Saving Menkens Reserve

Saving Menkens Reserve

Jim Douglas

The story of the Henley and Grange Greening Group has its genesis from a campaign taken up by the Henley and Grange Residents’ Association to stop the sale of council land situated in Henley Beach surrounded by Badenoch, Jeanes and Menkens Streets. This was in 1992. The land was a large vacant block with a few trees, more weeds than grass, non-irrigated, and rarely attended to by council. But as an open space, it was well used by neighbouring residents as a meeting place for families and a space for children to play or kick a football. Delving deeper into the probability that the land was going to be sold, the residents’ association extracted information that discussions were taking place with St Michael’s College, the Catholic secondary school on its perimeter. We also heard that negotiations could result in an open tender to sell the block for development.

Some residents who live in streets surrounding the reserve were members of the residents’ association. We formed an action group to Save Menkens Reserve. This would have been in 1992-93. Residents’ association members circulated a letter. We letterboxed, doorknocked houses in the immediate vicinity to Menkens Reserve, informed residents about the possibilities of land use, and announced a date on a Saturday morning for a community meeting.

We expected that perhaps 12 or so residents would turn up but were surprised that over 40 attended on that Saturday morning. Residents voiced their concerns. There was strong support to retain Menkens Reserve and we agreed to make a presentation to Henley and Grange Council. On the actual night of the presentation, over 40 residents attended the meeting. We filled the Henley Council Chamber to overflowing!

A number of residents spoke about Menkens Reserve, what this land meant to them, and why they wanted council to retain and green this land. Several months passed. This was before the internet and information was exchanged through letters. Further meetings were held and finally council announced that they would retain the reserve. The council offered contour landscaping with the proviso that residents would agree on a landscape design and plant trees that council provided.

There were some real characters among the residents and that helped enormously to retain our Mary’s lemon-scented gum sense of humour and solidarity. One woman who showed no fear when fighting for the reserve was Mary Magdalene Crawford (now deceased). As a greening group we spent at least four weekends planting the trees. Mary spoke with great passion at our final working bee. We wanted to honour Mary for her contribution so we organised to give Mary a mature lemon-scented gum to plant