After the very successful Winter social evening when so many Rooielsers met for the first time, or renewed old ties, we have received requests to host another. So a gathering to celebrate Spring is planned - provisionally Saturday 10th September. More details will follow soon. Please be sure that as many people as possible know about this. We do not yet have the contact details of some - so please encourage everyone you meet to come.
In the meantime we hear that some new Rooielsers are having trouble with the baboons. We all sympathise. Almost everyone has had them messing up their house! It takes a while to get used to it, but in the long term we do. We adapt and we even grow to love them as part of our Biosphere reserve village. The Rooiels website has some ideas to help make that adaptation easier. You will find general information on Baboons in the Nature section of the website: click on Baboons here to go directly to the page. If you would like to go straight to tips on how to protect your home, click here. If you would like to find out what to do if they get into your home, or when you are walking, click on "how to behave around baboons" In essence, the most important is to stay calm. Baboons have never injured a person in Rooiels even after all these years of living so closely with us. If baboons do get into your house, or approach you or your children when you have food with you either walking or in a car - do not fight them over food. Drop the food and move back. In a house, ensure there is no-one blocking their exit. We all chose to live in Rooiels, a nature reserve, and baboons are part of our environment. This has many benefits but also some challenges and adapting to the baboons is one of those! It helps to have some understanding of how best to get along with them and the information on the website will give you some pointers, and your neighbours will too! Go to Living the Vision of Rooiels to learn more about how Rooielsers have chosen to care for each other and nature. The Key Information section of the website also gives you more information on living in this area and the Nature section has lots of interesting information on the flora and fauna. Thanks to Rooielsers who turned out to support a meeting somewhat "mal fait". With only those registered in Overstrand eligible to vote, most Rooiels ratepayers are disenfranchised and need to rely on the few locally registered, to be there. Each Ward has 10 seats. The Municipal manager has allocated 5 of these to Proteadorp and 5 to Hangklip area of which one went to Mooiutsig. So with only 4 allocated to all the organisations in Bettys Bay, Pringle Bay and Rooiels, competition was strong. Pringle Bay lost out as each voter could cast their vote for only one organisation. We had to withdraw REC to be sure our vote was not split. Go to the RERA newsletter to see the urgent call which has been sent out to ask for your support.
And also be sure to check out the Leopard Blog for photos of the leopard visiting the cameras on 30th July while we were at the RERA social evening!! New municipal regulations require that representative agencies are voted for by ratepayers WHO ARE REGISTERED VOTERS IN THE WARD. RERA and REC are asking everyone who is a registered voter to please go to the meeting at Crassula Hall on 16th August at 1800 (6 p.m.) and vote for RERA and REC to be represented on the Ward. Please take the time to do this so that we are sure that the interests of Rooiels are fully represented. Click on the Otter page to see the photos of the otters in the Nature Reserve Dave de Klerk's illustrated guide to the Rooiels indigenous plants is now fully loaded onto the website click here to access it. So useful to non-botanists both in identifying flowering plants and in planning our gardens. Join the community and help remove invasive alien plants - all welcome every first Saturday of the month. Even if you cant join the hack group, you can join them at the tea afterwards. Go to REC News for details
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