As you are aware the trees neighbouring our school grounds were cut down in the holidays. The trees came down in spectacular fashion...with the added excitement of discovering some beehives which produced some delicious honey. I'd like to share some information with you so we can all understand the wood situation. Do share with others.

Firstly, the trees neighbouring the school had become a hazard.  Due to the size and condition of the trees we were starting to lose limbs onto our property and this was posing a threat to our students particularly in windy, wet conditions of late.  Many of the trees that came down were found to be rotten in the centre.  They were generally in poor condition.

If you understand the movement of the sun in relation to our school then you will know that our front courts and our swimming pool were cast into shade during the afternoon, causing a cold and dark environment in areas that relish sunshine.

So for these reasons, we approached the neighbour who kindly agreed that we could cut down his trees.  The Board of Trustees agreed to pay nearly $30,000 to have the trees cut down.  As part of our agreement our neighbour 'gifted' the wood to the school in the hope that we could recoup the costs.

Our plan was to split the wood over the summer so that we could work in a dry paddock and in the sunshine rather than the current winter conditions.  We had also planned to run some raffles for our community and to sell decent loads of wood for a fair price, again to support our families.

Unfortunately members of the community have begun to steal the wood, venturing into a paddock that does not belong to us to take the wood.  We had one group pull up at 11pm last Thursday night and this has continued into the weekend.  What a shame that people have to go to such measures.  

Let it be clear that by stealing the wood you are taking away the opportunity for money to be made to support our students.  Money that would otherwise support learning and learning opportunities for our children has now gone on cutting down trees, only to provide wood for people to steal.

We will update our school community on the arrangements for the wood moving forward.