Good Sorts - Ina Turner

Waimate volunteer Turner (89), spends most of her spare time outside volunteering nature in and believes ‘it only takes a minute or two’ of her time to remove a small invasive plant to help the natural environment thrive.

Ina was born in Waimate in 1939, at what is now Lister Home and went to Waimate Main School, then Waimate High School. After school she went to Dunedin Kindergarten Training College for two years, and then taught at Geraldine Kindergarten for a year. While in Dunedin, Ina met her husband, who was training to be a teacher at Dunedin Teachers College, and in 1954 they got married. They then lived in Nelson Creek, Geraldine and Te Moana, where her husband had teaching positions. During this time she had three children and drove the school bus. Once their children reached high school age, they Christchurch, and Ina did a one-year pressure cooker course, to get her Home Economics Diploma and become a Home Economics Teacher.

In 1977 she got a job at the Manual Training Centre in Waimate, which was on Belt Street, and she would work two days in Timaru and three days in Waimate. She lost her Waimate job when the standard five and six pupils were transferred to Waimate High School. Eventually she obtained a full time position attached to Marchwiel School in Timaru.

Then in 1986 she became the assistant teacher at the Waimate Mobile Kindergarten, travelling to eight groups around the district each week, until she retired in December 1986. Ina’s first go at volunteering lasted 20 years, where she drove the Waimate Community Shuttle, taking people to the old Nurse’s Home and then to Elder Care at Lister Home. In 1998, she started to volunteer with Forest and Bird, a group that she had been a member of since 1981.

Ina said that through being a member of Forest and Bird, she became aware of the devastation that was occurring in a lot of our bush reserves and wetlands, so she started volunteering in ‘working bees’, looking after the natural environment, removing invasive flora. She said they would work alongside the Department of Conservation (DOC), removing Old Mans Beard in Peel Forest and Environment Canterbury (ECAN), removing Wilding Pines in the McKenzie Country and Broom, Sycamore and Blackberry in local South Canterbury Reserves.

“It takes only a minute or two to remove a small invasive plant and anyone can learn what an invasive plant is and how to help our natural environment,” she said.

In 1990 Ina was a committee member on the establishment of the Totara Reserve that was set up just off Point Bush Rd, off the Maori Cemetery and she has overseen and worked at the Waimate Museums Native Garden.  She has also been a member of Bushtown, Friends of Knottingley Park and Friends of Kelcey’s Bush; calling herself ‘just a worker’, someone that would just help where she could.

Ina still spends time volunteering at the Totara Reserve and overseeing the Waimate Museums Native Garden doing a few hours a week there maintaining it as needed. She said she volunteers because she enjoys working outside helping nature and seeing the results of what she has achieved, even if it is for only a short period of time a week.

“Waimate is a friendly community and we have many natural areas to visit or to walk in so close to town. “Where you can see our native bush and hear the Tui, Fantail, and Bellbird. “Anyone can get involved in helping our natural environment thrive so we can all enjoy it. “My policy is, it is easier to remove a small invasive plant before it gets too big; it only takes a moment to remove or treat a small invasive plant.” By Amelia King