ASB Bank, Rotary and Community Volunteer Planting Day—July 11, 2012

As part of CUE Haven’s vision of Cultivating Understanding and Enlightenment, we have always hoped to bring diverse groups of people together to work with each other and get acquainted.  On July 11th we had the opportunity to have a corporate/community partnership as ASB Bank, the Rotary Club of Mt. Roskill/Hillsborough and some of our friends teamed up for a fun and successful planting day.  Not only were several organisations represented today, the team members ranged in age from teenagers to octagenarians.

Our friends Apeksha, Doug and John represented the community. This was Apeksha’s first planting day at CUE Haven. Doug and John are both veterans of previous planting days and walking track community days, and they set the pace for the rest of the volunteers.

The Rotary Club of Hillsborough/Mt. Roskill are long time friends of CUE Haven.  They helped out on one of our first plantings back in 2009 and ever since have been sending teams out to plant.  They also were well represented at the Community Mural painting day in 2011.  Today we were joined by Alan, Luc, David and Kassahun.

ASB Bank has a strong commitment to community support and service and last year sent a team out for a planting day at CUE Haven. This year we were helped out by Anita, Debbie, Ena, Jacob, Karen, Kesa, Rissa and Vinnie.  The group came from St Lukes, Lynmall, Blockhouse Bay, Glen Eden, West City and Te Atatatu branch offices and Jacob represented the West Auckland regional office.

Doug came out early and helped us set up and get the plants to the planting site.  Today’s site was the area around the main car park which up until now has been a laboratory for seeing how many different kinds of weeds we can grow!  We had previous cleared the area and Doug, Tom and John distributed the crates of plants to the areas where we wanted the volunteers to plant them.

By nine-thirty most of the team had arrived and after morning tea, we went to work.

Tom gave a briefing on the objectives for the day and explained the different plants we were planting and gave a short talk on planting techniques and safety.

The team wasted no time getting to work.  The weather was sunny and warm and perfect for planting.

In just a few short hours the team managed to plant over 460 trees!  The team’s efforts are a great contribution to the CUE Haven project.  The area they have planted will become a beautiful grove and will be seen and enjoyed by all visitors to CUE Haven in the future.

After a relaxing lunch some of the team members took a walk on the walking track.

Thank you all. You were a great team to work with and we really appreciate all your hard work. We look forward to having you back again!