Photo 14
kangaroos
Anzac army slouch hat with Australian Flag and Poppy on wooden background.
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Last meeting for Year of 2020

What a fantastic turn out for our last members meeting for the year of 2020.

What a year it has been.

  • COVID-19 hit us all in March 2020 and we needed to learn new ways of doing.
  • Social Distancing- Hand Sanitization and the need to be more aware then ever before.
  • ZOOM Meeting, Teams and Skye and Messenger/Facetime became the rage to conduct business and to just catch up with friends and communicate.
  • We all started working for home or were house bound to stay safe!

Despite all the hurdles and disruptions the Connolly Residents Committee has continued to hold committee meetings, We continued a business as usual approach but in a different format.

Connolly Links still maintained publication. Website, Facebook was regularly updated as it become a way to communicate quickly. As soon as we were possibly able we encouraged our members and welcomed new members back to the Connolly Community Hall as we were able to host meetings again in the second part of the year.

Our achievements this year was great:

  1. Memberships at an all time high – we now have in excess of 372 members! This is fantastic given Connolly only has just over 1400 households.
  2. Face Book Page Likes have grown to 645 with over 700 followers
  3. Connolly Links growing from strength to strength and advertisers at an all time high
  4. Invitation to guest speakers to address the community of Connolly on topics and issues happening at our doorstep.
  5. Memberships became online with EFT Payments
  6. We invested in new technology so we could support and communicate with our members and stakeholders better.
  7. Community Event – Connolly Clean up Day which we were able to remove over 35 bags of rubbish from Connolly.

We will continue to do this in 2021 but we need your help! We need you to encourage neighbours to join and become members, if you feel you could add value to the committee step forward and get involved. We have lots of different roles and new people bring new ideas.

Connolly Residents Association was incorporated in 1994. 26 years later its still going strong. It is because of you and the hard work the Connolly Residents Committee does, this continues to be recognised as one of the best residents associations around.

We welcome you all again next year but remember to do you bit. Encourage ONE extra person to join the Connolly Residents Association and/or come forward and be part of the committee in 2021.

The Friends’ group’s return to bush care duties after Summer was delayed by COVID-19 with social distancing being applied until we felt it was safe.

November 2020.

The Friends’ group’s return to bush care duties after Summer was  delayed by COVID-19 with social distancing being applied until we felt it was safe.

Summer 2019/2020 proved to be cooler and wetter than usual which was beneficial for the new plantings in the northern section and near the locked gate. The extra rain resulted in a wonderful display of native shrubs and flowers especially the donkey orchids which we found flowering in many places not seen previously. Especially pleasing was another blue sun flower flowering in the northern section quite a distance from the three south of the locked gate.

The group has worked hard to remove the weeds and grass that has been so abundant this year. Planting up degraded areas and around new fences makes a lot more work for us, keeping the areas around plants weed free and watering in dry weather.

During winter, the City employed contractors to reduce the fire load on the firebreak. Dead, broken and low lying branches were cut and taken away. Unfortunately  the  disturbance of soil resulted in excess growth of rye and oat grass and sow thistle/ dandelion.

At present we resist the use of herbicides in the Reserve but when approached by the Natural Areas team agree to small areas when absolutely necessary.