Ellen Milne - appointed Chair at the 2022 AGM

ELLEN MILNE
Chair

I am delighted to have joined North Stirlings Pallinup Natural Resources as the new Chair, and equally delighted to welcome some new committee members too.

Rebecca O’Meehan has joined the executive committee and brings with her a wealth of committee and leadership experience, as well as being a councillor on the Shire of Gnowangerup. She has a professional background in journalism and project management. Stacey Moir has also stepped onto the general committee. Stacey was an agricultural scientist for ten years working in Biotechnology and livestock nutrition in Victoria before moving to Wellstead to become a teacher. Stacey hopes to utilise this expertise and her passion for the natural environment to build a link between NSPNR projects and Borden Primary School where she is currently teaching. And our other new general committee member is Jordy Medlen. Jordy is an agronomist based in Narrogin, but spending as much time as possible in Bremer Bay. Jordy looks forward to using her agronomy experience to provide a different perspective and to helping to create some great outcomes from NSPNR in 2023.

These new members join the existing committee of Emily Jaekel as Vice Chair, Vanessa Stone who has stepped up to the executive secretary role, filling the very capable shoes of Sarah Bungey, Kevin Wise - Treasurer, Stephen Simpson, Jade O’Neil, and Elisa Santina. We still retain the representation of Johanna Tomlinson and Kylie Fletcher from South Coast NRM, John Paul Collins from DPIRD and Councillor Rebecca Kiddle from Shire of Gnowangerup. We are also very fortunate to have the volunteer services of talented gardener Bronwyn Gaze to create a landscape design for the NSPNR grounds so that we can enjoy some events and promote local plant species in the near future.

A very big thank you to outgoing Chair Jamie Spence for all his good work in the last two years. Jamie also spent three years with the NSPNR committee as treasurer and a year as committee representative. Thanks also to Sarah Bungey who has done a mountain of work behind the scenes to provide excellent governance and administration as executive secretary. Your volunteer effort is so much appreciated.

I look forward to supporting the NSPNR staff and working with this very strongly skilled committee to promote the work of the organisation and maintain relevance and purpose as the face of agriculture and natural resource management continues to grow and change.

NRM Officer Update
Hi everyone! I’m so stoked to be taking on the role of Executive Officer while Stevi gets to spend time on her newest project – Poppy Bungey. A huge congratulations to her and Will, we’ve all been loving getting to know Poppy.

We have had a massive couple of months and December is keeping us just as busy. The three State NRM project applications that Tegan, Stevi and Laura worked so hard on earlier this year were successful, so we’ve been busy finalising them ready to get cracking in January (stay tuned for more information on these including some upcoming fencing and reveg opportunities and registered pesticide (RP) training for handling 1080 fox poison).

The Gnowangerup Shire has subcontracted us to complete the Mosquito Baiting for the towns, which has been a very interesting process.

Our recent Culinary Conversations event was a huge success, and we were able to sneak in both our AGM and recognition of Kingsley Vaux as a Life Member for his contribution to the NSPNR committees (in its various iterations) and general Landcare efforts.

I’m very much looking forward to continuing to work with our members, fellow NRM groups and community groups. I’m especially excited to work alongside our new Chairperson, Ellen Milne. She comes with a wealth of experience on various committees, running large scale events and a long history of Landcare work on her and her husband’s farm (previous Chairperson Richard Milne.) The whole committee for 2023 is absolutely bursting at the seams with a fantastic range of expertise and knowledge – a huge thankyou to you all for your ongoing commitment to our group.

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Christmas and New Year, let’s hope we can get a successful harvest done and dusted by early 2023!
Cheerio,
Caroline

Caroline House- Executive NRM Officer
Available: Monday - Thursday
P: (08) 9828 1086 | M: 0437 248 206 | E: caroline@nspnr.com.au