Seen in action playing touch rugby at the Cowan House Family Sports Day are S'mnikiwe Nzimande, Mr Graeme Kippen, Ross Asherwood and the Cowan House Headmaster, Mr Rob Odell. Great fun was had by all!

News supplied.

The indigineous trees of the year for 2014 are the Lavender Tree (Heteropyxis natalensis) and the White Ironwood tree (Vepris lanceolata) which were planted at Laddsworth Primary School on the last day of the third term. In a special assembly Sally Kelly (Head of the Junior Primary) told pupils about the characteristics, distribution and uses of these trees as well as the Hard Pear tree (Olinia ventosa) which was also planted. Assembly was followed by the tree planting ceremonies.

Pictured here L-R Neelan Pillay, Andrew Beyrooti, Jenny Raubenheimer, Bianca Boshoff and kneeling in front is Callum Ross.

• Prevent people from obtaining information on valuables, especially large amounts of cash kept inside the house.
• Remain vigilant, irrespective of the amount of security measures in place.
• Use 'multiple layers' of security.
• Install security systems that include an early warning system outside and surrounding the house (this constitutes 68% of the deterrence factor)
• Install a physical barrier that prevents access to the surrounding yard or garden, so that an intruder cannot get close enough to the house to overpower a resident.
• Be aware that any security system is useless if ignored or switched off, especially during the times when most house robberies occur.
• Take note of any trends regarding crime and robbers' modus operandi and adapt security measures accordingly.
• Participate in local crime prevention initiatives.

Supplied by HCPF.

Just launched in Hilton, MyHRM (My Human Resource Manager) focuses on a quick and simple solution to employment contracts for the domestic market. Ensuring you meet all the red tape requirements regarding you employment arrangements with house maids, nannies and garden workers.

MyHRM will remove the pain involved in creating legal contracts of employment.

By answering a short simple questionnaire, we are able to create customised contracts for your employees that are legally correct. You will also get payslips, a register, a guide to conditions of employment, disciplinary issues, minimum wages and many other things that are required by law.

This also includes support so you are not left on your own to implement them.

MyHRM removes a problem that a lot of employers have when creating an agreement: Are the employment conditions leaving them open to a claim.

In a nutshell MyHRM ensures that you are legally compliant as an employer.

Nearly thirty players turned up on Saturday, optimistically hoping for fair weather yet fervently praying for rain. After only eight ends, the prayers won when the gentle mist became a soaking rain and we called off play. Winners of meal vouchers from Lindsay's Coffee Shop were John Fowler, Rob Tosen and Andy Hitchcock. Thanks to Martina Bakker, new owner of Lindsay's, for the prizes.

A bowling green takes quite a hammering, especially during winter. Our green has certainly suffered through the lack of rain, but stood up remarkably well, thanks to Barry Collier and his helpers Salas and Hamilton. It will be closed for at least three weeks while being top-dressed, fertilized, leveled and generally pampered.

Rina Tainton will be running a Bridge Drive for Club funds on Friday 3 October at the club. There may be room for a few more players. Contact Rina on 033 239 5739.

The response to the proposed Curry Evening during the closure has been disappointing. If you have not put your name on the list, or have not been aware of this function, contact Thelma Mylne for details on 033 343 2020.

League commences on Saturday 4 October. Skips are asked to confirm availability of their players and to arrange transport. The second league team will be playing at Lynwood while the thirds will travel to Howick.

News from Hilton Bowling Club.

Identifying the niche in the market for a medical hospital facility within the Pietermaritzburg Hilton and surrounding areas, local developer André Voigts conceptualised and drove the project to develop a private hospital. Life Healthcare Group partnered in this R200 million venture.

Due to the shortage of beds in local and surrounding hospitals, the idea of developing a new hospital was a welcomed proposition. The Life Hilton will be the flagship hospital for Life Healthcare Group.

The financial model of the group concept is leading in terms of emerging trends and to create opportunities to allow practitioners to invest and therefore become administrators of their own hospital, as well as shareholders.

This in turn, presents a management module that benefits the patient, practitioner and shareholders.

Due to the accessibility from the highway, position within the Midlands, the patient care synonymous to Life Healthcare Group; the progression of development in the healthcare sector will naturally centralise to Hilton.

Due to this forecasted migration the demand for a doctors block and practitioner rooms was realised and conceptualised. This development is aptly named Hilton Health — Partnering in Healthcare. Hilton Health opens in June 2015.

News supplied by Hilton Health.

The Jaxx Roll on Wednesday was won by Chris Purchase, Fred Palmer and Vernon Hickinbotham. Winners of first round losers were Dave Garrard, John Pluke and Janet Fairhurst. The team with the greatest number of touchers was that of Tony Francis, Brian Newton and Pat Bennet. They had a total of 12 touchers.

On Saturday we played for the Queen's Cup. Despite threatening clouds we went ahead as planned, and had a wonderful morning of bowls. Winners of the trophy and generous vouchers from the Quarry Spar were John Arnott, Margie Garrard and Angus Snowdon. In second place were Thelma Mylne, Andy Hitchcock and Taffy O'Neil-Williams. The consolation prizes went to George Oldham, John Pluke and Arthur Daugherty. We thank the management and staff of Quarry Spar for their munificent support of our club.

Umgeni Waterfall club have extended a friendly invitation to all our members to join in their games while our green is closed. Details of their tabs-in times, dress codes and special events are on our notice board.

We will be closed from 29 Sept to 20 Oct. If you are willing to help with repainting the club house during the closure, please contact George Oldham on 033 343 4345.

The duty list is suspended until 20 October.

News supplied by Hilton Bowling Club.

The official theme for South African Heritage Day 2014 is '20 Years of Democracy' - a topic that fires interesting conversation.

No matter what state of mind your twenty year reflection leaves you in, you can celebrate the popular South African culture of enjoying a braai with family and friends. Since 2005 Heritage Day in South Africa has been tagged National Braai Day by many, mainly as the result of a media campaign Braai4Heritage, which stuck around way beyond its sell by date because it struck an undeniably common chord amongst all South Africans.

Nothing encapsulates this better than these words of Desmond Tutu, "We're going to have this wonderful thing on the 24th of this month ... when we all gather round one fire...It's a fantastic thing, a very simple idea. Irrespective of your politics, of your culture, of your race, of your whatever, hierdie ding doen ons saam [this thing we do together] ... just South Africans doing one thing together, and recognizing that we are a fantastic nation."

Enjoy Heritage Day your way!

Sources: braai.com; Wikipedia,org

As an Eco-School, Cowan House will be recognising Recycling Day SA on Friday 19 September. The photo shows Ciara Powell and Phumelele Dlamini at the school's Recycling Village.

News supplied.

Cowan House prides itself on the general knowledge of its pupils, and encourages reading to promote this. Pictured at the recent Cowan House General Knowledge Quiz are the Grade 4-7 boys and girls who represented their teams at the event.

News supplied.

Work on the green is going along very well. Hollow-tining was completed early last week and good showers fell at just the right time. Top-dressing is nearing completion.

The Bridge drive last Friday was well supported and enjoyed by all who participated. Our very special thanks go to Rina Tainton who put in a super effort to muster some really worthwhile prizes and then also organized and ran the event. Sincere thanks too to all the generous sponsors for their support.

After careful consideration we have decided to cancel the social that was to have been held while the green is closed.

We did not start the league well. The third league team was given a lesson in how to play bowls when we visited Howick. The second team went to Lynwood and came away with a win on one rink and defeat on the other.

News supplied by Hilton Bowling Club.

Laddsworth Primary School pupils, Keenyn Downs, Mark and Jordan Plaatjes all achieved their KZN colours for Judo. These boys will be representing their province at the South African Schools Championships in Johannesburg.

L-R: Jordan Plaatjies, Keenyn Downs and Mark Plaatjies.

News supplied.

The Barn Restaurant in Hilton at Rotunda Centre, 1 Cedara Road provided a convivial atmosphere for local business owners to network in. Andrew Beach, owner of The Barn was a welcoming host and the snacks provided were equally pleasing to the eye and palate, our vegetarians enjoyed vegetable quiches, roast vegetable kebabs and for the sweet lovers there were fresh fruit kebabs.

Close on 30 people grabbed this opportunity to meet new faces, catch up with old friends and learn more about the product and services they offer in Hilton.

Pictured on the left is Lynda from CG Carers with her networking prize, a gorgeous display from Dawn owner of Floral Creations.

Numerous other Hilton business people feature in the slide below. There were guests representing educational support, advertising, entertainment, extramural education, home improvement, photograpic, finance, clothing, health and beauty, hospitality, legal, coaching, HR, property, medical, security, confectionery and IT businesses in Hilton. You can join this community and increase the profile of your business in Hilton. Click here to join online now!

More about The Barn Restaurant

The Barn Restaurant at The Rotunda is a brand new "fresh look" kind of place which has a combined theme of country and family style meals. During the day it can be seen as a bright and sunny coffee shop which then welcomes customers to a warm, hearty restaurant on Friday, Saturday & Sunday nights for group bookings. We are open from 07h30 during the week for early morning coffee meetings and delicious wholesome breakfasts.

The Barn Restaurant focuses largely on fresh locally supplied stocks and providing the freshest food possible, served by friendly, enthusiastic staff. Most of our dishes are home made which brings in an extra element of freshness. We welcome ideas from our customers and try to please as many palettes as we can. Our delicious freshly squeezed juices are proving to be most popular.

We welcome functions and have hosted Birthday Parties, Baby Showers and Biker Breakfasts. We have a Steak Evening on the last Thursday of every month where customers choose the size of their steak.

We also cater for the famous "Pot & Barrel Pub "in the form of pub platters and finger food.

Being located at the Rotunda Center it is an ideal location to stop off the N3 freeway and grab a quick bite to eat to break your journey or if you have a little more time it provides a great leisurely start to the Midlands Meander.

Seven children from the Hilton area participated in the CMaths KZN Regional Competition held on Saturday the 13th September 2014 in Kloof. There were 261 children from all over KZN participating in the competition. CMaths is a maths programme for children between the ages of 3-11yrs which uses the Japanese Abacus (Soroban) as a tool not only to improve a child's mental arithmetic skills but to also enhance their memory capacity, intuitive thinking, creativity and boost their confidence.

Three of the Hilton children came home with Champion of Champion a trophy which is the top honour award in their category and four other children from Hilton received silver and bronze medals. To achieve these awards each child had to answer challenging sums using their abacus in a limited time period and other sums required the children to use their advanced mental arithmetic skills which they have acquired from the CMATHs programme. Once a year there is an international PAMA (Pan Pacific Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Association) competition in December where the top students from all over the world come together and compete at an international level.

Pictured here:David (Champion of Champion), Skyler (Champion of Champion), Daniela (Silver Medal), Victoria (Bronze Medal), Jodi (Champion of Champion), Amanda (silver medal), Samuel (Bronze medal).

News submitted by Kelly Cato (072 444 1391) of CMaths.

Encouraged by Di Smythe the Grade 5 pupils at Laddsworth Primary School knitted squares which were stitched together by Di Smythe and kindly finished off with a crochet border by a helpful grandmother. Four cheerful and bright blankets were presented to Jean a'Bear, a representative of Hope Trust, who will pass the blankets on to needy 'Gogos' in Sweetwaters.

Pictured back L-R: Jean a'Bear and Di Smythe
Middle L-R: Junior Mncwabe, Ethan Botha, Erin Lane, Megan Williams and Chloe Inman.
Front L-R: Emma Kinsley, Georgia Anderson, Olwethu Ngidi and Ntsiko Zungu.

News from Laddsworth Primary School.

Judy Bell of Winterskloof Conservancy shared a newsworthy Midlands Conservancy blog written by Nikki Brighton, consider this as you watch the clouds form and disappear or pass by;

Members of the Midlands Conservancies Forum gathered in Balgowan recently to explore Milestone Forest and learn more about the fate of the Mpofana River.

It was the ancient Yellowwoods of Milestone that inspired the first Conservancy in South Africa - formed right here. Walter Addison shared some of the history of how they came to be here (survivors of the last ice age) as we gazed in awe at the giant trees that form the 'Cathedral'.

Balgowan Conservancy hosts a guided walk in this forest on the first Friday of each month. It is well worth a visit. Contact Marilyn on 082 427 3365 to book.

As we drove back to Michaelhouse we passed the spot where the water release/outfall from the new Spring Grove Dam will enter the Mpofana river. We had invited Kate Fenenga of TCTA to address our meeting on the impacts the Spring Grove water release will have on the Mpofana, but she was not able to unless we submitted all the questions we might ask beforehand.

Instead we had Kevin Meier from Umgeni Water share their operating philosophy of Spring Grove Dam. This was really interesting.

He told us that the uMngeni river catchment is now completely utilized and that we cannot build any more dams on these rivers. Their job is to supply water to the municipalities. They pump as much as possible to keep Midmar and Albert Falls dams full and watch the weather closely to stop pumping when rain is imminent.

Obviously, we were most concerned about the impact of more water on the Mpofana river as the Mooi Mearns Transfer Scheme (MMTS) had already had a negative impact according to some of the landowners present. Kevin said "We believe we can release 4,5 cubic metres per second without impacting the environment." Currently they transfer 3,5 m3 in the wet season (about 3 months of the year). Once the new pipeline is in they will increase transfer to maintain continuous minimum flow of 4,5m3 although pipe capacity is 5,4m3. The thinking is that the river will adjust from minimal basal flow to 4,5m3 over the first year or two of operation. We were aghast to hear that this release will continue throughout winter when the normal river only has about 1 cubic metre per second of water. No doubt this will impact negatively on the health of the river.

Balgowan Conservancy members whose properties have already been affected by the raised levels of water in the Mpofana (from the Mooi Mearns Transfer Scheme) asked questions about their causeways, river banks and bridges. Kevin suggested that most of these concerns needed to be addressed by DWAF, not Umgeni Water. Apparently the Dept of Water Affairs is about to conduct a survey of the entire Mpofana and Lion's rivers. It appears that their main focus is on erosion of the river banks, not the ecological health of the riparian zone. They assume that the river will realign itself. SASS surveys will be conducted four times a year above and below the outfall to monitor the impact.

Kevan Zunckel was up next. Kevan has done extensive research the negative affect of dams in general and the importance of keeping our rivers intact and shared some fascinating information with us, relating to the points Kevin Meier had raised.

It is currently costing Durban R100 million to treat water – Durban's current water treatment bill is approximately R100 million per month and based on the findings of the uMngeni River Walk where the water quality improved from extremely poor to natural below the Albert Falls Dam as a result of riparian vegetation restoration, it can be calculated that it will cost 10% of the monthly water treatment spend to replicate this restoration work along the entire length of the uMngeni River's main stem. This would lead to the creation of hundreds of jobs and a reduction in the treatment costs.
Both the Lion's and Mpofana rivers do an excellent job of assimilating impurities. These tributaries are highly sinuous, i.e. they meander extensively, with associated flood plains and oxbows. This gives them the potential to assimilate both sediments and impurities as the actual length of the channels is significantly longer than the direct distance between a source of pollution and Midmar dam (as the crow flies).

The nutrification of the big dams – this would be "eutrophication", i.e. the artificial or accelerated increase in nutrients coming from intensive agriculture. We know that the Lions is not in good condition and has a dense concentration of intensive crop and animal production activities along its banks and in the catchment, and now that the MMTS-2 is coming on 'stream', the added impurities from the Mooi system will exacerbate this situation. Although Umgeni Water's water quality monitoring suggests that the Mooi and Lions are in pretty good shape, it is possible that with a little more intensive monitoring a different picture will emerge. Penny's walk of the Lions showed this to be true. Without the MMTS-2 I have been told that the prediction for Midmar's eutrophication to similar levels as Hartebeespoort Dam, was between 15 – 20 years. Now with the MMTS-2 adding to the system, it is predicted that this may happen in 10 to 15 years. Inanda is already showing signs of algal blooms in the upper and mid sections, but its depth and convoluted shape allows for this to be dealt with by the time it gets to the lower end where the raw water is abstracted. So it is not a water quality and treatment problem as yet, but in drier years when the concentration increases, it could well reach the threshold from which it tips across to the Hartebeespoort type of situation.

Ecological infrastructure has the capacity to do wonderful things with our messes, but if we push the systems too far, then we will exceed this capacity and lose the ecological services. Intensive agriculture can work with ecological infrastructure if it recognises the value of the services and respects the thresholds, otherwise that is when the R100 million/month bills begin to emerge.

It turned out to be a truly interesting afternoon, with plenty of food for thought. MCF has raised funds (from N3TC) for the DUCT River Walkers to explore the Mpofana this month, Balgowan Conservancy is helping with the organisation and generously providing accommodation. Follow the journey on their blog: www.umngeniriverwalk.wordpress.com

As we left, a Spotted Eagle Owl nest with a couple of chicks was pointed out to us in the car park - beside the busy rugby field! Despite the handy ledge that was built especially for them, the noise must have annoyed them after a while - or perhaps the heated debate at the MCG gathering was the final straw? They have now all moved to the Rectory garden where they are thriving. Nature certainly is resilient and adaptable, but as Kevan Zunckel said – it is about thresholds, sometimes we push Nature too far. Then we will all suffer.

Grace College pupil, Matthew Luksich (Grade 12), has been selected to play for the KZN Inland President's XI in a cricket tournament at Weston in October. Last year, Matthew played for the KZN Inland U17 Cricket team and it has been a delight to watch him do so well in a sport that he is passionate about. Matthew's success is well-deserved and may he continue to reap great rewards for the long hours dedicated to this game.

News supplied.

We have had no major competitions this week, but will play for the Queen's Cup on Saturday. This trophy was donated to the club many years ago. Teams will be drawn on Saturday morning, and play will commence as soon after 08:45 as possible. The competition will be rounded off with a lunch provided by Quarry Spar.

The last tournament before we close at the end of the month will be sponsored by Lindsay's Coffee Shop on Saturday 27th. While the club is closed, Rina Tainton will be arranging a Bridge Drive. If you wish to play or can provide prizes of any kind, please contact Rina on 033 239 5739. On 10th October we will be holding a Curry Evening social. Details to follow.

Duties: 21 - 27 Sept. OOD: Margie Garrard. Tabs: Dave Garrard.

Duty Team: Gil van der Hoven. Teas on 27th Sept: Jean & Rob Tosen. Biscuits 25 & 27 Sept: Bill Lambert & Fred Palmer.

News supplied by Hilton Bowling Club.