As Merri Creek Management Committee completes its 35th year of protecting and restoring the Merri Creek, we enter a new organisational chapter, with the departure of former Manager and hugely influential Merri Creek advocate and devotee, Luisa Macmillan. While Luisa completed her Manager role in August 2023, we have continued to benefit from her expertise and experience through a part-time role as Manager, Special Projects, which concluded in October.
Luisa Macmillan, who led MCMC for over 21 years.
When Lauren Branch walks along the Merri Creek in the hot, dry seasons of Gunyang (kangaroo apple season) and Biderang (hot and dry), there are usually around 20 pairs of little feet following close behind. As a teacher at Coburg’s Barry Beckett Children’s Centre (which enjoys a location just five minutes’ walk from the Merri) Lauren sees the creek as the perfect setting for place-based learning.
“Interacting with the creek gives opportunities for STEM (Science, Technology, English and Mathematics) as well as environment and wellbeing,” she says.
One of the concepts that Lauren enjoys exploring with her four- and five-year old kinder students is the changing of seasons according to what they are noticing in front of them, guided by the Wurundjeri seasonal calendar.
“At the beginning of the season, everything's quite green at the creek,” says Lauren. “You see more flowers out this time of year, but it will start to dry out very soon – even on the ground. The eucalyptus trees present in these really beautiful colours, all the way from yellows and reds, to pinks and greens, muted yellows and browns, even into purply colours.”
Students from Barry Beckett Children's Centre, with MCMC's Julia Cirillo.
Here at Merri Creek Management Committee, we celebrated the incredible commitment of volunteers the world over, on International Volunteers Day in December as well as year-round. Thank you!
Volunteers like you achieve so much for the Merri Creek: cleaning up litter, serving on committees to ensure the work of volunteer groups is effective, sharing a connection to nature with others, testing water-quality, planting trees, weeding and monitoring birds and other species. Happy International Volunteers’ Day to all our wonderful volunteers!
Hear from our WaterWatch and Litter Clean-up Coordinator, Julia Cirillo, together with some of the wonderful volunteers from the Merri Platypus Paddle Group about why volunteering makes so much of an impact – for us and for those who do it – in this video.
MCMC's Julia Cirillo with Colin Abbott, Heather Harris and Helena Kelada from the Merri Platypus Paddle Group talk about the joys of volunteering.
Find out more about volunteering with the Friends of Merri Creek or the Merri Creek Management Committee.
Video kindly shared by the Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Action.
As Harry White spent the day walking along a long stretch of the Merri Creek lined with big, old red gums and listening to the trickle of water over rocks, he reflected on the joys of working on Wurundjeri Country.
“We were searching for weeds like Chilean Needle Grass, but as we walked, we spotted some Growling Grass Frogs – which hadn’t been seen in that part of the creek for several years – and a Sacred Kingfisher. It was really special.”
At the time, Harry was a Melbourne University student, fulfilling the work placement requirements of his Masters of Ecosystem Management and Conservation at Melbourne University, under the guidance of MCMC’s Ecological Restoration Program Coordinator Chris Geary.
Harry White, MCMC Ecological Restoration Team and former Melbourne University student.
Fiona Taylor is a Humanities and Geography teacher at Coburg High School, a local resident and a member of the Merri Birdies, one of the WaterWatch groups along the Merri Creek.
What’s your favourite spot on the Merri Creek?
There are too many to choose! One I love is where we do the Merri Birdies and WaterWatch monitoring with our Coburg High students, opposite De Chene Reserve. It’s quite enclosed under the trees, and the sound of water flowing over the rocks is so peaceful. I also love riding along the track, especially in drizzly rain. I always arrive in the best mood after riding along the creek.
Favourite time of year?
I love spring – the cygnets and ducklings and the wattle and eucalypts flowering, seeing deep into the creek, inspecting the fish and creek bed.
Fiona Taylor, member of WaterWatch group the Merri Birdies and teacher at Coburg High School.
If you’ve ever taken a Sunday stroll along the Merri Creek and noticed a group of people clutching clipboards and buckets, gathering water samples along the bank, there’s a good chance it was one of the nine WaterWatch groups currently active along the Merri and Darebin creeks and tributaries.
WaterWatch is a Victoria-wide citizen-science program dedicated to monitoring waterway health. In the Merri Creek catchment, the program is hosted and supported by MCMC. Through a range of practical, hands-on activities with volunteers and school groups, the program engages local communities to foster understanding and ownership of local water-quality issues.
WaterWatch volunteers the Merri Mayflies
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See a web version of these fabulous panels which celebrate the outstanding community achievement since 1975 in transforming Merri Creek from a weed-smothered drain to a much-loved waterway running through a bushland corridor: fronts of panels (17MB file); backs of panels (9MB file).
The two metre size panels were originally displayed at libraries and other public places throughout the Merri Creek catchment over 16 months until late 2016, in celebration of MCMC's 25th Anniversary.
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Merri Creek Management Committee. 2 Lee St, East Brunswick, Victoria, Australia 3057 (view map in new window )
Phone:(03) 9380 8199 Email: admin@mcmc.org.au ABN: 13 025 599 242
© Merri Creek Management Committee
