Planting this Saturday, Glenella St on Fish Creek 9:00am

Do you ever get sucked in by those pleas like the ones in in Wikipedia? They read something like “A personal plea from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia” and they always have a super serious but slightly doe-eyed photo. I know I do. I like Wikipedia and when Jimmy makes a personal plea, I nearly always respond, if only to get rid of that stupid photo staring at me.

I thought I’d try one myself. It’s not something you try every day. You need an occasion. A big, memorable, important, world-changing, paradigm-shifting occasion. One that you know is going to be the start of something really big.

This Saturday will be one of those moments in history. It feels like the rebirth of both SOWN and BRAIN, and the culmination of the past few years gradually building up the strength of both groups to work together on something ground-breaking.

It reminds me of one of my first big events with SOWN in 2003 when I was getting to know everybody, when we had more than 90 people turn up and planted over 1600 plants. Like now we had recent good rains and the good growth for our efforts. Like then it was reclaiming a major stretch of creekbank for both people and the natural environment.

The planting on this Saturday is also on one of those crucial stretches of creek that was almost lost to us from neglect. It was overrun with weeds and yet has pockets of amazing local rainforest. The weeds have now been mostly cleared, the site is ready to plant, and all we need is you.

Let’s make it a celebration, a new beginning, a festival of fun for a good cause.

This is my personal plea to you. Together, we can make a difference. Please come along and bring your friends.

Robert Whyte DIRECTOR, SOWN