Heartwood Growth
We continue to spread the word of Heartwood, with an article this month in the "Ashby Life" magazine - if you would like to have a look go to the website and turn to page 80.
We are hoping the expected high attendance at TIMBER will provide an abundance of interested people who we can talk to about what we do and how they can get involved. We have a number of group members helping with the festival, to ensure the various activities we are doing are well ran and take advantage of the opportunity to spend time with the festival goers.
Charcoal Retort
The recent delivery of the Hookway Retort has generated a great deal of interest within the group. The delivery day on the 7th June also included a day of tutorial from James Hookway, the designer of the retort. We all learnt a great deal from James, showing that the use of the retort is a bit of a "black art" with lots of variables such as timber moisture content, weather conditions and the skill of the user all playing a part in how the burn runs and the quality of the charcoal produced. Since delivery we have had a further burn, which was again successful and has allowed us to create our own guide on the use of the retort. Further burns are planned prior to TIMBER as we will be running the retort nightly at the festival as part of the scheduled attractions. We plan to put the charcoal we have produced on sale at the festival along with the firewood we have processed at CEEP.
We are now looking at the potential of a co-operative with other local charcoal producers to create a single sales outlet. More news on this as the idea develops.
We also plan to make the retort available for members and other community groups so they can carry out their own burns. How we do this is being discussed.
Group Legal Status
As part of our development we need to change the legal status of the group. We will be progressing the conversion to a Community Interest Company (CIC) which will ensure the liability we carry is limited to the group and not to any of the individuals of the committee. I order to progress this we will need to update the constitution, so a new one will be shared at the AGM in September.
Data Protection Legislation
We have been working in the background on our approach to the GDPR legislation. Already we have "cleansed" our records to ensure we only hold details of people active within the group, also removing personal details that we do not use. The approach we continue to take will be:-
- We will store any data that we hold about you securely
- Any contact we make with you will be intended to support the direct purpose of Heartwood Community Wood Fuel Group
- We will never pass your data onto third parties
- On request, we will provide you with those details that we hold about you free of charge
- We will delete your data if you no longer wish us to hold it
- We aim to be GDPR compliant
Interesting Sites you may want to take a look at
woodlandantics.wordpress.com - A great source of information for Greenwood and Woodland Crafts
livingwoodsmagazine.co.uk/ - Free magazine packed with useful information and articles
www.wildrumpus.org.uk - Joint organisers of the TIMBER festival.