National trust of zimbabwe

Mission Statement

‘To act as custodians of those properties of cultural heritage and natural beauty held in trust and maintain them for the benefit of the people of Zimbabwe as a legacy for future generations’.

NATIONAL TRUST OF ZIMBABWE

HERITAGE NEWS

VOL 2OF 2017

LATEST NEWS :-

1.     MEMBERSHIP – to date we have 86 members for Harare (2 are pre-paid for 2018/19) and 21 members for Mutare – a total of 107.

Our Committee member, Fira Bache has recently given a talk at Blue Kerry on the National Trust – these talks are always very interesting for the attendees and we have been able to sign up new members at each function.

Membership and reciprocity

**Members, please do not forget that you are welcome at the Tree Society meetings, as well as Birdlife Zimbabwe meetings/outings following our reciprocity agreements with both Societies. The two Societies newsletters will also be forwarded to our NTZ members. All dates/times and contact details are published in the Ndeipimagazine.**

**Members are also very welcome at History Society meetings, venues and topics/presenters are advertised is the Ndeipimagazines.**

These Societies are made up of very knowledgeable and interesting folk whose combined interests will have something for everyone, so please, get out there, introduce yourselves and enjoy everything our beautiful Zimbabwe has to offer!

Regarding Membership and Reciprocity, Committee Member, Lin Goncalves, recently visited a UK National Trust property, the very beautiful Stourhead Estate on the River Stour, near Mere in Wiltshire and close to the Dorset and Somerset borders.

“It was an excellent opportunity to check the ease of the reciprocity system and all I had to do was show my NTZ membership card at the entry/pay-point and was issued with an entrance ticket and waved through with a very warm welcome.

The National Trust shops are always an absolute delight. Filled with locally produced treasures and our members will be pleased to know that Zimbabwe was also well-represented in the garden section of the shop!! This is just one example of the Zimbabwean craft I found in the shop!

Local treasures include quality art and craft by residents of the area, prints of various views of the estate in greeting card form and postcards, as well as photo cards and lovely jewellery, made by local crafters. There are also scarves and shawls, honey, jams, marmalade, lemon curd, to name a few of the lovely ‘goodies’….If any of our members are anywhere in this area, I would highly recommend a visit. The narrow country lanes are a delight and the estate also boasts an immense natural forest with many footpaths for wonderful walks. There are some stunning little country cottages in the area with lovely gentle views over meadows of browsing sheep and cattle, an artist’s paradise with plenty of inspiration to get the sketch books and water colours and brushes out!”

For more very interesting information on this property visit:-https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stourhead/features/the-history-of-stourhead

2.     UPDATE ON LOCAL PROPERTIES

Memorial Bench and plaque in recognition and in celebration of the life of Darrel Plowes

The National Trust was truly honored and fortunate to have Darrel Plowes as an active member who one of the greatest all-round naturalists of Zimbabwe. Following a private family ceremony held in Mutare late last year a memorial bench was donated by Darrel’s family. Last month (June) the bench was placed in the orchid area at La Rochelle which was a place that had special significance to Darrel, since it was Sir Stephen who inspired Darrel’s fondness for orchids, and in turn Darrel has donated the balance of his collection back to La Rochelle.   The bench was designed and made by Gary Goss and now visitors can sit and pause and reflect on the beauty of the orchids.

Darrel lived such an incredibly rich life and he was a key link between the present and past of La Rochelle – both with the Courtauld Family and the botanicals – particularly the orchids (Harvey Leared).

The inscription on the brass plaque on the backrest of the bench reads as follows:

Darrel C.H.Plowes

1925-2016

Loving father, friend of the Courtaulds and natural historian extraordinaire

He may now have ended his never finishing work but will always keep on inspiring me and many others for the remainder of our lives. Whether professional scientist or amateur enthusiast, we owe a great debt to his unrelenting search for knowledge and understanding of the natural world.” (Bart Wursten, Flora of Tropical Africa).

The National Trust had a memorial plaque for Darrel, made from black granite, which will be placed in the grounds of La Rochelle later this year.

We are all richer for having known Darrel Plowes. We give thanks for the wonderfully inspiring life of this man and his love of all creation. 

Competition: International National Trust Organisation to promote  Heritage Education!

A while back our colleagues John and Emily from the Cross-Cultural Foundation of Uganda developed a concept for a project reflecting their conviction that we must focus much of our work on the youth and a desire to share the lessons they have learned from their work to support “Heritage Clubs” in (now over 100) Ugandan secondary schools in the past few years.

“The idea behind the project is to ensure that young people from Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Uganda develop a better appreciation of the diverse heritage across the continent and become more effective in its preservation, through an electronic platform/ learning network related to heritage conservation and to strengthen the skills of our organisations in delivering more effective Heritage Education programmes for youth in a globalised, but diverse world”(John De Coninck, Programme Advisor).

Following this idea the first ever crowdfunding campaign was launched by INTO on Monday 14th November 2016 at 2pm GMT to raise as much money as possible from as many donors as possible in five weeks.  The project page can be found at www.bitly.com/INTOAfrica.

The good news is that the threshold goal of £2,500 was successfully reached with the assistance of Global Giving and we have earnt a place in their crowd funding community!

As part of the global family of National Trusts

The National Trust of Zimbabwe

we would like you to get involved too! 

I love my Heritage!

Show the world Zimbabwe’s unique heritage!

Cash Prizes!

If you are under 20 years and a heritage club member in an Nyanga Secondary School in Zimbabwe then you are invited to join heritage clubs in Sierra Leone and Uganda in a competition to share an experience or activity of your heritage club, which you feel is exciting:

a) Submit a 2-3 minute video clip taken on a phone or camera depicting an exciting experience/ activity related to heritage.

b) Write half a page (about 250 words) explaining your video clip.

c)  Submit your entry on a flash drive or memory card to your Principal or Heritage Teacher, who will submit it to Faith at the Nyanga Library or Marshall at Rhodes Nyanga Historical Exhibition (Museum).

You will be invited to present your entry to a panel of judges on 20 September 2017 at the Rhodes Hall, Nattional Park. 

Winners receive cash prizes!

Your video may be publicised nationally and used by the International National Trust Organisation to promote Heritage Education!

DEADLINE: 14TH SEPTEMBER  (first week of 3rd term)

For further details please email: leecrofts@bsatt.com

Thank you, we look forward to receiving your entries.

Contact details for La Rochelle are:

Please email reservations@larochellecentre.com or callon (04) 497213 / 0714 610 803  for more information

WORLDS VIEW

Excerpts from Gill Honeyman’s very comprehensive report on World’s View –

We experienced a very wet start to the year, with a total rainfall for the season of over 1700mm.  All three Connemara Lakes filled rapidly and were still spilling at the end of March. 

The torrential rains flooded the car park but it is drying out gradually and after some filling and levelling, is now again fully open to our visitors. 

We shall have to install some drainage channels into the lawn to prevent a similar situation in the future.  These have been mapped and work will commence in the dry  months later this year.  The 2m wide x 30m long contour ridge that we dug at the base of Nyamutoro in December helped to prevent more serious flooding of the site. 

The rains also brought an abundance of wild flowers to the fenced area of our property and the site looked absolutely stunning. 

Work on the Kirstenbosch Kopje has been completed.  A large bed below the circular walk has been cleared, made safe and over 100 cynaroides (King Protea) seedlings have been planted out.  These are the last of the Kirstenbosch seedlings to be moved to site and it’s now up to mother nature and the TLC of the staff to help them along the road to maturity.

Quote from our visitor’s book – ‘One can see God’s hand at work here’.  Someone has kindly added in bold black capitals - ‘with a little help from NTZ!’ - Gill Honeyman, World’s View

RHODES NYANGA HISTORICAL EXHIBITION

Grateful thanks to Mike Tucker of the History Societywho has donated an original Zeederburg Coach mule harness for the RNHE collection. This will be a most welcome and valuable addition to our exhibition and collection.

MUBUKUWENE

Report from a recent excavation exercise - “Today we did a one metre by one metre trench at 10cm intervals. The first ten centimetres we recovered 10 glass beads of various colours, pot sherds as well as bones. At 20cm we recovered 40 beads and bones and at 30cm the trench was sterile only two glass beads and a few pot sherds were recovered. We believe that it was a midden from the with century occupation by the ndebeles. Tomorrw we wil start another trench

The team comprises of six museum curatorial staff namely: Ms Senzeni Khumalo, MrLonkeNyoni, Mrs Charity Nyathi, MrTodiniRunganga, MrObertMangwana and Mr Maxwell fumula. We are not going to light any fires. We are rescuing the artefacts that are exposed by erosion along the footpath. The clearing of the Bush will be done only where we are going to work . We are using trowels to dig and we backfill our pits.” 

3.     INTERNATIONAL EVENTS– The INTO Conference is taking place in Bali this year, in September from the 11^th to the 15^th. NTZ will be represented by our Chairman David Scott, our Vice Chairman Sharon Waterworth and Committee Member Lin Goncalves.

4.     Both our FACEBOOK page and website are quite active with up to date news and photographs, and we encourage those of you with FACEBOOK to like us.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Trust-of-Zimbabwe/340040082696277?ref=hl

http://www.ntzimbabwe.org

If you are visiting any National Trust properties, please be generous with photographs of your visit and share them with us for inclusion on our Facebook pageor website with names and comments! If you have the time and are able to print an A4 sheet with “THIS PLACE MATTERS” on it, we would love the photographs of you at any one of the NTZ properties you may be visiting, holding the sign, which we will put on our website and Facebook to share with our National Trust friends the world over!!

We have lovely strong cloth carry-bags for sale – NATIONAL TRUST OF ZIMBABWE – ideal for carrying books to your book club/library, or for that little bit of shopping – or knitting!