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Next project: Kennedy Hall

Dedicate group of Moorecroft park volunteers from Nanoose Bay, Parksville and beyond ponder what's next
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Jill Davies and Jo Graham talk about possibilities for involvement at Moorecroft Regional Park.

Moorecroft camp is saved, now in the hands of the Regional District of Nanaimo, so what’s the future for the dedicated volunteers who worked so hard to help bring this about?

That future looks pretty busy, according to Jill Davies, who was front and centre at a special Moorecrofters meeting in the Kennedy Lodge at the defunct church camp — now an RDN regional park.

“A year ago we had a similar meeting to this in Nanoose Bay and the steering committee felt there was nothing left to steer,’ she said to the crowd of 20 supporters. “Moorecroft had been saved, so the big question was, what next?”

Despite the fulfillment of their key mandate, the members present felt there was still a role for them to play, so Tuesday’s meeting was slated to help determine what that role could be.

Davies identified three main areas for continued involvement: fundraising to help the RDN pay for the park purchase, working on projects such as invasive weed control in the park and renovation of Kennedy Hall itself.

That was the strategy and presenter Jo Graham got into the tactics, suggesting the group work to put on a repeat of the highly successful Taste of Land and Sea event on a local ranch. Other ideas raised included the sewing of a memory quilt, complete with scenes from Moorecroft’s past, the sale of bird boxes and holding of a “chairity” auction, which would see chairs painted by local celebrity artists and auctioned off.

Some of the funds raised would go to the renovation of Kennedy Hall, which was built in 1934 and extended in the 1960s. Among other renovations, the hall needs to be painted and the furnace needs to be fixed — as the shivering meeting members were well aware.

Graham noted that volunteers will need to be trained by botanical experts prior to pulling any invasive plants as nobody wants native plants pulled by mistake. Other volunteer possibilities include researching the history of the site and giving historical tours to visitors.