During December there were 6 volunteer trips to Motuihe involving 117 volunteers and 43 leaders. One trip was cancelled due to weather.

Change of Editor
This is the last Motuihe monthly newsletter that I will be editing. As you can see from the number on this edition, I have produced 98 newsletters starting in 2014. It has been a privilege to do this work for the Motuihe Trust and I have learned so much and thoroughly enjoyed it. However, it is time for fresh ideas. I have the newsletters on file with an index system so this significant part of the Motuihe story is recorded and can be accessed. A big thank you to all those who have supplied articles, John for checking content and in particular Lois Badham who helped with technical issues, proof reading and wonderful photos. 
Fiona Alexander

Change of newsletter mail-out system
We are moving our mail-out database to a new system that will set us up for the future.  So that you continue to receive the newsletter, please follow this link:
https://motuihetrust.my.site.com/volunteer/s/weekend-volunteer
The first time you use the link, you will need to answer a few questions which will give us the information we need should you volunteer on the island - this is also the system we will be using for volunteers visiting the island next year.  If you wish to continue receiving the newsletter but don't wish to register, please email operations@motuihe.org.nz.

Administration Opportunities
We are seeking volunteers to help with a variety of administration roles, please get in touch if you are able to help (operations@motuihe.org.nz).  Full training and ongoing support will be given.

Upcoming volunteer trips
Thursday February 13th
Thursday February 20th

Summer Contractors
We have 3 young women working on the island over the summer, staying in the woolshed. Their main job is weed control but they will be involved in other work as well. Please make them welcome.
This year our contractors are:
Taylor Hopkins - recently completed a Bachelor of Applied Science at Toi Ohomai in Tauranga.
Hayley Forlong - recenty completed a Level 5 Diploma in Environmental Management at Toi Ohomai
Georgia Fitzpatrick - recently graduated from Lincoln University with a degree in Environmental Management. 

Summer contractors for 2024/25 Taylor, Hayley and Georgia. (photo Lois Badham)

Motuihe Trust Annual General Meeting
The AGM of the Motuihe Trust was held on Tuesday 3 December 2024 at the Outboard Boating Club.
The Trust Board for the coming year was voted in:
John Laurence (Chairman)
Michael Wood (Secretary)
Penny McIntyre (Treasurer) NEW
Max Smitheram
Peter Whitmore
Matt Baber
Matt Ewen
Jon Hind
Julie Thomson
Lois Badham 
Stuart Macintosh

The audited accounts were approved.

Motuihe Trust  Chairperson’s Report (summary)
For Year ended 30 June 2024
 
It is a pleasure to report that the fauna and flora of Motuihe island is looking awesome thanks to the very hard work by passionate volunteers over many years.  
The growth in trees and the expanding number of birds, tuataras and geckos has been wonderful to experience. Trees planted over the last two decades are now dominating the field of view and the birds are appreciating their expanding habitat and new arrivals including spotless crake, banded rail, pateke, and kaka are being seen and heard more often.
Foundation North
The Motuihe Trust is extremely grateful for the long term and significant financial support from Foundation North.
Support for the funding applications is to be acknowledged from Department of Conservation, Ngai Tai ki Tamaki, and Ngati Paoa .
Lotteries Grant
NZ Lotteries Grant Board approved a grant  for weed control work on the island. This grant has been extended for another year.
Operations Manager
In June 2023 the trustees engaged Jill Soufflot as Operations manager on a paid part-time  contractor basis to lead the volunteer programme, to chair the operations committee, to upgrade the communications strategy, and to assist with fund raising.  Jill has done an amazing job in bringing new energy and enthusiasm to the Project, with many successes in fundraising, volunteer organisation, and in establishing new volunteer activities such as the penguin team and the dotterel team.
Accounting
Tessa Perry offered to look after the book keeping records in March  and since then she has been doing a wonderful job in managing the records on Xero and ASB Bank and reporting each month to the Trustees on accounts to be paid, monthly profit and loss, balance sheet, and status of grant expenditure.
Transport Services to Motuihe Island
The Department of Conservation has been concerned about the condition of the Motuihe wharf following damage in January 2023 and reopening after repairs in September 2023. The wharf has been looked at by the Deputy Director General operations and more recently by the Department of Conservation Director General. Following consultants reports that the wharf needed to be permanently closed, an in house DOC engineer has reported that with maintenance work the wharf will be good for many years.   DreamWeaver, Red Boats, Sea Shuttles water taxi, and private Outboard Boating Club members provided ferry services for over 1000 volunteers during the year.
Volunteer House
Despite the Trustees best efforts to retain the volunteer house and refurbish it the Department of Conservation contracted a demolition team to crush the house with an excavator and remove the debris by truck and barge.
Walking Tracks
The Tieke Track takes visitors into the middle of the western forest remnants where kereru, tieke, fantail, tuis, bellbirds, kakariki, silvereye, grey warblers, whiteheads, are often seen and heard. Tuataras are often seen basking in the sun next to the track. The hardy team of volunteers led by the Operations Group have maintained the track by keeping the drains clear and the surface free of weeds. Lois Badham has led 116 volunteers clear 3.2km of other tracks.
Volunteer activities
Motuihe Trust provides a wide range of activities and opportunities for people to be involved with conservation on Motuihe Island. Sunday public trips, corporate midweek trips, overnight monitoring trips, school trips, kiosk managing,  short and long term trips.
Jill Soufflot chaired the  Operations team .  Fiona Alexander organised the weekend trips and provided volunteers with a monthly report on Motuihe activities. Simon Sheen organised the many large enthusiastic groups of midweek trips.
Weed Control
Weed control has been a big part of the volunteer programme with  rhamnus plants being reduced to almost manageable numbers during the year, but a noticeable increase in numbers of large woolly nightshade, mothplant,  and gorse.  The Trustees and volunteers are now anxious to not let the weeds take hold again. Simon Sheen ably supported by regular experienced volunteers organised large numbers of midweek volunteers to keep invasive weeds under control. 
Planting and Nursery
Chris Cotter, Ian Westwood, and Phil Francis upgraded the nursery during the year primarily to cater for the more difficult to grow threatened plant project, including kakabeak plants.
 
Planting was undertaken by small groups of volunteers during the winter months. 1800 trees were planted during the planting season making a total of 453,000 trees planted since the tree planting project commenced in 2003. Planting was mainly of canopy species being planted in amongst previous plantings to add diversity to the future forests. The aim of seed collecting is concentrating on species which used to grow on Motuihe but are not readily available on Motuihe. The nursery will be focussed on growing threatened plants for the rare plant project.
Biodiversity
Julie Thomson led the various biodiversity initiatives including the kiwi monitoring field trips, the camera grid monitoring and the gecko monitoring trips. One of the highlights has been the number of new young volunteers who have become regular members of the wildlife popular monitoring team.
Island Based Weed Contractors
Stuart MacIntosh engaged for a fourth summer two students over the summer holidays primarily to undertake weed control and also to assist with the Kiosk and other volunteer activities. This proved to be very successful. Stuart expertly managed all aspects of the summer contractors activities from engaging a professional weed contractor to train them for a week in safety, using GPS, weeding techniques, transport, food supply, and general care and oversight.
Finance and Administration
A huge thanks to Jill Soufflot  for management and reporting of the Trust’s finances and handing that task over to Tessa Perry in March 2024. Thanks to Michael Wood for his legal input.
Funds were  received from  Foundation North, DOC, NZ Lotteries, OBC members, and public donations, and from the Plant a Tree campaign which Lois Badham has been successfully managing.
Grants
During the 2023/24 year the activities were funded largely by grants from Foundation North, NZ Lotteries, and private donations. Ulrike Stephen has been contracted to write the fund raising applications and the trust is very grateful for her successes in raising funds to enable the various conservation efforts to proceed.
Threatened Plants Project
During the previous year the Trust applied for funding from a DOC Community Fund for a grant to grow rare and endangered plants on Motuihe Island. The application was successful and the Deed of Grant was signed in December 2023 and the project immediately commenced led by Bella Burgess and Ben Goodwin as paid contractors. Kakabeak seeds were collected from Motuihe and sown in the nursery. Scandia, taihinau, walhenbergia were also collected from other locations and grown on in the Motuihe nursery. These plants were planted at various locations around Motuihe during the latter part of 2024. Following advice from the DOC Kakabeak Recovery Team the locations were chosen based on wild sites and orchard sites. The sites were checked by archaeologists to confirm they were not infringing on heritage protection areas.
Relationships with Iwi
The Trust continues to develop our long-standing relationships with iwi of Te Motu-a-Ihenga; Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki, Ngāti Paoa, and Marutūāhu, who are kaitiaki of the motu. 
Governance
The Trust followed the three year Strategic Plan , primarily:

1. Demonstrably improved diversity of native flora and fauna on land, shore, and reefs.
2. Largely free of problem weeds, Free of animal pests.
3. Citizen Science programmes monitoring precious species. Conservation advocacy.

The  objectives were: Volunteer engagement, Engage with mana whenua, develop a communications strategy, maintain weed control, increase citizen science projects, broaden requests to funding souces, flora enrichment and planting in key areas, consider appointing communication and operations manager. This work is ongoing.
Conservation Advocacy
During the year the main efforts were in operating the Information Kiosk during the summer and by maintaining an active and informative website. Stuart and Denise and Fiona managed the Kiosk and Fiona Alexander and Lois Badham managed the website. Fiona wrote monthly reports for circulation to everyone on the database. Fiona looked after heritage aspects.
 
A huge thank you to everyone who helped make a difference.
The Motuihe Trust came into existence on 12 October 2000. Much has been accomplished and the fruits of the conservation programme are now becoming visible for all to experience.
 
Looking ahead it is proposed that more volunteers are given opportunities to lead and be involved with an extended range of conservation initiatives on Motuihe which are of particular interest to them.   This includes the rare plant project, fluttering shearwater project, penguin monitoring,  dotterel monitoring,  five minute bird counts, fungi monitoring, tuatara monitoring, wetapunga monitoring, and sand dune restoration,
 
John Laurence
Chairman.
3 December 2024
FOR THE FULL REPORT, INCLUDING REPORTS FROM THE VARIOUS PROJECTS, PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE WWW.MOTUIHE.ORG.NZ

Penny McIntyre
We welcome Penny McIntyre to the Board. Penny is a qualified accountant and is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Isthmus Group. Isthmus group have had a relationship with Motuihe over a number of years. They are Landscape Architects so their expertise and advice will be of great value to the Motuihe Project in the future. 

Motuihe water supply
Some of you may have heard that there was a problem with the quality of the drinking water on Motuihe after testing by DOC. After further testing, it was found that it wasn't the water itself, but one tap in the woolshed. The tap has been thoroughly cleaned and the water retested. The water from the filtered tap in the woolshed is now safe to drink. 

TRIP REPORTS
Wednesday 4 December Dreamweaver Trip
A hot fine day for the 21 strong Xero team to head out on Dreamweaver to Motuihe.  One of those days a full drink bottle & sun protection was a must have.
The weeders did sterling work alongside team leaders Stuart, Graeme and Ants tackling woolly nightshade and mothplant.  Both the track clearing and weeding teams worked in the Telegraph pole track vicinity.  The track clearing team worked on 100metres on predominantly flax along South East beach.  The slight breeze from the beach kept the conditions a little cooler.
Back at woolshed base, Jill Soufflot, Denise Macintosh and Joy weeded nursery plants.  The nursery looked tidier at the end of the day. Denise and Joy kindly opened up the kiosk for ice cream sales which went down as a real treat.
After lunch the Xero team and independent volunteer Saurara headed off for a relaxing swim at Ocean Beach before boarding Dreamweaver for their homeward bound trip.
The constant afternoon swell on Ocean Beach also meant Graeme, Anton and Lois had an unplanned wet pants event getting onboard Graeme's boat to head home. Never a dull moment!
Good to see and catch up with DOC Paul Davies on the island.  He was working through track mowing and clearing dead Norfolk pine branches. 
All in all, another great day on pest free Motuihe.
Lois Badham

Xero volunteers working on track clearing near Ohinerou Beach (photo Lois Badham)

Most mid week volunteers come as a corporate group. Saurara Mozel managed the day as an independent volunteer. Well done Saurara.

Friday 6 December 
We came, we saw and, unlike Caesar, we turned around and went back home.
52 of us from ASB, BNZ, Westpac and Auckland Council set out in the Dreamweaver. Enjoyed a Gulf trip, tried to tie up at the wharf and, correctly, decided it was too rough.
Meanwhile Lois and Colin had come out on Graeme’s boat. They claimed to complete the ‘work of 50 volunteers’. Which was good of them.
The rest of us headed back to pier Z in good order landing very much safe and sound.
 Simon Sheen

Wednesday 11 December Dreamweaver
This Dreamweaver trip was specifically for our friends of the Trust: Isthmus.
Some 43 volunteers with Jill B, Simon, Phil S and Ants glided over on the Dreamweaver to be met by Lois who came out on Stuart’s boat with Phil F Another lovely day with plenty of track clearing, weeding and nursery work.
Just to say that, once again, Isthmus wins the ‘catering of the year’ award. Beautifully packed in sealed containers we were treated to BBQ, various salads and cake!
Stuart had to sing for his supper as he gave a lunchtime lecture on the island, history, Trust programme and even fielded a Q&A session.
Isthmus have been great supporters over the years and we always welcome their visits. Enthusiastic, hard working, inquisitive and, let’s not forget, great catering.
Pleasant trip back to pier Z with all accounted for safe and sound.
Simon Sheen


Isthmus team track clearing (photo Lois Badham)


The Isthmus team recovering from their hard work (photo Lois Badham)

Friday 13 December Dreamweaver Trip
Last hoorah for the year on the Dreamweaver with 53 volunteers from Westpac, Intelihub, AIA, access groups and ASB.  Jill B, Elizabeth, Sian, Phil x2 and Simon were met by Lois who came out with Graeme on the DoC boat.
We followed the now familiar format of splitting into nursery work, track clearing and weeding. Suffice to say that all three work streams have seen significant progress through the spring/summer midweek visits. Lois had a team clear through the Tieke track, Phil, Elizabeth and Jill have the nursery in very good order. Meanwhile the weed forests above Ohinerau took yet another serious beating.
The weather could scarcely have been better; overcast for morning work then blue skies for lunch and RnR. Our guests had a wonderful time on the hot sheltered Ocean beach and enjoyed their trip home. So that’s another year of exceptional volunteering done. A huge thank you to the tireless Trust supervisors, our friends running the Dreamweaver and all our most welcome volunteers.
Happy Holidays to one and all - keep safe and sound.
Simon Sheen

AIA track clearing team (photo Lois Badham)

Volunteers Philip Sharp and Elizabeth Mead getting equipped for track work (photo Lois Badham)

Saturday 14 December Threatened plants water taxi trip

Poroporo flower (photo Lois Badham)

Dotterel Team shared the water taxi with the Threatened plants group
The Dotterel team was fortunate to have John Stewart and Kay visit the Motuihe beaches.  They are both experienced dotterel banders and we learned a lot from their visit.  With assistance from the team, John and Kay were able to capture 6 chicks and band 1 - the others were unfortunately too young for banding and will need to wait for another day!  Three adults were also caught and banded, which will enable us to keep more accurate records next season when pairs return to the beaches.
Jill Soufflot

Dotterel Chick (photo Hong Lim)

Sunday 15 December Penguin Team water taxi trip
Penguins
Gaia Dell'Ariccia who heads the Auckland Council Seabird Team joined the Penguin volunteers for a fun day visiting some of our penguin burrows.  We were taught how to use a burrowscope, which means in future we will be able to look inside the penguin burrows rather than trying to guess what is going on from the outside.  Our penguins on the island have chosen natural burrows over the nest boxes we've provided for them, which means they are often difficult to see and previously we've relied on poo and scratch marks to guess where our kororā are living.
 
We were very lucky to view 2 chicks in one of the burrows, and also unexpectedly a kakariki and 2 tui chicks in what we thought to be penguin burrows.  We are very grateful to Gaia for sharing her knowledge which will enable us to keep more accurate records about our little blue penguins in the future.  Our data is shared with the NZ Penguin Initiative so that we contribute to both regional and national monitoring records.
Jill Soufflot

Penguin chick down the end of a long burrow.

A surprise find in a penguin burrow, two Tui chicks.


Penguin Team (photo Lois Badham)