Woodlands.co.uk
Doing more in woodlands – Mark Walton and his “shared assets” project
It’s not often you meet a person who has set up an organisation just to make sure land is used more constructively. Mark Walton, of sharedassets.org.uk, is such a person and today he told me about how he plans to change the way land is used. He’s been able to set up this new social enterprise because he has a Clore Social Fellowship, which funds and supports aspiring leaders in the social sector. These fellowships last one year full time or two years half time, and Mark has used the freedom this gives to investigate how public, private and charitable landowners can be helped to use their land more productively. He also has support from the Tudor Trust. Read more…
Social Forestry in Glede Wood.
Visits to ‘Glede Wood’, Shropshire, provided for the use of the Small Woods Association by Woodlands.co.uk, have begun again with the start of our new project ‘Branch Out’
Our Social Forestry projects have targeted a range of disadvantaged groups from NEET’s (Not in Employment Education or Training) to women offenders. This time we are engaging members of Telford’s black and ethnic minority.
We have managed to gain some funding to buy a minibus, bought cheaply courtesy of Hitachi Capital, which allows us to pick people up from the town centre. As a result this broadens participation and removes another barrier to exploring the forestry sector. Read more…
Smile Meadow – a forest school
St Mark’s CE Primary School (Sussex) were surprised and delighted to be given the use of a piece of woodland and meadow, only 400 metres from the school.
First the whole school visited the Ashdown Forest (under the aegis of the Sussex Wildlife Trust ), Then all the staff took part in an INSET day – also led by the Sussex Wildlife Trust. This gave the staff the opportunity to develop and refine some ideas on how to use the wood and meadow land to enhance children’s learning. Read more…
Bedstraws
The bedstraws are slender, sprawling herbs that have square stems (in cross-section) and they belong to the genus GALIUM. This genus belongs to the family RUBIACEAE, which includes the Gardenias, Coffea (for coffee) and Cinchona (bark yields quinine = Jesuits’ bark).
Galium odoratum (sweet woodruff) is a woodland bedstraw, which tends to form ‘a carpet’ and is a perennial. Galium aparine ( aka goosegrass, kisses, cleavers, sticky bobs, sticky willy, sweethearts and robin run the hedge) is more common and is a ‘scrambler”; it is also an annual. Read more…
Woodland Shelter Build.
A priority when staying out in the woods is a good water and wind proof shelter
The following photos show the construction of a hazel wood shelter to sleep 2-3 people.
We are out a lot, so we built it to last.
The photographs in the ‘strip’ below show the various stages in the construction of the shelter. Read more…
BTCV – Conservation Volunteers
BTCV is a social enterprise group and charitable organisation that enables people to make a difference to their lives and to improve the places around them. They have the largest team of environmental volunteers in the country and have assisted at 50,000 sites across the UK. With 50 years worth of experience for engaging, reaching and inspiring volunteers and their communities, they are the confident pioneers of creating environmental capital. Read more…
Working for biodiversity
Gatwick Greenspace Partnership, now part of the Sussex Wildlife Trust, has leased Lower Orlton’s Copse*, near Rusper, on an initial three year agreement with the aim of improving the biodiversity in the wood, through a process of selective thinning and pollarding, and using the site for our Forest Schools project. Read more…