News from the Valley

You're Invited to The Valley Project AGM! We are excited to invite everyone in our community to our upcoming Annual General Meeting. It’s a great opportunity to get involved, share ideas, and help shape the future of our neighbourhood. We’re especially looking for enthusiastic members to join our executive team. Whether you’ve got ideas to help our community thrive or simply want to learn more, we’d love to have you! Date: Wednesday, 13 November 2024 Time: 5.30pm Location: North East Valley Normal School Hall, 248 North Road, North East Valley Interested in joining the executive? Nominations are open until …

Thank you to everyone who has participated in our survey. Please watch this space for the results and for more information on what is happening next for the Kaitiakitaka in our urban ecosanctuary program. Open Valley Urban Ecosanctuary (Open VUE) relies on volunteers to provide support by offering their time, skills, and expertise. There are many wonderful ideas coming from the residents to promote and increase biodiversity within the Valley. However, as with most volunteer-based organisations, Open VUE has quite a few challenges associated with getting these ideas to fruition due to low volunteer turnout. Funded by …

Join us for our annual Keep NZ Beautiful Clean-Up! We will be meeting at the Valley Project office, 262 North Road, at 10am on Friday the 27th of September. Please wear appropriate footwear and sun safe clothing. Gloves and bags will be provided. If you have any questions please email openvue@northeastvalley.org or call 473 8614.

Do you enjoy making things? Are you tired of spending money on menstrual care every month? Would you like to reduce waste by using reusable pads instead of disposable ones? Are you looking for alternatives due to allergies or discomfort from conventional pads or tampons? Want to manage your period more sustainably? Join us for the Pad Kit Making Challenge! Research shows that a menstruator can save on average at least $2000 by using reusable options instead of disposable products, and we believe the real amount is even higher. Using reusable pads can benefit your health by avoiding chemicals …

The results are in, and we can count ourselves lucky here in North East Valley! Thanks to students from Otago Polytechnic and the Nature Club at North East Valley Normal School, we were able to contribute data for the 2024 NZ Bird Count from four different locations in North East Valley. Observations were made between 29 June – 7 July, and sites included Chingford Park, Bethune’s Gully, Wilkinson Street Park in Pine Hill, and the North East Valley Community Garden behind the Normal School. Manu pango (blackbirds), korimako (bellbirds) and pīwakawaka (fantail) were observed at all four sites. Students …

Thank you for your interest in the Garden Star program. Please fill out the form to calculate your garden biodiversity rating. By completing and submitting this form, you'll be eligible for a FREE VOUCHER to purchase two native plants from Ribbonwood Nursery. You can submit the form by emailing it to openvue@northeastvalley.org or you can print it out and drop it to the Valley Project office at 262 North Road. 

Recognised through-out the world as the toughest, highest, longest 24-hr race since Pheidippides did not exist, since Adam wasn’t a boy, and since bread was sliced. The 24-hour fundraising race sees participants running, or walking, as many times as they can to the summit of Mount Cargill and back down again. The races’ inception came about by a group of running buddies contemplating crazy challenges for themselves over beers. The annual Crush the Cargill event is all set to commence at 10am on the 12th of December. Crush the Cargill and The Valley Project are about getting people together …

Weed Bash Success! The Weed Bash was full of celebration last month when various Weed Warrior crews and Community Gardeners removed about 15 woolsacks of weeds from community spaces and backyards! The target weed for the Weed Bash - Banana Passionfruit Vine (Passiflora tripartita) was the top of the list for removal - a highly invasive weed, with many plants removed from backyards. Banana Passionfruit Vine is a climber, climbing onto trees, eventually smothering them. Keep on look out for a plant with three lobed leaves, pink, tubular hanging flowers when flowering and banana-shaped fruit that ripen from …

Does the idea of sharing your backyard with more native wildlife excite you? By working together as one big “Backyard Ecosanctuary” and a Lindsay Creek team of 14,000 community members, this idea is now becoming a reality. The “Backyard Ecosanctuaries” programme is an initiative by the Open Valley Urban Ecosanctuary (VUE) project to encourage positive outcomes for native wildlife in backyards and community spaces through actions based in citizen science and education. We have several focus areas for 2020, driven by passions grown within the community. Primarily, we are focusing on habitat enhancement through planting and weeding and mammalian …

Throughout my walks over the last few weeks, I have been enchanted by the sight and sounds of many native and introduced bird species, which got me thinking more about some of the mammals living in New Zealand that we don’t often see. New Zealand Indigenous Mammals After watching the “So you want to be a bat-spotter” webinar from Predator Free New Zealand, I found out a little more about our native mammal species. We only have two species of native land mammals in New Zealand, both of these being bats (long-tailed and short-tailed bats) or pekapeka in Te …

With many members of our community currently staying home, we have been offered an opportunity to spend time exploring our backyards and local parks. Maybe in the last week or so you’ve found some new invertebrate creatures hiding in the wood pile, or slinking through the leaf-litter in the corners of your backyard that you’re not too sure what they are. How about giving Creepy Crawly Hunting a go? Carefully lift up logs or tiles/rocks in your backyard and see what might be congregating beneath. You’ll usually find some good hangout spots for invertebrates (they’re definitely not sticking to …

Do you want to do your bit to cut down on plastic bags AND support our great little playcentre community? Opoho Playcentre is selling these handy-dandy string bags. Contact us on 473 0819 or at opoho@playcentre.org.nz with the details of which bags you would like, or fill out this handy online order form – bit.ly/opohostringbag – and we’ll get back to you with payment details. You can choose your colours or get a whole happy rainbow set. Bags are available in cream, blue, pink, green and black. String bags are $8 each or three bags for $20. Opoho Playcentre …