President's Report at the AGM 2003

At the last annual general meeting, membership fees were increased from Five dollars to ten dollars per family.

We lost a few members because of the increase but we really had no choice.

Insurance cost us $210 in the year 2001. This meant that membership fees from 42 families were required to pay it.

In 2002 our premium increased to $477 and that is 95 families membership fees.

Our quote for 2003 was $750 and this would have taken a huge percentage of our annual income from membership fees.

By increasing fees to ten dollars it gets it back to a manageable level.

After a lot of negotiating with several insurance providers resulted in a premium of $532 being achieved.

With the new fee levels, we can handle that but we needed a little help to run events such as our Picnic in the Park.

This year that help came from Wizard Auto Clinic and Nanette Lilley Property Centre who combined to sponsor the event.

The Picnic in the Park attracted more than 600 people even though the fireworks display had to be canceled at the last minute because of a total fire ban.

Earlier in the year Cr. Jane Prentice organised an information afternoon for Fig Tree Pocket residents at the local school hall.

Development applications were displayed in detail and people were on hand to discuss local issues.

A plan for modification and alternations to Biami Yumba Park was displayed and the negative effect by local residents caused us to hold a local referendum about changes to the park.

The vast majority of residents recorded a preference for the park to remain pretty much as it is, without other alterations and additions that were proposed by the Council.

These results were passed onto Cr. Prentice, along with a request for increased children's play equipment in River Park where facilities such as a toilet block already exist.

Our other referendum for the year related to neighbourhood watch and I was quite surprised to find insufficient interest for this program to be re introduced into the area.

Once again this year, our association participated in the Clean Up Australia Campaign. This was organised locally by Jane McLaughlan and resulted in 43 locals participating compared with eighteen the previous year.

It's a good program and it's amazing how much rubbish is pulled from the riverbank. Hopefully the day will be even more successful next year.

During the year the committee commissioned a brass plaque to be made up with the same wording as the original plastic one that we had made in 1988 to commemorate the planting of the Bicentennial fig tree.

This plaque has been set into a rock positioned near the tree which is located in the River Park area.

I would like to thank the members of the outgoing committee for their efforts over the past year.

Warren Fletcher
President

26 March 2003

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