Many thanks to The Mulloon Institute (TMI) team effort in covering for me with the August Update. In fact you probably benefitted from a more comprehensive update on some of the ongoing tasks that are the responsibility of each team member. But you did miss out on my monthly "theme word"!
Some will know, others of you won't, I was "out of action" during August and a good part of September as a result of having triple bypass surgery. Quite a shock really given my health profile didn't seem to fit such an event, but as I'm sure everyone knows, there are plenty of surprises when it comes to health issues. So given that event, I've speculated August could've been August "Angst", August "Anxieties" or even "Arterial" August!
So September has been predominantly a month of recovery for me (and ongoing) but has allowed a gradual re-involvement in TMI activities and for a little soul searching, planning and hopefully, forward perceptive thinking. Thus this month's update title "Sagacious" September.
But while I was doing that, activities were continuing at a rapid pace thanks to all the team. With input from everyone, Kelly and Peter produced a first draft of an excellent document that spells out what TMI is all about and where we are going. It will be a document that we will use as a basis for accelerating financial and general support for our current and future work. Wonderful work by the team and I should be able to share a final version with you when I do my October update.
The team is also continuing to develop what we call our "How to" Guide and a first cut of that will be available for participants in our November four day workshop in Natural Sequence Farming. The workshop, in conjunction with Tarwyn Park Training, has been fully subscribed for a number of weeks thus demonstrating the need for this type of training in the community. And November participants will be coming from far afield including Queensland and Victoria.
September saw many ANU students on the ground at Mulloon Creek and to see how beneficial this association is for our future scientists visit. See photos from their trip. Our scientific benchmark work continues and later in October we will be conducting a frog count and participation details can be found HERE.
The Board and Advisory Council of TMI met during September and those meetings were preceded by a dinner for everyone the night before hosted by our Founders Tony and Toni Coote. It was a great catch up for all the staff, Board and Advisory Council members and their partners over an informal dinner. Fun night, many thanks Tony and Toni.
My thanks also go to Tony and Charles Cupit for steering both the Board and Advisory Council meetings. While I was able to attend my recovery was still early days to undertake my Chairman duties. The meetings were very productive, were attended by our Patron Michael Jeffery who provided very wise and perceptive input to both meetings - one might say "sagacious" in fact!
We also welcomed Tony Hill to the Advisory Council. Tony comes with extensive experience of government, particularly in relation to Co-operative Research Centres and is currently leading a Holistic Management Branding project that is working closely with the Savory Institute. We (TMI and MCNF) will be involved with that project which will run until April next year. More on that in future updates.
Our Advisory Council also had updates from Peter Hazell on the Mulloon Community Landscape Rehydration (MCLRP) project including scientific benchmarking and Green Army activities, and from Kelly on communications including social media activity. With respect to Green Army, at the end of September Rose and I attended the graduation of the two teams that have been working over the past six months. The participants were very grateful for the experience they had and the many things they learnt. We are grateful to them, their supervisors and Manpower for the extent of the completed work they achieved. Two more teams (with a number of the past participants continuing) will soon be commencing another six months of work on the MCLRP.
In completing this "Sagacious" September update, I want to emphasise the flow-on value of the landscape repair we are undertaking. While political participants and the media only seem to want to concentrate on a debate about carbon emissions from energy sources, they continue to overlook the positive impact a repaired landscape will have in sequestering those emissions in the soil. Expenditure on landscape repair should replace expenditure on questionable attempts at emission reduction. We would then have a win/win - repaired and rehydrated landscapes with nature dealing with the emissions. Support from government in that form would be truly "wise, keenly perceptive and far-sighted", that is "sagacious"! One can only hope.
Thanks again for your interest and support. More to come at the end of October.
