Latest news from this morning’s meeting

This morning a lovely Bangladeshi guy was stopped getting fuel and washing his windscreen. A guy jumped in a took the car.

Not sure of the condition now – listen to its arrival…you can see the sparks flying….and why climb out the window. Door worked fine

Plenty of police soon on the scene. I’m told they have apprehended the guy

Click this link below to see details of work

Footpath Planters

The good news, which is that VicRoads have given the green light, with various requirements that shouldn’t be too onerous to meet.

City of Port Phillip is in the process of drawing up some options.

Footpath Finishing Works

CYP is currently planning to begin on the 8^th February on the pram ramps at Bowen Crescent and Bowen Lane, and completing the sections in-between during the week.

Saturday the 15^th for any finishing works.

No access or driveway closures for Botanica residents – However on the 8^th and 15^th residents accessing will the front of the building on foot will need to approach from the Bowen Crescent end. (CYP will send out a map to residents before the works and there will be signage up in advance)

Here is the feedback from the Chief Judge… congrats Terry and Judy

We had the joy of reviewing 14 Christmas wreaths across the Botanica. Floor six was the clear winner of Christmas spirit while floors four and one may be, at least for this year, labelled our Scrooge floors with no contenders for this prestigious inaugural award.

An iterative reductionist approach was taken in selecting a final winner from this high quality field of entrants. After a thoroughly unvalidated process of review by Caroline, Graeme and our four kids a final winner was selected.

Drum roll ………….

Apartment 202 for it reference to Australian eucalyptus and a bold, delightful and simplistic use of ribbon adornment – an elementary and classical use of the Christmas wreath with a reference to both less complicated times and the Australian environment. Congratulations.

We look forward to an even more hotly contested field in 2020.

Kind regards

Graeme & Caroline

Don’t forget – Sunday Dec 22

Time: 10.30am

Venue: Dish Restaurant @ The Royce Hotel

Cost: $33 per person***

RSVP by 15/12/19: Margaret Ph 0409 691 203

*** Cost includes 1 glass of Sparkling wine & Choice of A la carte
menu with 2 x sides and tea/coffee or juice Or
Big Royce breakfast with 1 side and tea/coffee or juice.
Extras: Tea/Coffee $4.50
Sparkling wine $8 per sparkling, or $15 per champagne

Short term (this week)

• Patch the trip hazard holes
• Remove the pole outside 398 St K Rd
• Place the measuring device (currently on the pole) in small wooden box. Will be low enough to ensure clear view on driveway exit.
• Remove all the orange fencing in front of The Botanica

Major tidyup will be done in late January

• Significant resurfacing of the footpath. Will require some shuffling of people to one side or other.
• CYP were considering also resurfacing the area of the driveway entrance between the road and the footpath. Would have necessitated a two day driveway outage. We said it was not worth the hassle, so long as they do it properly at the next stage (2 years away)
• All parties have now agreed on trees in pots on our footpath but we are still working through the processes. They may be delayed until the end of summer to maximise the success of the planting.

Its not too late to enter the competition…look at this beautiful example from Level 2

C’mon Level 1 and Level 4…still nothing on your floors

Info from CYP…

A quick note on some works that are happening this weekend.

Those who came on the tour would have seen the launch ring being set into the wall in preparation for TBM assembly and launch. You may recall John saying that the wall requires a coat of shotcrete to seal and support the steel rings on the southernmost wall of the station box.

Shotcrete is a method of applying concrete at a high velocity to make the concrete self-supporting unlike that of a slab concrete pour which requires formwork to keep the concrete together. These works can only be done when there are no other personnel in the box. As a result, these works are going to take place on Sunday 8 December while the box is empty.

As this is a Sunday, we’re taking every precaution to ensure that the works are as unobtrusive as possible.

• All concrete pumps will be confined to inside the acoustic shed
• All concrete trucks servicing the pumps will park inside the shed (a total of seven trucks will be used between 7.30am and 7.30pm)
• We’ve established a truck route that will not require reversing into the shed. The only reversing will occur inside the shed to back up to the concrete pump
• A smaller concrete pump will be used.

In other TBM news, The next deliveries for TBM Millie have also been scheduled. These are still subject to confirmation by Yarra Trams. The oversized loads are expected to come in on trucks over two nights – after 1am on the 16th and 17th of December.

Unlike the previous loads that drove into site and parked for unloading in the morning, the trucks required for delivering these parts will need to be unloaded by crane on arrival, as it is too big to park up on site.