Raglan Lions Club is set on putting in 3000 trees — that’s one for every resident of the district — in a bid to become the best tree-planters this side of the black stump.
And club president Bob Macleod, who takes his job very seriously, has already started. When he heard at a recent zone meeting that international Lions president Wing Kun Tam from Hong Kong is an environmentalist wanting to plant a million trees around the world within the next year, Bob “took up the challenge” and began. He intends to plant “as many trees as I can get the money for” — and that could be up to $10,000-worth courtesy of Waikato District Council, if Lions can access the tree planting fund he’s heard about while wearing his other hat as Raglan Community Board member. For $10,000, Bob reckons, he could buy a lot of young trees off Whaingaroa Harbour Care, which wants to sell them to encourage good sustainable practices in the community.
The first 32 Raglan trees were planted in Upper Waimui Reserve just a fortnight ago and 28 more large Puriris went in last weekend at Okete Reserve, the Lions ably assisted by hardy Harbour Care workers Moto and Roy. It’s a community project in which Bob wants everybody on board. Plant a tree in Raglan, he says, wearing a Lions T-shirt borrowed from the Op Shop downtown — or with some other form of identification that shows when and where the tree was planted — then simply email a pic of the job and you’ll be rewarded with $1 from Lions and a certificate of appreciation.
Email bobmacleod@paradise.net.nz.
