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Trees, trees and more trees.  This is what Johannesburg City Parks have promised the community of Sunninghill and have already begun delivering many of the 1500 trees promised to the Ratepayers Association.

Arthur Talbot and Murray Nitch, residents of Sunninghill Park who are passionate about trees and who recently planted a large number of trees along Rivonia Road Ext where it meets Tana and our Sunninghill Community General Manager Kerry Mawson have been extremely busy over the past three weeks.  They plan to plant trees all over our suburb, starting with the newly built K60 and much to our delight City Parks have committed to supplying in excess of 1500 trees!!  In addition to this Hardy Kruger and his friend Michael Buchmann and business partner Stuart Andrews of AMA Dig Dig have sponsored a Xonix machine for two days to dig the holes for the trees. Residents have flocked to our assistance with money, lunch, breakfast and plenty of thirst quenching cool drinks for our casuals.

Kerry Mawson our newly appointed Sunninghill Community General Manager has been bowled over by the spirit of the residents and businesses in Sunninghill.  Her words after only two and a half weeks on the job were “this is awesome – I simply love this job”.

Watch this space ….. Sunninghill Community is only starting its campaign of beautifying our suburb over the spring and summer months and welcome every donation towards this initiative.

THIS IS YOUR RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION WORKING FOR YOU!!

Litter Bins:  We are pleased to be able to say that most of the Agents responded positively to our concerns about the placing of these litter bins.  The Agent put the company responsible for these bins in contact with us and we are meeting with them on Wednesday of this week.  At this meeting we will discuss a) the growing number of these bins in Sunninghill and b) moving these bins to areas where they are needed to collect litter.

Pointer boards:  Here too we are pleased to say that the vast majority of Agents took notice of our email and when I went out on Sunday to do an inspection, I noticed a huge difference.  There were however one or two Agents who still put up more than the necessary one pointer board per intersection.  These Agents were:

Once we have met with the bin media company we will be calling a meeting of all Estate Agents.

 LITTER BINS – Agents are using these as a way to advertise in the area and not as a solution to reducing the litter in the suburb. A prime example of this is the number of litter bins at the K60 / Nanyuki road intersection. Here we have no fewer than 12 bins, all within a few metres of each other and most in areas where there is no pedestrian traffic. This intersection is of course one of the best areas for advertising due to the volume of traffic travelling through here. Great place to advertise, but worthless area for bins, resulting in this intersection looking terrible with the bins becoming visual litter in our suburb. There are a number of areas where we could do with litter bins, such as the formal and informal taxi ranks in Sunninghill, why not place bins here, if you really do want to reduce litter. Sunninghill Community have mapped out areas in the suburb where it is acceptable to place bins and we encourage Estate Agents with bins in the area to contact our office manager, Bernadette Will to discuss where your bins would best serve the purpose of reducing litter. Her number is (011) 234-3888. We ask you then to ensure your bins are moved to these areas. We will give you all until he 30th of March, a week to contact our office to come to an agreement as to where you should move your bins to. Once done, we will give you the opportunity to contact the authorities you signed up with for advertising to move the bins. We will of course communicate with our members in Sunninghill as to the progress being made. Thereafter, those who do not work with us in keeping our area free of litter and advertising signs, will be named and shamed.

ESTATE AGENT POINTER BOARDS ON A SUNDAY – It is with great dismay that we notice Agents have reverted back to their old way of erecting numerous pointer boards at intersections in Sunninghill, causing our area to look shocking over weekends. There is absolutely no need for you to have more than ONE pointer board at an intersection. The intersection of Tana and Nanyuki yesterday was a nightmare!!! We will be monitoring the situation next weekend and photos of culprits will be published via email and on our websites.

We urge you all to please work with the Ratepayers Association in our fight to keep our suburb of a certain standard. We would far rather work with you than have to name and shame you.

Linda Gildenhuys Sunninghill Community – security@suncomm.co.za 083-440-2381

In Sunninghill things were not much different. We also had our ups and downs; City Council killed our trees (in Maxwell Drive), didn’t fix our potholes, etc. On the other hand, crime remained among the lowest in Gauteng, we had good rains, exceptional weather, etc.  Something that should assist in the economic recovery of South Africa and that should focus our thoughts away from our immediate problems is the approaching Soccer World Cup. Sunninghill will most certainly see its share of the World Cup action, with many foreign tourists that will stay in our area, visiting our restaurants and shops, and travelling on our roads. We will all have to contribute to their South African experience by dressing Sunninghill in its Sunday best! Why not make a special effort with your gardens this year? Sunninghill Community will do its best to make sure that the infrastructure is in good condition, either by attending to matters itself or by making sure that City Council fulfills its obligations. 

May all of you have a successful 2010 and may we together make Sunninghill an ever better place to be!

 P A Laubscher  Chairman

Each child received at least four or five items from Santa.  The afternoon proved to be an enjoyable one for all.

 Sunninghill Community/Gardens would like to thank the Lonehill Fire Department for transporting Santa to our park, this caused huge excitement “for Santa too, who was delighted to at last ride in a fire engine”.  An enormous thanks must also go to the Sunninghill Superspar who once again donated all the gifts for the children.  The Superspar support the community so wonderfully and we would like to encourage all those in Sunninghill to support them in return

The first of these clean ups occurred on the 1^st of October where some 300 bags of litter were collected from all over Sunninghill and taken away by Pikitup.  This is a wonderful initiative by a member of Sunninghill Community, for the community.  In addition to this black bags for the litter were supplied free of charge by Builders Warehouse and food and liquid refreshments provided by Col’Cacchio Pizzeria of Bryanston, the owners of which are Sunninghill residents.

Residents, Businesses and their money working for the improvement of Sunninghill.  Thanks to all!!

Special thanks must go to Goldswain Properties for sponsoring the band “Outta the Red”, Think.Dance for their dance displays and the children’s dance competition, Savika Armed Response for sponsoring the tent and benches, Tops, Nedbank Private Bank and Remax for their invaluable help and sponsorship. 

Thank you too to all those who donated the many prises we received, both for the raffle and for the children’s dance competition. 

 This is what makes Sunninghill such a superb suburb, the people.  It was wonderful to see everyone relaxing, socialising with their neighbours and just having fun.  Visit our Photo page for all the photographs.