Butterfly Garden Party and Project Launch

Wednesday 24 Oct 2012

th

Guest list:
Wayne Kinrade
walker)
Helen Coleman
newspaper (?)
Tim New
Jim Mead

Karin Diamond
Nic Drever

Location

9.00
9.05- 9.10
9.10-9.15
9.15 -9.20
9.25-9.30
9.30-9.40
9.40-9.50

Hall

10.40

Leader

Warren Murphy
Uncle Bill

Time

9.50- 9.55
9.55- 10.00
10.00-1010
10.10-10.15
10.15-10.30

Julie Madotti (stilt

School environs/
butterfly garden

BER building

Activity

Students assemble in the hall as per usual school

Cheryl to welcome Uncle Bill
Welcome to Country ceremony/ Uncle Bill to talk o
Jeremy to introduce event and welcome various di
School Song
Book story about the evolution of the garden with
Anne to introduce various members of the project
complete butterfly mosaic.
Wayne to talk about the project/ present a plant to
Butterfly song
Community dignitary to reply
Uncle Bill to talk of significance of smoking cerem
School to move from hall, along access path, past
through butterfly garden. En route the partners of
guard of honour through which the students will
symbolic gift of the gum leaf. Students to then pas
they do a tour of the butterfly garden. They are gr
assemble in the upper carpark.
Recess students disperse for recess. Morning tea
dignitaries and staff. Video of Betty, butterfly them

Cheryl: On behalf of the Eltham East Primary School Community, may

I please introduce Uncle Bill of the Wer-run-jury tribe. Uncle Bill is a
tribal elder and is going to provide a traditional Welcome To Country to
this mornings occasion.

Uncle Bill: Welcome to Country. "Iwouldliketoshowmyrespectand

acknowledgethetraditionalcustodiansoftheland,ofelderspastandpresent,onwhich
thismeetingtakesplace."
Uncle Bill/ Jeremy The welcome to country is a ceremony which
shows respect to the traditional custodians the traditional owners of
the land. As we have seen today, the welcome to country ceremony is
performed by a local aboriginal elder to symbolise the traditional
owners blessing to an event taking place on the land. What Uncle Bill
did this morning was to symbolically welcome us all to the land. It is
always the first part of an event.
Jeremy: Thank you Uncle Bill. Wed also like to welcome a number of
other guests from the community who have come to help us celebrate
today.
From Nillumbik council, Councillor: Helen Coleman
Zoologist and Butterfly expert: Tim New.
Greening Australias: Jim Mead
Now youll notice there are other some other seats on stage but well
meet those guests in a moment.
Can we please stand as one school to give our guests a rendition of the
school song please.
There are two things that we are celebrating today and Im going to
talk about the first one. The first reason is that it is the first anniversary
the first birthday if you will of our wonderful Butterfly garden. Just
over a year ago, Eltham East Primary was selected as one of just three
Victorian schools by Greening Australia to participate in a very special
school community project. This project was to design and create a
butterfly attracting garden and a year on, we can see the lovely green
fruits of our efforts. This project would not have been possible without
the support of Betty Amsden who is a real live millionaire and a
philanthropist this means someone who generously shares her wealth
to special causes like the creation of our butterfly garden. It was one
of Bettys dreams to bring children together in an environmental
project and in doing so inspire them to experience and enjoy nature.
Unfortunately Betty could not be with us today but we spoke to her last
week and she is thrilled to hear about all our achievements.
Now, whod like a story about the creation of our Butterfly Garden.
Once upon a time there was a young and beautiful butterfly named
Lucy. Lucy was a happy and fun loving butterfly who enjoyed nothing

more than to flit about the flowers, dance on the spring air and warm
her copper and black wings in the sun. Lucy had lots of good friends.
There was Annie Ant who was always scurrying about trying to make
sure her 6023 children got off to school on time, Christopher Cricket
who loved to show off his muscley legs and there was Beatrice Bee
who was crazy busy like, think of the busiest youve ever been, then
times that by a million. Lucys best friend though, was a caterpillar.
Aside from being REALLY funny, this friend was very smartyou see,
this friend spent lots of time right here, at Eltham East PrimaryCan
you guess who he is? How about a hint he is very jealous of Ms
Bostocks shoe collectionThats right, its Sir WallyCan anyone see
Sir Wally?
Now, despite having a wonderful set of friends, Lucy did have issues
problems, you might say. You see, Lucy had no home to call her own.
Like all of us, Lucy needed a home which really suited her.
She needed somewhere that had the plants and flowers that she loved,
a place where she could have all the yummy food she needed and
where she could stay warm and dry when it rained. She had tried
living with Annie Ant NO way not with all those thousands of kids
racing too and fro! She had tried living with Beatrice Bee; What a
squeeze! She had heard of high density living but that was crazy! She
had tried living with Christopher Cricket but, well, he snored and you
could hear him from across the paddock has anyone ever heard
Christopher Cricket snoring at night? Sooo loud! What was Lucy to do?
One morning, Lucy caught up with her best friend Sir Wally for nice a
cup of nectar. Sir Wally noticed that Lucy seemed a bit sad and asked
what was the matter. Oh Sir Wally, she sighed I really love spending
time here in Eltham, in fact its the only place I want to live.but I
cant find a home!
I see said Sir Wally, I tell you what, let me speak to my friends at
Eltham East Primary and well see if they can help. Lucy got very
excited- Oh would you! she exclaimed thank you thank you thank
you Sir WallyYoure the best!!.
When they met the next day, Lucy thought Sir Wally had an extra
bounce in his step which is really saying something when youre
talking about a caterpillar. Sir Wally sat Lucy down and told her some
fantastic news. He had spoken to the EEPS students and they told him
about this wonderful woman they knew, named Betty, who was kind of
like a fairy godmother.

The students said that with her help, and help from the kind people of
Eltham, they thought they could create a magnificent new home for
Lucy and that they even had the perfect spot for it, already picked out.
Slide one: Betty and kids/ BG site pre preparation.
Can anyone see Betty the fairy godmother? Thats Betty
Amsden who I was speaking about before.
Lucy could barely contain her excitement, and went to give Sir Wally a
high five, only to realise that she would probably be there for quite
some time. She fluttered off to Eltham East Primary, found herself a
beautiful look out point on a tree in the sanctuary, and over the next
few days, marvelled at all the wonderful work the students did.
Slide two: Level four mapping BG area
Firstly, she saw the grade fives and sixes measure the area up so they
could draw up a plan which had everything to make her home just
perfect
Well, look at the older grade kids measuring up the area above
the BER so they could use some of the maths they learnt in
class to map out the area so that it had contained all the
things that butterflies like Lucy need
Slide three: BG plan
A few days later she saw the plan and indeed - it did look perfect
Have a look at this birds eye view of our butterfly garden or
should we say butterflys eye view!
So for the parents, Thats just a sample of some of the work we
do up in level four that was just something we knocked up
one maths class.
True to their promise the garden was going to grow all the plants,
grasses, flowers and shrubs she loved there was the delicious sweet
bursaria flower with its delectable nectar, the funny named plant the
Dusty Millar, the beautiful flowers of the chocolate lily plant and the
long Kangaroo grass. Even better, the garden had areas where she
could spend time with her new friends, the people of EEPS.
If we look up at the poster, we can see some of those plants and
theres the outdoor classroom where we can spend time with Lucy on
sunny summer days.

Slide four: kids planting

Before you could say Eltham Copper Butterfly, the students swung
into action to get the garden ready. The Preps logged off mathletics
and got rid of all the weeds in the area. The grade ones and twos got
all the different plants ready by arranging them in the places that they
were going to be planted. The grade threes and fours dug holes for the
plants and carefully placed them in so that they would grow big and
strong and then the grade fives and sixes made sure they had enough
water and mulch so that the plants wouldnt get too thirsty.
A few days later, Lucy looked at her new home, the butterfly garden,
with amazement.
Slide five: established garden
What was once a dry, dusty space had been transformed into a lush
green garden which was just perfect for her. It had all the food and
shelter she would ever need and whats better had all her new
friends and company that she could ever wish for and all right here in
her favourite place Eltham.
She flew down from the sanctuary and caught up with Sir Wally who
was strolling along the garden path. Sir Wally! she cried This is
fantastic its awesome, amazing, astounding, astonishing! Now I have
a place to call my very own!
Sir Wally smiled. Perhaps youd like to tell the rest of your family? he
said. If you like it so much, do you think they might? Would they
ever! she laughed. Im going to tell my mum and dad, my
grandparents, my aunts, and uncles, cousins everyone! I cant
believe how special this is. I feel very lucky Sir Wally!
And we are very lucky to have you he replied you are a rare,
delicate and beautiful creature, Lucy, a symbol of our natural world
that is very unique to Eltham, to our home.
Thank you Sir Wally she replied, Im off to get my family so I can
show them our wonderful new home. Can you please thank all the
students and people of Eltham, theyre absolute stars. Sir Wally
watched her as she took to the sky. no Lucy he said it is you who is
the star of Eltham.
THE END

Anne: The second reason we are here today is to launch the new 4
year project to conserve ECB populations in the Nillumbik Region called
Pulling back from the Brink. The project was initiated by the Friends
of the Eltham Copper Butterfly and Friends of Woodridge Linear
Reserve together with Parks Victoria and Nillumbik Council. Our school
will be involved in the project over the next 4 years.
We would like to introduce our special guests representing the partners
in the Bringing back from the Brink project and for each of them to
come forward and contribute a piece to our Butterfly montage. The
montage symbolizes the coming together of different members of the
local community to create something very special in this case the
survival of our very own local natural emblem the ECB.
And now a few words from Fo ECB - Wayne Kinrade
Wayne: Wayne to speak on behalf of the friends groups and present a
gift to the school as a thanks for our collaboration
Jeremy: Thank you Wayne and we look forward to the continuation of
our work with the wider community to bring our Eltham Copper
butterfly back. Now, in celebration of this work could we stand again to
sing The Star of Eltham
Anne W. Introduce Butterfly song: Choir doing butterfly song
Councillor: thanks
Jeremy: Thank you councilor for those kind words. Now we are about
to head up to the butterfly garden. Your teachers will take you up along
the path above the oval where you will receive the traditional gift of a
gumleaf from the different members of the project. You will then head
up to the butterfly garden and through a wave of smoke which is
another aboriginal ceremony. To tell us a little bit about that, Id like to
welcome Uncle Bill back.
Uncle Bill: Smoking Ceremony description

PBB members to collect gumleaves and hand one to each student

Uncle Bill to light gum and perform ceremony by back of the BER
Students to greet stilt walker at butterfly garden.
Jeremy to call Anita to ring bell for recess.