Volunteer Selection Project: Day 3 Mother of Millions Removal

Welcome to the update for Day 3 on the Volunteer Selection Project!

Post overview

Introduction
Day 3 overview & timing
What is Mother of Millions
Purpose of the activity
Method (God’s Way is testing to remove and dispose of Mother of Millions)
Presentation notes

Tris & Elo organise the water station

Mother of Millions activity location

Tris speaks with participants during the activity

Introduction

Mother of Millions is an escaped ornamental plant species originally from Madagascar. It is classed as a noxious weed in Australia and has been known to have fatal consequences to livestock (particularly cattle) when ingested in large quantities: more information can be found under the heading “What is mother of Millions” later in this post.

The Mother of Millions weeding activity takes place on a private individual’s property. The property owners have spent hundreds of hours hand pulling the weed over the last 11 years. The owners choose to use the hand weeding method to avoid applying toxic chemicals to the earth or burning the area which would kill a large amount of intelligent life and destroy the already sparse ground cover.

Participants in the Volunteer Selection Project spend a few hours contributing to the removal of the weed. It is an excellent activity to assess participant’s attitudes in a number of areas, including but not limited to: how thorough they are; their feelings towards tasks that are physical; seem never ending and to some a “waste of time”; and how they interact with the natural environment (more can be found under the heading “Purpose of the activity” below).

Mother of Millions grid lines marking out the area to be weeded

Day 3 overview & timing

To give you an idea about how a day in the Volunteer Selection Project looks I have included the timing and activities below. On days we do not have presentations the time participants would work for is longer (we generally plan to do 4-5 hours solid work as this allows for attitudes and emotions to be exposed).

5:45 am – 6:45 am Facilitator and volunteers set up for the day
7:00 am – 7:15 am Feedback
7: 15 am – 7:45 am Instructions for the day: principles, objectives (purpose) & benefits involved in the activity, safety briefing, demonstration of what to do and how to do it
7:45 am – 10:30 am Activity: hand pulling an escaped ornamental weed originally from Madagascar called Mother of Millions
10:30 am – 11:45 am Presentation by Jesus on what makes a great volunteer & the requirements for people volunteering for Divine Truth and God’s Way organisations, (drink & snack break simultaneously to this)
11:45 am – 1:30 pm More weeding of Mother of Millions
1:30 pm – 2:00 pm Pack up/clean up
2:00 pm End of day: participants go home
2:00 pm – 5:00 pm Post activity: clean up (thank you to volunteers who did this yesterday), backing up the data collected for the day, writing up the actual day’s activity, making modifications to the activity outlines so they become more streamlined and perfected to use for the next project, reflect on the day and write up our feedback and observations for the day, make additions to the next activity outline (add in feedback, follow up actions, modifications).
5:00 pm Facilitators day is complete

Little Mother of Millions plants

What is Mother of Millions?

Mother of millions (Bryophyllum species) is a native of Africa and Madagascar and was introduced to Australia as a garden plant. It is a prolific weed growing on the coast and the northwest slopes and plains of NSW.

The common name ‘mother of millions’ is based on the plant’s ability to reproduce vegetatively in large numbers. Each plant produces small plantlets along the edges of its leaves which detach and form new plants. This makes mother of millions hard to eradicate and follow up controls are necessary. Mother of millions also produces numerous seeds which can survive in the soil for a number of years before germinating. [Mother of millions reproduces from every part of itself, plantlets, leaves, stems, roots, seeds.]

Mother of millions is poisonous when ingested. The toxic effects of these plants are due mainly to bufadienolides which cause heart failure.

Source: http://weeds.dpi.nsw.gov.au/Weeds/Details/93

When the plant is ingested by livestock, cumulatively or in large quantities cattle become sick and die. This is one of the main reasons Australian land owners want the plant to be eradicated.

God’s Way is interested in investigating what the purpose of plants are and why they grow in certain areas and not others.

Volunteers in God’s way have a hypothesis that plants take certain elements and toxins from the soil and give specific elements and nutrients back to the soil. We observe that plants have cycles and tendencies to grow in particular soils and habitats. We would like to prove what particular plant species purposes are, including what they give to, and take from the soil.

Mother of Millions with plantlets and sprouts from seed below

Roots growing out of a Mother of Millions stalk

Mother of Millions sprouting from a piece of leaf that has fallen

Mother of Millions growing roots

Purpose of the activity

Participants in the Volunteer Selection Project are required to engage this activity to:

Remove an invasive species from the environment
Feel how connected they are to the environment (or not)
Learn about thoroughness
Learn about oneself and our impact on the environment, directly or indirectly
Feel how they feel doing a seemingly never ending task that doesn’t seem to be that important
See how they respond to spending hours outdoors doing a repetitive task
Contribute to a God’s Way Ltd project on invasive species removal
See how efficient, thorough and enthusiastic participants are, and how they respond if they have to re-do the task when it is not completed properly
Assess their attitude to service (there is seeming no reward for the weeding)

Participants weeding in the grid lines

Participants weeding Mother of Millions

Method

Remove mother of millions before or while they are flowering so that the seeds do not spread.

Gently pull the plants from the soil ensuring that no part of the plant is left behind or breaks off
Gently remove the soil from the roots of the plant (it defeats the purpose if topsoil is removed)
Burn or bury the removed plants 6-8 feet below ground level in an isolated area
Go over the project area at least twice removing plants to ensure they do not reproduce
Cover with a thick layer of hardwood chip to suppress the growth of plants and create topsoil
Seed with native Australian flora varieties over time

Participant’s weeding a patch of Mother of Millions

Pulling Mother of Millions plant up by its roots

Digging out a Mother of Millions plant

Mother of millions plantlets

Using a skewer to loosen a Mother of Millions plant

Using a skewer to remove soil from the base of the plant

Buckets of Mother of Millions

Wheel barrow filled with Mother of Millions

Presentation notes

We would like to thank Jesus for the gift of his time and the presentation he gave to those involved in the Volunteer Selection Project.

Below are some notes from the presentation. Please be aware the notes are paraphrased by me (Eloisa) and only touch the surface of what Jesus spoke about to the participants.

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Jesus spoke about four priorities and how living in harmony with these priorities makes for great volunteers. Volunteers in Divine Truth and God’s Way organisation are required to develop and bring their lives in harmony with the four priorities:

Relationship with, and Love of God (giving and receiving Love)
Relationship/Love of self (whole self, including soulmate)
Relationship/Love of others
Relationship/Love of the environment

Jesus described in detail how these priorities would positively influence our lives and be demonstrated if we lived by them. He described how bringing our life into harmony with these four priorities makes for great volunteers, easy management and a cohesive, cooperative team. In turn when a team is living and working in harmony with the 4 priorities, towards a common vision, is persistent and keeps taking action (plodding) in an ethical, moral, loving, truthful direction, the potential gifts and opportunities to others are great and good.

Jesus encouraged participants to accurately self assess their current attitudes, character, desires and passions and how in harmony, or out of harmony with the 4 priorities they are.

He raised that many of us have good ideas, do a lot of talking but do not take action on the ideas. When we have a great idea we need to stick to it and keep taking action no matter what comes our way.

Desire is a very powerful quality which each of us needs to bring into harmony with God’s Way if we want to live and accomplish the vision of Divine Truth and God’s Way Ltd and become volunteers for the organisations.

To find out more about God’s Way structure and vision please read the Constitution Link to God’s Way Constitution.