Melville Koppies Management Committee

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Melville Koppies Management Committee

Annual report

1stJuly 2007 to 30thJune 2008

Sporie van Rensburg, the man who got Melville Koppies accepted as a Nature Reserve in 1959, attended our AGM last year. Sadly, Sporie passed away in November 2007. He kept a passionate interest in Melville Koppies until the end and will always be known as ‘The Father of Melville Koppies’. Dankie Sporie vir die erfgenis.

This has been a really special year thanks to the efforts of the whole management, guiding and conservation teams. Despite abundant rain, the conservation team has controlled weeds over most of the reserve. It looks superb! The guiding team has given wonderful value-added service to visitors. All members of the Management Committee have contributed in their particular portfolios, anddone more. Melville Koppies is well branded and our work in caring for the reserve has been acknowledged in special donations and awards.

Conservation

Some think that a well maintained green space means acres of neatly mown Kikuyu grass. To conservationists, a well maintained nature reserve means fields of long grasses anddense unruly-looking vegetation, like the fashionable two day growth that the trendy kweek. We work hardto keep this natural look. It means grovelling about pulling up weeds, picking up litter, building stone erosion bars and maintaining structures. This is not glamorous showcasing stuff, but it is essential maintenance work which is often not understood or appreciated.

Fortunately, benefactors appreciate this Cinderella work and have provided funds specifically for maintenance. We have averaged over 200 man hours per week. Over 1200 plastic bags have been used since October 2007 for bagging weeds with seeds and some litter.

The rainfall this year was more than double last year’s. The exceptional rains and warm weather led to continual explosions of weeds and continual follow up was necessary. Because the work was just overwhelming, we concentrated on specific areas and had to leave some for next year. These are mostly on MK West.

Unfortunately, weed seeds are continually blown in or brought in by birds, particularly from Council owned property to the north and far west.

Spots that were very degraded have benefited from constant weeding. They have been seeded up with indigenous vegetation which has flourished with all the rain. One particular success story is a patch next to the cemetery fence near circle 86. It was once infested with bugweed, blackjacks, Khakibos and marog.

Fire breaks have been useless as the whole of the Koppies was targeted by a pyromaniac for the fourth consecutive year. He has been identified as a white, middle aged male, but has not been caught yet

The paths on MK East and Central are all in good condition after extensive work on them. Winter fires denuded the vegetation and heavy spring rains washed soil off the paths, which led to erosion channels. The paths on MK West need constant attention because the stone erosion bars we build are continually damaged by mountain bikes.

Fritz Solms hired rubble removal skips and we removed 12cu m of old rubble from behind his house in Kafue Rd on MK East. It snowedduring this operation and the rubble had to be dug up from under the snow. City Year students didrubble clean up on MK West. 9cu m of rubble was removed from one patch just below the trigonometry beacon.

The Master Plan for the environmental management of Melville Koppies has been updated and submitted to Johannesburg City Parks.

The wood carving association cut up and removed huge Wild olive branches that had toppled over onto the disabled path and old road in the arboretum.

Other improvements

• We funded an attractive stone and cement path up to The Cave on MK West. This has improved the access and seems to have deterred people from messing it up. A heritage plaque, funded by John Freer, is ready to be installed at the cave.
• The community sponsored a R75 000 fence at the 3rd Avenue entrance to MK West. It has vastly improved the appearance and security of this entrance. Marlene Maloon has further enhanced the entrance with an indigenous garden.
• South African Heritage Resources Agency installed a blue ceramic plaque at the main Judith Rd entrance
• The main entrance at Judith Rd has been planted up with indigenous succulents to complement the new plaque.
• Visitors can relax on the new donated polywoodbench at the old gun emplacement site and at the one at big pool on MK Central

There were many sightings of hedgehogs. John Freer saw a Dusky lark, a ‘lifer’.

Research

• Peter Johnson’s calendar of floweringtimes of Melville Koppies flowers will be ready in time for spring.
• Megan Field from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) isdoing research on the temperatures of termite mounds on MK Central.
• Megan Mackay has done small mammal trapping on MK Central. She is analysing the data collected from 128 traps that were set over a few months.
• Afri Bugs did a survey of insects on MK Central. This was part of a survey of 24 sites in Gauteng, commissioned by Strilli Oppenheimer. The data is still being analysed. The collection of the insects at MK was featured on 50/50.
• Teodor van Wyk has presented MK with a beautiful collection of over 400 insects which he did for a grade 11 project at school.

Education

• Special courses were arranged at MK. These were flowers with Prof.Kevin Balkwill, Iron Age people with Prof. Tom Huffman, grasses with Norman Baines and geology with Prof. Kim Hein.
• MKMC sponsored a grade 9 science orientated field work course at Melville Koppies from the education fund. Delta Environmental Centre developed the course.
• Mindset produced a video of the Story of Melville Koppies, written by Richard Hall. It covered the geological history of Melville Koppies and was funded from the MKMC education fund.

Public relations

• Despite having no budget for public relations, Melville Koppies gets extensive coverage in a variety of media, including newspapers, magazines, live radio shows, websites, residents newsletters and TV. This is much appreciated. A special thanks to the Northcliff and Melville Times for their regular positive coverage and for publishing Norman Baines’ weekly Koppie Klippings column.
• Three newsletters have been sent to the email database.
• Guides have been invited as guest speakers to various clubs and institutions.
• We took part again in the annual five day Yebo Gogga exhibition at Wits.
• The Melville Koppies 24/7 call centre operates efficiently.
• In June, Nedbank acknowledged the work we do at Melville Koppies by donating R10 000 for maintenance of the Koppies in their Local Hero programme.
• In June, Bird Life SA awarded Wendy Carstens and the team the Eagle Award for maintaining Melville Koppies, an urban bird habitat.
• The Mail and Guardian ‘greening the future’ Award placed the Melville Koppies entry on the short list of prize winners. We attended the awards banquet in June, but did not get an award.
• Blackheath Rotary awarded Richard Hall and Wendy Carstens the prestigious Paul Harris awardin July 2007 for their work at Melville Koppies.

Security

This continues to be a problem as the fence on Beyers Naude is more down than up. Anyone can simply walk into MK Central, the supposed secure section. Smash and grab robbers plague motorists at the Judith/Beyers Naude intersection and sort out the loot in the Koppies. Suzette Gordon of JCP sends out her wardens as soon as possible if we find serious problems.

The new glass on the empty lower furnace shelter has been vandalised again. The granite bench at the lookout point on MK East was smashed into small pieces.

Mabotwane security, is neither able to/or willing to supply a roster of guards that will be on duty each week. We never know who will be on duty as the guards are changed frequently and new guards just appear.

A couple of incidents have been reported, but when we compare this to incidents elsewhere, the Koppies are definitely not a hot spot.

Financial

2007 / 2008
Average monthly expenditure / 3 500 / 5 000
Average monthly expenditure on labour / 2 900 / 4 400

We needed to spend much more on labour this year due to the excessive rains which resulted in continual explosions of weeds. The number of visitors was similar to last year so we squeaked through on finances. Extra donations during the year and some generous donations towards the end of the year have taken the pressure off and have given us a very good start for next year.

Most of the donors wish to remain anonymous, so we can’t mention some and not others.However, we would like to thank all the benefactors most sincerely who have been so very generous in supporting our efforts to conserve Melville Koppies.

Some of the donations have been in material form, i.e. two polywoodbenches, a set of 600 birthday calendars for fund raising, and a fence on MK West to the value of R75 000.

We applied for and got Public Benefit Organisation (PBO) status from SARS. This means that people who give us donationsdo not have to pay donations tax. Bequests to the MKMC from deceased estates are not liable for death duties either.The Friends of Melville Koppies constitution is being adjusted by Alan Farndell from Van Hulsteyns attorneys to incorporate the PBO requirements.

Number of visitors

The value of the reserve should not be measured by the amount of people who visit. The reserve is a very fragile environment and cannot sustain hordes of unsupervised people trampling over the veld

However, statistics are kept for control and interest. The average recorded number of visitors on all sections was similar to last year, i.e. 340 per month with more visitors on organised groups than visitors on open days. We scheduled 48 open days on MK Central, 12 monthly hikes on MK West, 2 Cross Koppie hikes and a children’s nature programme in April. Groups included 18 schools, 27 other special groups, 5 university groups and 7 bird ringing sessions by Gail Schaum. These figures exclude the church groups which worship on MK West.

All groups were ledby MK guides, educators or environmentalists.

The number of visitors to Melville Koppies has remained constant, which is good considering all the other green spaces which are being promoted and looked after by volunteers. All the ‘green’volunteer committees support and liaise with each other as we have the same aims. Various websites are getting people walking in Joburg. The aim is to get people out of the malls and into nature.

Guiding news

Samantha Meyer, a highly qualified tour guide, gained initial experience in guiding at Melville Koppies. Whenever she was free, she came to the Koppies for peace of mind and to do some pleasurable guiding. Unfortunately for us, Samantha has left for Canada to work on a conservation ranch. We wish her well in her new venture.

Corlette Schoonbee, a stalwart in Front of House duties, moved to a retirement village in Centurion. This is obviously too far to travel to Melville on Sundays. Thank you Corlette for all the years of dedication.

A walk at through Melville Koppies is a pleasurable experience, but with a guide it becomes a highly enriched experience. The guides who do Front of House duties play an essential public relations role on open days.Our guides are the valuable intellectual capital of the Koppies. They are also the fund raisers. Thankyou to everyone who has contributedtime and expertise in introducing people to our heritage.

The table below reflects duties by our team of volunteer guides over the past year.

Number of duties / guides
Over 30 / Wendy Carstens, Maria Cabaco
Over 20 / Norman Baines, David Carstens
Over 10 / John Freer, Lorraine Stone, Vicky Fah
Under 10 / Heike Hofmeyr, Ann Lamprecht, Bernice Aspoas, Donald Gair, Katty Cousins, Gus Broekmeyer, Margaret Hammond-Tooke, Lis Jones, Caroline Tuckey, Sheila Waywell, Samantha Meyer, Ben Mazibuko

African Independent Churches

The leaders of the 23 registeredchurches have bi-monthly meetings. David Hirsch is the MKMC representative with the churches. He organises month –end work parties with the churches on a rotational basis. Members repair paths and pick up litter on these Sunday work parties.

Because of the damage by fires, some people breaking trees for firewood and security issues, the registered churches have agreed unanimously to stop making fires to warm drums and to stop all night services on the Koppies. Unregistered worshippers are being contacted whenever they are seen to inform them of these restrictions. In future, anyone on the Koppies at night will be arrested by the police.

The 2007/8 MKMC committee

name / Title/job
Wendy Carstens / Chairman, PR, Treasurer, Conservation, guide
George Hofmeyr / Vice chair, security
Bernice Aspoas / Botanical Society Rep, guide
David Hirsch / Webmaster, AIC rep and work parties
John Freer / Guide
Lucky Nyathi Mdluli / AIC rep, conservation
Maria Cabaco / Guide, photography
Norman Baines / Guide, author
Peter Johnson / Research, conservation
Pat Richards / Ward councillor
Emailing team / Theresa Gibbon, Cynthia Rose, Rochelle Mawona, Grace Rubin
Conservation team / Wendy Carstens, Lucky Mdluli, Clement Ndlovu, Shepherd Ngwenya,
Dennis Nyirenda, Joseph Kasonga.

Johannesburg City Parks (JCP)

• This year JCP has assisted three times with grass cutting of pathsand fire breaks around perimeters in July. The work was done by outsourced teams.
• The fence on the east pavement of Beyers Naude was broken on the 3rd November 2007 and repaired on the 5th May 2008. It was smashed in the same place again on the 22nd June 2008.
• The new fence erected on the west pavement of Beyers Naude in February 2008 has been buckled or broken in seven different places. Until something effective is done by Joburg Roads Agency to slow down the traffic in the race track of Beyers Naude, tax payers will continue to fund repairs to fences.
• The leaking tap on the Bloom Pool was replaced.
• JCP funds one daily Mabotwane security guard for MK Central.
• JCP wardens deal with homeless people on MK West when people are present in hot spots. This usually needs several visits before the people move on.

Conclusion

A sincere thank you to everyone who has made this such a good year. Thank you too for all the support and encouragement that everyone has given to me through all the goodtimes as well as occasional hiccups.

Wendy Carstens