Hello everyone and welcome to the wonderful leap year of 2020, we have a lot planned this year so I thought I would just share some dates with you. All of them are in the Events Calendar but get out your diary and make a note of these as it’s always great to see as many of you as possible at all of the events.

Members meetings:

Firstly Bob H. has put together some dates for the members meetings, these are held at Wareham Nature Reserve and are open to all members and people who would like to come along as friends or guests, Bob H. arranges a speaker for each event which will be announced as soon as they have confirmed, the dates are:

6th February 2020 – Clive, one of our new members will be giving an educated talk of all sorts to do with woodlands and trees. This is a must see event as Clive has a wonderful gift of engaging speaker, poet and storyteller and is bound to help us have a very enjoyable evening.

16th April 2020 – Speaker to be confirmed

16th July 2020 – Speaker to be confirmed

12th November – INCURABLE  disease and illegal  aliens,  have you got any lurking in your woods? Helen Carter , who is the tree health officer for our area and Becki Gawthorpe MArborA, BSc (Hons) Arb Biosecurity Outreach Officer,  Plant Health Forestry Team, for the Forestry Commission will deliver a talk to the group about Tree diseases and Biosecurity, this is is going to be one not to miss, more information will follow shortly.

If you know anyone who would make a good speaker for these meetings please get in contact as Bob H. would love to hear from you and welcomes ideas.

Committee Meetings

Committee meetings are for committee members only, but if you wish to attend or have an item for the agenda please get in contact. The Committee is made up of volunteers, just like you, who are willing to give a little extra to the group and help steer things along, we are always looking for new people to join the committee so please get in contact if you can spare a little extra time to help drive this wonderful active group forward. The dates for the committee meetings this year are:

23rd January 2020

2nd April 2020

2nd July 2020

29th October 2020

Wood Fairs/Shows

One of our group aims is to spread the good word about Coppicing, tree planting, working with wood and woodlands and all associated trades and disciplines. The main way we do this is by attending shows, events and fairs to engage with the public and meet with others doing the same thing. Some of our members have products to sell, others demonstrate skills and others just come along to engage with everyone. As a group we get free admission to the event if we are doing one/all of these things, agreed with the organisers, as an attraction for their event, we call this our ‘Event model’ and it allows some flexibility of expenses to members who are attending if things don’t work out.

We really like to put on a good show and have a few regular members who do this but would love to see more people attend and in particular demonstrate skills to the visitors. It can be anything related to wood or woodlands or even metal work or tool demos, anything. Please do get in contact and come along, we do have a lot of fun and and will make you feel most welcome, even if you just want to sit down and carve a spoon/whittle or help others run their stall. This years shows/events include:

2nd May – South East Shire Horse Association Show

25th May – Surrey County Show

30th August – Edenbridge and Oxted Show

12th September – Belmont House Wood Fair

There are a couple of others in the event calendar that are yet to be confirmed or are free to attend but are not supported by the ‘Event model’

Woodland taster/event days

New for 2020 there will be some amazing days being held at Shadow woods, where we had the solstice event in December. The dates and event types have yet to be confirmed but may include Charcoal making and other such things. A news article will appear as soon as we have firmed things up so please keep checking back.

Well that’s all for now. Don’t forget to get in contact with me if there are any items for news you think others would be interested in and make a New Years resolution to join in as much as you can with the group this coming year, it is going to be great.

Bob Iles – Webby thingy person for the group