About Us

For more than 30 years, the Friends of Kings Park has been supporting the work of the Botanic Gardens & Parks Authority by active participation in conservation, bushland management and horticulture and through education. Friends also provides volunteer support and funding for scientific research projects through the Gift Fund.

Our History

The Foundation General Meeting of the Friends of Kings Park was held on 5 May 1993 with 12 founding members.  Under the Chairmanship of Tom Alford, Friends of Kings Park was established to provide support and assistance to Kings Park and Botanic Garden, to improve the facilities and to enable the community to be involved in making the Park a special place for People and Plants. The first issue of ‘For People and Plants’ magazine was published in Autumn 1993.

Friends currently has over 1,300 members, of which about 250 are active volunteers.

Governance

Friends of Kings Park is an Incorporated Association and a charity registered with the ACNC. The Management Committee ensures that Friends is a sustainable, well run and highly respected organisation with an effective structure and high standards of corporate governance. Accountability to the membership and community is represented by an Annual Report and a Special Purpose Financial Report. A Strategic Plan identifies the Friends’ focus areas and the proposed actions and desired outcomes that Friends will aim for. Guidelines under which Friends operates include:

Our Policies

FOKP Policy 001. Friends of Kings Park Life Memberships

FOKP Policy 002. Vic Galea Scholarship

FOKP Policy 003. Tom Alford Scholarship

FOKP Policy 005. Protection of Members’ Personal Data

FOKP Policy 007. Distribution of Friends of Kings Park Magazine

FOKP Policy 008 Complimentary Friends of Kings Park Membership for Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority Staff

FOKP Policy 011. Friends of Kings Park Awards

FOKP Policy 013. Mary Rose Paterson Scholarship

FOKP Policy 014. Friends of Kings Park Membership Fees

FOKP Policy 015. Debit card issue & use – available on request

FOKP Policy 016. Complaints Policy

FOKP Policy 017. Conflict of Interest Policy

FOKP Policy 018. Related Party Transactions Policy

Management Committee

Chris Olney, President

Chris has been a Friend since 2013 when she started training as a Kings Park Volunteer Guide. She was a member of the Guides Committee for six years until 2019, taking on the roles of newsletter editor, vice president and president. Chris is still actively involved with guiding, leading walks and volunteering in the Visitor Information Centre.

For the past nine years Chris has been assisting Tony Scalzo edit For People & Plants magazine. She is also a Growing Friend.

Chris retired from the paid workforce in 2013 after a 45-year career as a journalist, working in newspapers, on radio and as a government communications/media officer.

Email Chris

Kit Wignall, Vice President

Kit joined Friends in 2020, after shifting back from Melbourne, where he’d volunteered with Friends of Cranbourne Botanic Gardens. He joined the Management Committee in 2020 and started volunteering in the Garden Carers and subsequently got involved with the planning & establishment of the new Bushland Restoration project.

Kit is particularly interested in the science of bushland protection and restoration. He’s the joint chair of the Botanic Gardens & Parks Authority and Friends of Kings Park Bushland sub-committee. This group is focused on supporting long term planning strategies and specific initiatives for conservation of the Kings Park bushland.

Kit was part of the sub-committee that developed the 2022-2026 Friends of Kings Park Strategy.

Email Kit

Beryl Crane, Treasurer

Beryl was born in Perth & has lived in Perth, the Wheatbelt & the Hills. Her interest in plants & the environment has been lifelong & she has been an active participant in landcare including tree planting to restore salt affected land & improve stream quality. Beryl’s garden includes native & non-native plants as well as vegetables. She has a particular interest in planning gardens to mitigate fire risk. At Kings Park Beryl works in the Bush Garden, the Garden Advisory Service & in Plant Development.

Beryl is a Chartered Accountant & worked most recently as an auditor with experience in not-for-profits & compliance. Prior jobs included working for Government in various Departments as a Financial Management Officer & Admin Officer. Beryl worked at the WA Herbarium in admin for 7 years & managed a number of NHT grants in that time. Beryl became the Friends Treasurer in September 2024.

Email Beryl

Alisen Brooks, Committee Member

Alisen has been a Growing Friend since 2017. Since 2020, she increased her involvement with the Growers, joining the sub-committee and helping to organise the plant sales during the challenges of the pandemic.

Alisen was born in Sydney & grew up in the leafy suburbs of Adelaide. After graduating with a BSc from Adelaide Uni, she worked as a Immunology Research Assistant & a Public Health Researcher. In the late 1990’s, Alisen moved abroad & spent the next 20 years in SE Asia & Europe, where she taught English and led various charity initiatives. In addition to raising 2 children, Alisen gained a personal trainer qualification & taught pilates in Bangkok.

After returning to Perth in 2016, Alisen joined the Friends of Lake Claremont and Friends of Kings Park. She has always been enamoured by the natural world & her happy places are all outdoors – in the bush, in a garden & in particular in a Botanic Garden where science and nature embrace. Alisen has found joy in learning to propagate some of WA’s native beauties & being in the company of like-minded Friends volunteers.

Max Crowhurst, Committee Member

Max served as a Specialist Plant Breeder with the Plant Development Section at Kings Park and Botanic Garden from 2007 until his retirement in 2019. Max managed the Native Plant Tissue Culture section for the Plant Development Breeding Program and developed new de-flasking and transfer techniques for tissue culture plants as well as advanced native plant vegetative propagation systems.

Max has a background in Mechanical Engineering and worked for the Department of Agriculture for 28 years. In 1995, Max transferred to the Floriculture Section of the Department of Agriculture, where he was involved in native plant selection, plant propagation, and plant breeding development, supporting the Cut Flower Industry.

In 2007, Max joined the Kings Park Plant Development team and helped set up Grevillea and Small Myrtle breeding projects, attracting commercial investment funding. As well as being a member of the Friends Management Committee, Max also volunteers with the Horticultural Advice & Support team and contributes Native Plant Care notes to the monthly Friends newsletter.

Janine Cullen, Committee member

Further details to be provided shortly.

Kerry Staines, Committee Member

Kerry joined the Management Committee in 2020. She also does admin work in the Friends office and is a Growing friend. These roles allow Kerry to use the managerial & admin skills acquired over 35 years in the Commonwealth public service as a senior manager & an IT project manager. But more importantly, volunteering has given Kerry the opportunity to get to enjoy the park & the people who take care of it.

Kerry has been the Gardeners’ Circle garden club Secretary & Treasurer, which gave experience of the formalities of Incorporated Associations & their operations. She was also a Red Cross volunteer for 8 years providing admin support to the Emergency Services department. Kerry is in the Friends Work Health & Safety sub-committee & also worked on developing the Strategic Plan 2022-2026, which was of particular interest as it focused on the future of the organisation.

Carolyn Williams, Committee member

Carolyn began her love of Kings Park as a child, frequenting the park for picnics with family. That love has grown as she watched the park’s evolution into the iconic gardens it is now. Carolyn became an active Friends of Kings Park volunteer as a Bushland Carer, where she honed her knowledge of cheeky opportunistic weeds, and now works with the Growing Friends, where she helps propagate hundreds of species of Western Australian native plants for sale at the regular Friends of Kings Park plant sales.

In her professional career, Carolyn had the incredible privilege of being part of the team at University College London who pioneered the current screening test for Cystic Fibrosis. She has a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of London and a Diploma in Dietetics from Curtin University and has been involved in academic research for most of her career, always with the goal of translating basic discoveries into meaningful real-world advances. In her new role as a member of the Friends of Kings Park Management Committee Carolyn hopes her experience as a research leader, board member and former CEO will bring a unique dimension to the already incredible capacity of the team.

The Management Committee is supported by 2 part-time employees:

Natalie Simpson – Executive Coordinator

&

Dr Laura Skates – Events & Communications Coordinator

The Management Committee is supported by the sub-committees below, whose purpose is to support the Management Committee in fulfilling its role of managing the business of the Friends. A Joint Bushland sub-committee also exists to provide an avenue for the Friends and BGPA Bushland staff to engage and share information on bushland management and conservation issues.

Nursery Sub-committee

Alisen Brooks (Chair)
Tony Dickinson
Tony Scalzo
Kerry Staines
Carolyn Williams
Lynda Woodhams

Gift Fund Sub-committee

Tony Scalzo (Chair)
Anne Barden
Beryl Crane
Carolyn Williams
Lyn-Marie Hegarty

Events Sub-committee

Shannon Murphy (Chair)
Sue Elliott
Alex Hew

Horticultural Advice Service Sub-committee

Bernice Sparks (Chair)
Beryl Crane
Max Crowhurst
Ratna Sulastin

Funding

We earn funds through:

  • Donations

    Help support the Friends to make a bigger contribution to Kings Park and Botanic Garden. Tax deductible, one-off and regular payments are available.

  • Plant Sales

    Volunteers raise funds through quarterly plant sales by offering Western Australian native plants for sale.

  • Corporate Membership

    Perth and WA businesses make varied valuable contributions to help the Friends.

We provide funds to:

  • Kings Park and Botanic Garden for research projects
  • Support our active volunteers
  • Publication of our quarterly magazine, “For People and Plants”
  • Sponsor scholarships for post-graduate students, staff and volunteers.
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Friends of Kings Park Gift Fund

Money well spent!

The Friends of Kings Park was established in 1993 as a support organisation for Kings Park, mainly through volunteering and raising funds for various projects.

A Friends of Kings Park Fund was created in 2008 to assist with attracting tax deductible donations for important educational, horticultural, scientific and conservation work in the protection and enhancement of the natural environment.  Then in 2011 the Fund received a generous donation of shares from the Minderoo Foundation.  In 2024 the Fund transferred from being a Public Fund to a Gift Fund.

Over the years, dividends from these shares together with donations from members, have enabled the Fund to support various projects within Kings Park. Some of the projects funded through the Gift Fund are:

$17,000 per annum

to support Kings Park Summer Science Scholarship programme into the foreseeable future. This programme enables scholarship recipients to undertake a 12 week research project over the summer break in their area of interest, which must also align to a Kings Park research priority.

Read about recent Scholarship projects here:

$125,000 over 3.5 years

to Determine the colour compounds in novel coloured Anigozanthos hybrid, led by Digby Growns, Senior Plant Breeder, Kings Park. This breeding programme is unique in that it is the only ornamental breeding programme in the world that has environmental outcomes as its main objectives. Until recently, research has been focused on producing disease tolerant kangaroo paws, now it is time to research colour pigments present in the flowers and the metabolic pathways that produce these pigments.

$35,000 to Kings Park Science

to fund orchid biology and conservation through supporting the salary of the current part-time orchid research scientist. This will enable KP to maintain and increase the significant living orchid research and conservation collection and increase its capacity to undertake ex-situ conservation of some of Western Australia’s most threatened plant species.

$26,000 to support a PhD scientist

on the Australian Postgraduate Research Intern programme to conduct a thorough search of the literature of studies addressing the impacts of introduced honeybees on native plants and pollinators.

$15,000 per annum over 5 years

to support a PhD scientist to understand seed storage performance and to develop new technologies that will assist in the early identification of problematic seed collections.