Two-and-a-half years later, we’ve been enjoying many cup of tea in the barn, sheltering from the rain with volunteers, business groups or school children, made in our temporary “kitchen” with donated cups and Girl Guide cookies. Thanks to the “Million Dollar Mission” grant of $85.000 from The Trusts, we were able to buy materials and get the asbestos professionally removed. TTCF gave another $40.000 towards our new roof and Natural Flow wastewater treatment system. But we are most grateful and supported by all the people who so generously gave and are giving their time and expertise to this project: lawyers, builders, electricians, plumbers, handymen and women, designers, architects, doctors, students…

Sometimes it is hard to see how much has happened if you only see incremental changes each month, that is why I’ve collated some images of the process of our barn becoming our education center… for all to see, share and be proud of their part in it!

With a very special mention to our trustee John Sumich, who has been instrumental not only in his vision for the property, but specifically with his incredible supply of energy and enthusiasm on site, leading the teams and charging ahead, restoring the ecosystem as well as the barn!

Happy scrolling (click on an image to enlarge, then on the arrow to the right to go the the next one).

Thanks to an amazing grant of $40.000 from TTCF, The Trusts Community Foundation, we were able to get our roof replaced, just before the winter rains set in. A team of hard working men from ReelRoofing did a fine job installing the sheets of pre-painted corrugated iron and we placed a stop-motion camera on a post to capture their progress.

As soon as we’ve got the results (the roof isn’t quite finished yet), we hope to turn all the images into a very quick video of the barn roof being transformed! To be continued…

The goal of repurposing the existing old barn into a Sustainable Wetland Education Centre is now much closer with $40,000 to be spend on a new roof, insulation and a new waste water treatment system.
The removal of the asbesthos cladding from the barn was a big step forward towards a safe working environment and many volunteers subsequently helped to reclad the barn and worked on the interior. The recent successful application for a grant from The Trusts Community Foundation (TTCF) will allow several key elements of Matuku Link’s renovation and renovation of the barn into a Sustainable Wetland Education Centre.

Matuku Link Trust chair Chad Wilkie: “With a new roof and the re-cladding, the building will soon be weather tight and fit for purpose into the future, to be used by volunteers, students and groups alike”.

Another part of the funding will go towards the replacement of an old septic tank system in favour of a sustainable waste water treatment system. John Sumich, initiator and Matuku Link trustee, tells us that is an important part of the values of the project: “Matuku Link, has a prime aim of the centre being education of the values of wetlands and the streams and rivers associated with them, so the grant for this new waste water is particularly appropriate. With the next planting season approaching and many groups anticipated to assist, high quality water discharge can be assured”.

With a nursery full of plants to put into the ground in the coming months, the volunteers helping out at our monthly working bees will definitely appreciate coming back to an education centre where they will be warm and dry!

In between the days John Sumich is running his practice as doctor, he comes to Matuku Link to build the barn… and do loads of other jobs. The past weeks he has been using the materials supplied at ‘mates rates’ by Placemakers in Cook Street (thank you!) to construct the missing ‘nogs and studs’ in preparation for the building paper and plywood cladding. Hopefully this will give us some shelter from the rain and wind, as it seems to be more enjoyable outside the barn these days, than inside!

We’re now looking for a couple of sets of extra hands to help steady the ladder, make coffee in the breaks, hold the hammer, lift the plywood, pass the screwdriver… you know the drill: barn raising is teamwork!

Appropriately scheduled for coming Sunday 21st of October: Labour Weekend!!! Let us know if you’re coming and have specific wishes or skills, matukulink@gmail.com. Thank you and hope to see you there.

Annalily

All images by our voluntary professional photographer Jacqui Geux – thank you!

The fibrolite as cladding might have been a good idea 40-odd years ago, it definitely isn’t a good one now. Fibrolite contains asbestos fibers which could cause a specifically nasty kind of lung cancer. It usually takes a decade or more to develop, which led to a comment that we could ask our ‘over-80-year-olds’ to volunteer for the removal of it! Probably not the wisest idea… that’s why we contracted the team from Morecroft, who specialize in asbestos removal. They had all the right safety equipment for their staff with overalls, masks and gloves, turning them into alien looking invaders, plus an air monitor to make sure it was safe to breath, and even an industrial vacuum cleaner to remove the dust! They certainly removed many rat droppings, old bird nests and spiders as well.

Their managing director took a shine to our project and was able to give us a great deal and ‘mates rates’ on this project. Thank you Jason and  your team of diligent but alien looking staff!

Now it is safe again for our volunteers to work on: adding studs and braces for the next phase of recladding the barn…not with fibrolite this time though!

Last year Unitec students Landscape Design worked on a Master Plan for Matuku Link, and did a great job. It resulted in the trust forming clear ideas of “what goes where” in the landscape, and some ingenious solutions we could have never come up with on our own.

This year the Architecture students at Unitec were in charge, guided by architect Chris Murphy. In just three weeks, each student designed a future Sustainable Wetland Education Centre for Matuku Link. And again, they gave us a lot to think about: roof lines, connectivity to our existing barn, cantilevered options, all-in-one spaces or separated areas, materials, view shafts… it was great to have so many fresh minds help us come up with possible solutions. Every design included an idea, plan or material that we liked. And we were blown away by the quality of the presentations: models and posters and drawings…all done in just three weeks… I dread to think about the amounts of coffee and lost sleep these efforts must have required! We are very grateful though, and hope to be building something along these lines in the future.

Have a look at the images for a snap shot of some of the work.

This time last year, The Trusts donated $5 for each vote for our project…which in our case added up to a whopping $85.125! It was an amazing start to our campaign to raise funds for our Sustainable Wetland Education Center. And one year on, we thought we should give you an update.

First of all, we had a couple of working bees to clear out the rubbish, weed the area around the barn and make it semi-safe to enter it… You wouldn’t believe the stuff we found! After that initial clean up, we used the barn for quite a while as storage for our tools, materials and equipment to build the nursery. We prioritized that to be able to grow the plants for our wetland, as we didn’t want to miss a planting season (winter). With help of many groups, we planted about 2000 plants to date and are growing double that number, hopefully ready to be planted coming winter.

It turned out to be a good choice, because it also gave us time to work with the Landscape Design faculty at Unitec. Their students and tutors visited Matuku Link several times, presenting their ideas on site as well as at Unitec. The third year students worked in teams and on individual presentations. We were blown away with the quality of their research, thinking and solutions they gave us, which form a solid base for all we will be doing on the property, in several stages.

We are currently working on Stage 1: making the barn habitable: cladding inside and out, installing a working and accessible toilet and a small kitchenette so we don’t have to disturb our tenant anymore at 9 am on Sunday mornings. The dirt floor of the open part of the barn was covered with gravel and walls of clear plastic now give groups shelter from the westerlies.  After removing some cladding on the interior, a wall of plywood was added as well, and more plywood will be used in the interior.

All of the materials will be screwed in only, and used as whole sheets wherever we can, so they will be able to be reused when we move towards Stage 2: a fully usable barn with insulation, windows, a hole-free roof and working doors, giving us the opportunity to add educational materials (stuffed native animals and pests as examples, posters on the walls, activity materials) and clean, dry, warm working space with a desk and computer for the educator/manager. During this stage we can start to raise the funds for the third and final stage of the project.

This will be Stage 3: the full implementation of the Master Plan for an accessible, sustainable wetland education center with wetland (board) walks, student/research accommodation and facilities for visitors. As in any good conservation project, the bar is set high, and our ambitions well exceed our current resources. We’re aiming to create a unique experience for visitors to our wetland, celebrating our New Zealand environment. And we hope many people will join us on the journey to help create this vision.

Thank you, Annalily van den Broeke and the Trustees of Matuku Link: Chad Wilkie, John Staniland, Geoff Davidson, John Sumich. 

But for now, many hands making light work, this is what we’ve done to the barn over the past 12 months: