A true community partnership

By Anne Freestone

Jun 19, 2024

(Back, from left) Craig O’Donnell, Peter Higgins, Julie Healy and John Jeffrey; (front) Rob Crowley, Don Durnan, Fred Donkin, Bevan Sleet, Jim Williams and Gordon Thompson.

About three months ago Christine Cherry, the leisure and lifestyle coordinator at Finley Regional Care, called into the Finley Menshed to enquire about activities which could be carried out by residents at the aged care facility.

Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content

As fate would have it, while Christine was making these enquiries Julie Healy called into the Menshed to ask if she could possibly have some nesting boxes made for her to place in trees on her property at Blighty.

And so began another project by members of the Menshed to help the community.

Craig O’Donnell has been attending Finley Regional Care each fortnight since then to teach some residents the art of making nesting boxes of several sizes over the course of an hour.

Julie gave images and sizes needed to meet the large variety of birds who regularly nest in the trees on her property.

Small boxes with entrances varying in size from 30mm to 60mm were required for Pigmy Possum species, Feathertail Gliders, Red-rumped Parrots and Rainbow Lorikeets to name a few.

These were in the process of being completed and delivered to Julie last Monday.

This project will continue as the FRC residents will also construct medium boxes with entrances of 60mm to 100mm for species including Eastern Rosella, Australian Owl-nightjar and Dollarbird.

The final stage of the project will be to construct large boxes ranging from 80mm to 130mm entrances openings for species such as Yellow-bellied Glider, Galah and Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.

FRC leisure and lifestyle assistant Peter Higgins has been involved in the project and would like to thank Finley Menhed for the care and dedication shown to the elderly residents.

By Anne Freestone

Columnist