenong Ø Peter, with support from his trusty hound Spudley, has cleaned plenty of tags for reuse (how come he gets the good job?) Ø Development of the propagation schedule has commenced Ø Louise attended an "Advanced Plant Propagation" training workshop and learnt more about scheduling, alternatives to fungicides and insecticides, seed dormancy breaking techniques, suitability of different pots, the importance of good pricking out techniques, and the propagation environment (the course notes will be kept in the office for anyone who is interested in having a look) Ø We have purchased the latest edition of Murray Ralph's book "Growing Australian Native Plants from Seed" INDEX Membership Annual memberships are again due (they fall due at the AGM each year). If you wish to become a Greenlink Oakleigh member for 1998/99 please send your payment, along with all your contact details, to John Edwards at 31 Frank Avenue, South Clayton, 3169. Fees are currently as follows (the incoming Committee, however, may change them!): Individual $15 Household $20 Concession $5 (student, unemployed, pensioner, etc) Memberships received now will qualify as membership for the full year commencing from the AGM on Wednesday, 15th July, 1998. We wish to extend a very big thank you to all those who were members for the 1997/98 year. They are listed here: Linda Smith Jeff Smith, Dave Moline and Mark Collier Jok Smith and Louise Dorr Doug Evans and Pip Charlton John Edwards and Corrie Williams Roy, Caroline, Claire, Sarah and Frances Lovel Thelma Spice Gloria Fleming Stefanie Rennick Barbara Barns Andrew Stevenson Shirley Lovel Commonwealth Golf Club Mick Connolly and family Judy and Bill Evans David Lockwood The Michelson family Jane Dickens Spencer Wilson Mary Bray City of Monash Owen Griffith Damien Cook, Ellen Madigan & Talia Mrs Pamela Cockayne Kingston Heath Golf Club Garth Head (Garth, Rosemary & Andrew) Fiona Solomon Debra Woods and family Peter Brunning Ern and Penny McGuire-White Barbara Hall and family Bev Truscott Greg Tate City of Greater Dandenong Hong Lim JP MLA Kate and Robert Hartley Doros Vasilaras We also have started our membership list for the 1998/99 year. A big thank you to these earlybirds: Mrs. Pamela Cockayne Stefanie Rennick Andrew Stevenson Andrea Reid and Michael Mullavey Andrew Cox Barbara Barns Thelma Spice Sally Lambourne INDEX Working Bees Greenlink Oakleigh holds working bees every Sunday (except on long weekends) between 11:00am and 2:00pm at the nursery. Louise Dorr is also at the nursery on a regular basis on Thursday mornings between 9:00am and 12:00 noon. All volunteers are most welcome at either time so come on down! The nursery is located at the southern end of the grounds of the Senior Campus of South Oakleigh Secondary College, Bakers Road, South Oakleigh (enter via the carpark nearest Centre Road). INDEX Meetings We hold our regular meeting on the third Wednesday evening of every month (the venue varies - held at different members' homes). Student wisdom We have come across a selection of student responses to test paper questions and essays that challenge our fundamental scientific understanding of the world! We will publish examples in each newsletter if space allows. The scientific credo for this month is: "Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water" INDEX Painted Button-quails - continued The following item appeared in the February, 1998 edition of "The Bird Observer" under the heading 'Notes on Interesting Sightings': David Lockwood observed a pair of Painted Button-quails at the Grange Reserve, South Clayton, south-eastern Melbourne (5.10.97) and Norman Eyre-Walker found a dead Painted Button-quail in his front garden at suburban Mount Waverley, south-east of Melbourne (11.10.97). The bird had probably been killed by a neighbouring cat. Celia Browne was amazed to find a Painted Button-quail sitting on her front doorstep at suburban North Balwyn (4.11.97). It disappeared into the garden when it was disturbed. Painted Button-quails are widespread in eastern and south-eastern Australia and southern Western Australia. In Victoria, they are found north of the Divide throughout the year and further south they are generally recorded during the spring and summer. Earlier records of these birds in suburban Melbourne obtained from 'Bird Reports' (1980s) included birds reported at East Malvern (24.12.84) a dead bird; Box Hill (5.3.85) in a garden; Blackburn Lake (15.6.86) and at Nunawading (3.4.87) on a bitumen road. INDEX Smoking Behind the Potting Shed Last Thursday (11th June) Louise, Peter and I got all fired up, literally. At long last I got Roy's smoke machine out of the garage and down to Greenlink. After a warming fire to get the coals happening we filled the machine with Bracken, Coast Tea-tree and Burgan and sealed the lid. To our joy the vast majority of smoke came out the chimney, all by itself. A few adjustments to the chimney, putting the extension on to cool the smoke and the elbow so that the chimney was horizontal, and it was time for the seed. Wedding bush and Monotoca were in jar lids with water, Epacris and Banksia were without water. (Or it might have been some other combination - Louise has kept much more exact records than this). Jar lids slipped in the end of the chimney and there wasn't much to do but sit back and wait. Well there were other things done, it's just the seeds were left to the smoke. We did have to feed the fire again after about 40 minutes. More of the same as above. After an hour we removed the seeds and sowed them. How do you tell if seeds are well done or not? No idea, we just guessed. The results will be there for all to see in a few weeks when the forest begins to sprout. Who knows wedding bush may be in abundance soon. We can hope. Stay tuned. INDEX Next Meeting is the AGM at Jeff, Mark and Dave's place: 61 Bevan Avenue, Clayton South on Wednesday 15th July at 7:30pm Phone: 9547 7640 Poster Progress The poster project continues to tick along smoothly and quietly. All of Fred Woodman's paintings that were selected for inclusion in this poster have now been electronically scanned. Mick now has the task of using those scans, or bits of them, to turn the mock-up layout that was established as part of the early design phase, into beautiful image reality (does that make sense?). In the meantime Jeff will work on the text which we will then need to get translated into other languages suitable for the Oakleigh and Springvale area. In the meantime we can give you a taste of what's to come by showing you, albeit in black and white (not here, Ha, Ha, Ha) a couple of the paintings that are being used for this project. Platylobium obtusangulum Leptospermum myrsinoides INDEX