Article by Tim Harte, photos by Brien Cohn

The annual Barrabool Hills Landcare Group end of year gathering brought numerous members of our community together for a socially distanced friendly chat and yarn. The crowd of more than 35 members of the Hills’ community relished the opportunity to meet and converse with their friends and neighbours and catch up after the tumultuous Covid 19 disrupted year we have had.

The crowd was privileged to hear from two guest speakers at the get together. Andrew Maclean, the recently appointed CEO of Landcare Victoria Inc., spoke of the importance and future of Landcare and Janine Duffy, President of the Koala Clancy Foundation, spoke of the importance of trees for Koala habitat and planned Koala habitat tree planting projects for the area for 2021.

Ian Kelly, our current Vice President, thanked Kaye Rodden (pictured above), our past President, for the tremendous contribution she has made to the Hills community during her time in the role. A brief bio about Kaye and a summary of her achievements and voluntary contributions to our community is included on page 8 of the February 2021.

Our thanks go to Heike and Mark who kindly hosted our end of year get together in their beautiful garden, and those who assisted in organising this community gathering, who together facilitated an event that enabled our community to come together after a trying year.