Group Employee Liability Insurance
ATV incident Investigation concludes
National Landscapes Visit
The planned visit to the Hub by a team from “National Landscapes” was a great success. Thanks to the Heartwood team who entertained the visitors, they saw the charcoal retorts in action together and had a biochar overview. The team were then given a guided tour of Edwards wood where we were able to demonstrate the impact of three seasons of woodland work and see clear evidence that the woodland benefits from thinning.
We received the following feedback from National Landscapes via the National Forest team – “A massive thank you for putting so much work into your National Landscapes conference field trip last week. Everyone came back from the day buzzing, and the conversations over dinner that evening were about how much of a good time everyone had had during the day. It’s without doubt the highlight of the conference, so thank you for making it a roaring success”.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Woodland Creation Project
Last month I took part in a survey with “Forest Research” focussing on natural regeneration as a woodland creation approach. We are in a good position to see the benefits of thinning and the regeneration this enables. If you are interested in reading about some of the projects here are a few articles.
- Project (TreE_PlaNat) website: https://www.wren-project.com/tree-planat.html - here you will find all our project resources including blogs, webinars, and published documents. An FAQ about woodland creation through natural colonisation is in progress and will be available on the website in autumn 2024. The webinar for the social research results will be in Nov/ Dec 2024 (date TBC).
- If you would like to be kept up to date with future project events and outputs then please sign up to the mailing list: https://www.wren-project.com/tree-planat-mailing.html
- Case study factsheet for woodland creation through natural colonisation: https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/41027/Natural_Colonisation_Factsheet_Sept23.pdf
- In-person events: Out project partners, the Woodland Trust and the National Forest, are hosting a woodland creation training event on 13th - 14th August in Burton on Trent, Staffordshire for practitioners - please contact Hayley Wood at
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in attending (noting that you have heard about it through Forest Research).
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Group Employee Liability Insurance
Our insurance policy has been renewed for another year. As volunteers we are all classed as Employees when it comes to employee liability. As an organisation we have a duty to display the employee liability certificate, but as we don’t have a base as such, please go to the website to view the certificate. It is a statuary requirement that we make this available for everyone.
The certificate can be found in the Membership section of the website under “Documents/Insurance”
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Heartwood "Works Team"
We have been successful in creating a relationship with South Derbyshire District Council (SDDC) where we carry out woodland work on small green areas owned by the council. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement that gives SDDC a solution between their grounds team and tree surgeon contractors. The nature of the work will always be minimal but is another source of income for us. We carried out our first work recently on a green area in the middle of a housing estate where the trees had been vandalised and left in a poor condition. Three HCWG members removed dangerous tree and made good the damage. A before and after photo below.
This type of work provides another opportunity, so we would like to set up a small “works” team of members who would like to be on a “Whatsapp” group so when work comes in we can react quickly without having to email every member. There may be logs available, but it will depend on what the work is, so not guaranteed. If you would like to be on the list, please let me know and provide your mobile number so you can be added to the Whatsapp group
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Netherseal School
As part of the Community Woods project and in co-operation with the NFC and RCC, there was a construction session held at Netherseal School. All of the kits were provided by us, along with expert tuition from Dave Carpenter. We received a lovely thank you from Emma of the RCC.
“Thank you for encouraging the Heartwood crew to get involved. Dave was a great help – particularly as we had to run sessions across two mornings in the end to make sure that all of the students could join in.
Really positive feedback from the students and the staff. “Best activity ever” from one student 😊 Some students were more confident with tools than others – most students reported feeling more confident using tools at the end of the session – those that hadn’t grown in confidence already considered themselves competent. We certainly observed a number of students that were struggling with some of their fine motor skills but persevered with a bit of support. Some students worked as teams and some had 1:1 support from a staff member.
All in all, we made 20 bug boxes and 12 nest boxes”
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Timber Festival
Timber was a little different again this year, with some of the favourites no longer there and a lot fewer “woodland” type exhibitors. We were also in a different spot, which turned out to be a little exposed and believe it or not cold (yes, it’s July). The Heartwood team, as always, made the best of the event and had a great time sharing our charcoal making experience and helping youngsters make nest boxes.
There is always a great deal of organisation and logistics in making these events happen for us, so thank you to all of the members involved this year.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Season Preperation
Plans are now starting to come together for the new season. As a group what we do is gaining more momentum and we are finding ourselves much in demand. As an output of our strategic review earlier in the year we have created a “portfolio” of sites which we are already working in, have plans in to engage with, or are currently purely aspirational. Meetings with landowners are taking place to build a 5-10 year “pipeline plan.
You will realise that there will be pre-season preparation work by our relatively small operations team. Your help in getting us ready for the season will be very much appreciated, so let us know if you can get involved. We will be running a couple of spike removal sessions at Edwards Wood to get us ahead of the game – perhaps a bacon sarnie would tempt you to help?
The main session dates are in the plan as we have to ensure we can deliver on the commitments we have made as part of the woodland management grants we get from the NFC. Other sessions such as coppicing can be added around those dates and can remain flexible to accommodate weather and ground conditions.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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The Hub updates
July has been a quiet time at The Hub except from the charcoal making that we continually would like support on to supply Calke and work with https://abellto.co.uk
This month we have supplied over 30 sacks.
August and September will be the start of our craft making with the besoms for Halloween which very swiftly moves us into the start of the Christmas craft season with the harvesting of timber for Reindeer and Snowmen. We also said we would try and make stars out of willow or anything members think they would like to make, remember to tell us in advance for the willow so we can soak it in the week.
Thank you to the support from Fedex the track has been worked on and now makes an excellent route up to The Hub. Thankyou to Kev for overseeing this project and being there for the contractor.
Just as the newsletter goes to print we have found out that the FedEx event has had to be postponed due to unforeseen circumstances within FedEx. The event will now take place on the 12th September, please book on if you would like to help.
Chris Adams, Kevin Banton, Dave Barker | Hub Team
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ATV incident Investigation concludes
As many will know, an accident involving one of the ATV’s happened last season. Control of the ATV was lost whilst it was being reversed and it struck the session leader.
Any accident investigation seeks to understand what happened, why it happened and what can be done to stop it happening again. And this was no different. This newsletter article seeks to summarise the investigation, and outcomes however focuses on the key aspects, so if something seems missing, it’s probably in the comprehensive report than is now in draft. This will be made available to all members.
Asking those involved seemed a good place to start. They were there, so knew all about it. The witness statements were gathered up and studied. It was clear control of the machine had been lost. However, crucially, what wasn’t understood at all is what had caused the loss of control, and why. And without that level of understanding, how can we stop it happening again? Here, as if often the case, root causes of accidents are much deeper than first sight may suggest.
So, after some head scratching, it was decided to conduct a reconstruction. The operator, the casualty and the two investigators went back to the same place in the same wood with the same ATV and set about repeating history. However, with extreme caution.
The first step was to mark on the ground and then map exactly where everything had been. Then the ATV operator sat back on the machine and reconstructed the movements that had taken place.
What emerged was an unlikely and unexpected chain of events that those who conducted the reconstruction all agree is most likely what happened.
Turning the ATV was awkward. The ground was slightly sloping, and wet. Trees had been felled in the area, so there were stumps. However, during the turn, we concluded one of the front wheels came up to a stump that could not be seen beneath the machine, and so caused resistance. Note, the machine was on full lock at this time, which in itself offers resistance. So, the engine revs were increased to compensate, and as the wheel passed the stump, that resistance was removed, and the machine lurched backwards. An instinctive reaction to grab the bars resulted in inadvertent full throttle.
The root cause analysis was very interesting. Fundamentally, we found a number of systemic changes that will become baked into our processes, not just for the ATV drivers, but for everyone on sessions.
We implemented a number of changes from the date of the incident and as you know these were briefed out at each session whilst the investigation concluded.
The ATV operator role is relentless – no hiding place. Other roles can take a bit of a rest. We can do something about that and will be making role changes in the new season.
Graham Bowers | Operations Chair
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