Satya Sai Auckland Regional Group Planting Day—July 29, 2012

The Satya Sai Group have become good friends of CUE Haven.  They helped us with our nursery mural painting in February 2011, came out for a planting day in July 2011 and helped spread metal on the new walking track in May 2012.  On Sunday, July 29, fourteen members of the Auckland Regional Group ignored the bad weather forecast and came out for a fun and productive planting day.

Earlier in the morning Tom and our friend Rene who with his wife Marianne was visiting from the South Island, laid out the young trees where they were to be planted.  Marianne assisted with organising morning tea. Our supporters from Nestle had generously provided coffee and other beverages and Milo snack bars.  Thanks Nestle!!

The group arrived shortly before ten and after morning tea and a short introduction, Tom gave a short presentation on safety before the group headed out to the planting site.

Today’s job was to fill in gaps in an area that had previously been planted so that we can establish a good canopy for future regeneration growth.  The terrain varied from windy hillsides to wetlands.

The group was enthusiastic and energetic and very quickly planted all the trees that had been laid out.

We then moved down the road to another section that needed some in fill planting.

After about three hours of work the group managed to plant about 550 trees—a fantastic effort considering the terrain and weather.

Then it was major cleaning up in the nursery before heading for lunch.

After lunch we celebrated Meera’s birthday with a chocolate cake.

A sweet end to another great planting day at CUE Haven!

We want to say a special thanks to our old friends Rene and Marianne.  Although they are on holiday they have been a big help with organising planting days and working hard alongside the volunteers.

And a very big thank you to our new friends – Ashu, Asmita, Ayas, Bharathy, Manuel, Meera, Mike, Muni, Payal, Ram, Shailendra, Shobi, Shruti and Vibha for their hard work planting.

We want to especially thank Shobi and Payal for their efforts in organising and coordinating the Satya Sai group visit.  The Satya Sai group has made major contributions to CUE Haven and we really appreciate and enjoy your visits.  Thank you for your friendship and support. We look forward to seeing you all again soon.