Kath McGuirk, Chair of YAN, was the deserving (and surprised) recipient of the John Betts award YAN's AGM on Tuesday 24th November. The John Betts Award was established in 2007 in memory of local Landcare legend John Betts and recognises outstanding service to Landcare. Nan Betts attended the AGM to present the award to Kath. Thanks for everything you do Kath!! Below is a summary of some of Kath's achievements from Linda Thane and Elizabeth Goodfellow from Bowning Bookham Landcare Group.
"Kath was a founding member of the restarted Bowning Bookham Landcare Group in 2016 , and in the all-important secretary role, played a key role in developing the group into the large and active Landcare Group it is now.
Kath has shown both enthusiasm and leadership, which has enabled regional Landcare groups to undertake a number of worthwhile projects, including extensive tree planting operations on many properties in the district and community projects such as habitat regeneration at Bowning Cemetery. Always keen to educate herself by attending workshops and field trips, Kath has championed projects which focus on teaching new skills to school children, landowners and the whole community. These include monitoring habitat change, bird surveys, identifying and collecting native seeds and regenerative pasture management.
Landcare nurseries and seed collections are Kath’s passion. Kath lead the set up and maintenance of the Bowning Bookham Landcare Group’s first nursery at Bowning Public School, and has facilitated the development of two nurseries at the homes of members within Bowning-Bookham. These nurseries have since raised over 20,000 seedlings for members and for distribution to other landholders in the area. At one nursery, a greenhouse has been added to enable seed raising over winter, greatly enhancing the group’s capacity to grow plants. Both of the Bowning-Bookham Landcare nurseries are participating in the exciting Climate Ready Project, growing species from different regions to support research into climate adaptation.
Kath has also been an essential member of the YAN Climate Ready Vegetation project team since 2018 - including setting up the YAN nursery managers network and developing the nursery practices needed to support a trial of multiple species with multiple seed provenances. Taking the Landcare nursery coordination, scale and practices to a whole new level.
Of course, all of this requires money as well as hard work, and Kath has been an effective grant applicant, and always followed through with results, which is essential for future projects. Most importantly, Kath’s can-do attitude and cheerfulness has helped sustain the group’s enthusiasm through a very tough period for farmers, which augers well for coping with whatever lies ahead."
