Grammar Gazette- Issue 2, 2013

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ARTICLE

Connecting Communities – Grammar Goes Green

MRS JUDITH TUDBALL, DEPUTY PRINCIPAL (OPERATIONS)

AUTHOR

THE ACQUISITION, AND ONGOING RESTORATION , of the former Marist Brothers Rosalie playing fields at Fig Tree Pocket by Brisbane Girls Grammar enables our School to continue providing exceptional sporting opportunities for the students in our community for generations to come. The School is very much looking forward to witnessing the great sense of School pride that hosting sporting fixtures at our very own home ground will imbue in our girls. Just as this campus will become the sporting heart of our School, we eagerly anticipate exploring the broader opportunities the campus will provide in areas such as environmental education. The purchase of the Sports Campus has already facilitated several opportunities for Brisbane Girls Grammar to engage with the local community. Since our successful Sports Campus Open Day on 20 April this year, the School has conducted two Grammar Goes Green days, connecting with the local Cubberla-Witton Catchment Network to assist with greening projects along the waterway that borders our campus. The Fig Tree Pocket community has now become a very significant part of the Girls Grammar community. By joining with local environmental group projects, a meaningful and tangible link to the care and stewardship of our local environment has been afforded to our students. The first of the Grammar Goes Green days involved a greening project along the creek-way just to the north of our Sports Campus. Local community members joined forces with members of our Grammar Environmental and Conservation Organisation (GECO), the Student Council, Brisbane Grammar School’s Greening Grammar team and supervising staff. Volunteers were treated to a guided walk through an area of successfully revegetated land, known as the Rainbow Forest, by the local environmental group. Having survived several floods in the past twenty

IMAGE Ms Deborah Perz, Chloe Yap and Georgia Newton

years, participants saw how revegetation and weeding had redirected flood water, attracted bird life and enhanced the natural beauty of this picturesque location, now so accessible to our School community. The working party then engaged in planting grasses and trees to further enhance the creek-side location that borders our Sports Campus. In a delightful connection between alumnae, Dr Cathryn Mittelheuser AM (1949) visited the site and discovered that two members of the community environmental group had attended their fifty year reunion at Girls Grammar the previous evening. Continuing the wonderful display of community collaboration, the Fathers Group undertook a restoration project at the Sports Campus on the same day. The Fathers Group, ably supported by Girls Grammar staff members, displayed great industry in their restoration of the original spectator seating and generously provided refreshments for the students and local environmental group on completion of their planting. Students, staff and community members appreciated the hearty barbeque provided by the Fathers Group while enjoying the glorious Fig Tree Pocket sunset.

DAD POWER – MR KEVIN COATES, FATHERS GROUP PRESIDENT For more than thirty–five years, the Fathers Group has been supporting the School — in particular, by developing and maintaining Marrapatta, the Memorial Outdoor Education Centre. Now, with the addition of the Sports Campus at Fig Tree Pocket, we look forward to making an even bigger contribution. A small group of fathers, with the help of Girls Grammar staff, recently did an outstanding job fixing the Sports Campus grandstand. It is early days, however, for Fig Tree Pocket and there will be plenty more opportunities to get involved.

We need all the help we can get and, with only twenty to thirty dads out of more than 1100 volunteering for these working bees, there is definitely room for improvement. There is always great food, drinks and camaraderie to be had, and I encourage more dads to sign up for both Marrapatta and Fig Tree Pocket working days. We are all ‘too busy’ today, but priorities have to be set and my children’s education is a very high priority for our family, so I make time. Dads, do something for your daughters – and, most likely, your future grand-daughters – and get involved with their School.

IMAGE Students returning from their greening project to join the Fathers Group restoring the spectator seating

GRAMMAR GAZETTE