Selective Market Place Corporate Day
Awards Update
Our second award nomination this year was in the “Environmental Project” category with the awards sponsored by Furnley House. We didn’t manage to win the award this time but were given a certificate for reaching the finals, no mean achievement.
Helen and Mark attended the awards ceremony on our behalf.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Works Team Update
The works team have been busy again this month carrying out coppicing and woodland type work on a “greenway” in Hilton. The work involved coppicing a number of Hazel stools which had become very overgrown by the side of a public path through a housing estate. There were two days’ work for a team of 8-10 of us. Good boot loads of Hazel firewood were taken by a number of the team, with the remaining brash taken to the Hub for charcoal and Biochar conversion.
The works team has further work lines up, so if you are interested in getting involved, please let us know.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Hedge Laying Training
Zoe at the NFC together with Simon Lowe from Derbyshire Wildlife Trust are arranging two hedge laying training sessions which will take place at the Hub – The hedge on two edges of the woodland is at an ideal age and height to be laid. Both courses will be over two days – 20/21st January and 3/4th February. There will be more information coming out soon which we will forward to everyone but do let me know if you are interested.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Selective Market Place Corporate Day
It was a return visit from the team at Selective Market Place who joined us in the woods as part of their sponsorship of the National Forest Company. The team spent the day felling trees in the new compartment of Edwards Wood where we are working this season. They were awarded the very first wooden “certificate” by the National Forest recognising their continued support. The lovely wooden trophies have been made for the National Forest by our own David Gravett (ITSW). These will be given to all the NFC sponsors over the coming months.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Willow Harvest
We have been very lucky again this season to be given the opportunity to harvest willow from the same private woodland as last year. It’s amazing just how much the willow has grown this year, so we have lots of various thickness and colour to try out more projects at the Hub over the coming months.
Thank you to the small team who came along to perform the harvest on a beautiful cold, crisp and sunny morning.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Swadlincote Woodfuel Sessions
South Derbyshire District Council have been running their own woodfuel sessions in Swad Woodlands for many years, in fact several of our members originate from the group. Up until very recently the sessions have been ran by TCV (The Conservation Volunteers), but starting in the new year Heartwood will be supporting the remaining couple of sessions. Certainly, at this early stage the sessions will not be managed through our booking system and will only be able to take a small number of attendees. Steve Miller has been a long-standing member of the group and has agreed to manage the sessions. Contact us if you are interested, but please realise that for this season the attendee numbers will be low, and priority given to the existing volunteers of that group.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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Rest in Winters Woods
I asked Chat GPT to write a poem based on the style of Thomas Hardy. I was looking for something to sum up the end of session feeling. See what you think…
As twilight claimed the woodland’s hold,
We laid our tools, our labour done,
With limbs grown heavy, spirits bold,
And warmth earned by the setting sun.
Our breaths rose faint in frosty air,
Our hands and boots all earth-stained proof—
The firewood stacked with patient care
Would warm us ‘neath a homely roof.
The evergreens loomed dark and high,
Bare branches laced with silver frost;
The wind sighed low, as if to sigh
With pride for what we’d earned and lost.
No bird broke roost, no creature stirred,
But in the dusk, a whispered tune,
The woods gave thanks, a sound we heard,
A murmur in the rising moon.
With firewood packed, we felt the ground,
The soil we’d turned with roughened hand,
The forest bending gently round,
Our work etched deep into the land.
And though the night would bring its chill,
The warmth of toil was ours to own,
And fires, kindled bright, would fill
Our homes from what these woods had grown.
Kevin Banton | Heartwood Chair
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The Hub Update
Every year we look back and plan for our Christmas crafts, this may have to get earlier next year due to the success of our reindeers and snowmen sales this year.
A massive thankyou to all our ‘elves’ who have been very busy making parts and assembling and of course the delivery of herding these reindeers and the ‘melt’ of snowmen is no mean feat.
Chris Adams, Kevin Banton, Dave Barker | Hub Team
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