Other updates include recent activities at our HQ near Lount, news regarding the possibility of Heartwood offering Corperate days, Season Planning, Operations & Safety, Website Updates and Treefest.
David Gravett - Membership Coordinator
What's In this Woodfueler
Wood fuel sessions
2022 session dates will be released in the same way as last season, with a month at a time being made available for members to book on to. Sessions will be released on the following schedule.
October
- Available from 6pm on the 15th August to skilled members, 10 spaces, no waiting list.
- Available from 6pm on the 1st September to all members, increased spaces and a waiting list.
November
- Available from 6pm on the 15th September to skilled members, 10 spaces, no waiting list.
- Available from 6pm on the 1st October to all members, increased spaces and a waiting list.
December
- Available from 6pm on the 15th October to skilled members, 10 spaces, no waiting list.
- Available from 6pm on the 1st November to all members, increased spaces and a waiting list.
Skilled members get early access to ensure the sessions are viable. Skilled members are those members who have a skill that is required to run a session, i.e. Session Lead, First Aiders, ATV Driver, Clearing Saw, Chainsaw Operators, etc. When the sessions are available to skilled members there will be no waiting list available. When the required skilled spaces have been filled other skilled members will need to wait until the sessions have been released to all members. The waiting list will then be available. If the session you want is full please book on to the waiting list, as this allows the team to assess the demand for places and add sessions as required (if possible).
David Gravett - Membership Coordinator
Heartwood AGM
Our AGM is always held during September and has traditionally served a dual purpose as season launch.
This year's AGM will be held on Monday 12th September at 7.00pm by Zoom meeting. The details of the meeting will be send to everyone a little closer to the date, but there are a few things to think about and potentially drop us a line before the meeting:
- Any nominations for committee positions
- Any questions on the management of the group, including sessions, membership or any other aspect of what we do and how we do it
A formal agenda will be sent out around two weeks before the meeting, but feel free to email or speak to any member of the committee in the mean time.
Kevin Banton - Heartwood Chair
Heartwood HQ
We had a great session at HQ on Saturday July 30th with 17 members and it was great to see new faces, we received fantastic feedback following the day. David Gravett ran a chainsaw skills session also with great feedback.
On Friday August 12th a smaller, but non the less, enthusiastic group, carried out a variety of tasks and continued to learn new skills. Everyone agreed in the high temperatures at the time, the cooler woods offered some welcome shade on the day! Jobs completed included the erecting of a new shed to store charcoal from the retorts, (given the tinder dry conditions it was decided not to run the two retorts on the day,) the construction of a new jig to aid in the cross cutting of wood for the retorts and also improvements to an area we call 'The Glade' so we can run corporate events to help even further with the group income stream. The glade area now has a ring of bench seats installed made from materials and logs to hand and also a central fire pit. We will continue to develop this area at the next HQ sessions. On the craft side, some valuable tips and techniques were passed on to some budding green woodworkers on the art of spoon carving!
As Kevin Banton mentioned in his recent email we also need to focus on all the small branches that we saved from last season's wood sessions to fuel the retorts for charcoal. This all needs to be processed before we start the season again so we have decided to run an extra session on Sunday 21st August, but this will only work with enough people so if you are free to help please sign up.
Over the last few months we have added 2 sessions to the booking system on the same day to try to gage the interest in the craft sessions. A decision has been made going forward to only add 1 HQ session, but crafts are always available to participate in, therefore if there is something you would like to do on the day please write this in the comments box when you book on. We have a few more members offering to share their craft skills on a casual basis when they attend a session. We will soon be focusing on besoms for Halloween and then our reindeer and snowmen for Christmas.
Remember we always have the fire going and for a small donation, lunch is usually provided.
Chris Adams - Heartwood HQ Chair
Charnwood Charcoal Project
We mentioned the progress of this educational project in last months newsletter. The project is moving forward with a school booking now in place for the 13th September. Although we don't need a huge team to deliver this to schools. We do need a number of members to help. Running the charcoal retort is part of this and we have quite a few members now familiar with this. The area we are looking for help with is in the delivery of the educational material and the artistic aspects - both of these may sound a little scary, but in fact we have an experienced team at the National Forest who are handing over these aspects to us. If you can help please let me know - the commitment is very small (a few sessions per year) and the more members we have involved the better.
Kevin Banton - Heartwood Chair
Corporate Days
We are very pleased that the National Forest team have chosen Heartwood as partners to deliver their forest experience days to their major sponsors. The forest days will take place at Heart Wood HQ and will involved all the usual skills and activities associated with woodfuel days - felling, brashing, timber management etc, along with HQ based activities such as charcoal making or timber processing.
The move from tree planting as a "go to" corporate day out to woodland management is a conscious decision to ensure NFC sponsors are aware of the longer term commitment to woodlands once they have been planted.
Your help in delivering these sessions will be appreciated and the knowledge that we have gained over our time at HCWG is a delight to share with others. You will be surprised how much you know.
These experience days will bring in significant income for the group helping us continue in our aim to be grant independent.
Kevin Banton - Heartwood Chair
Season Planning
There new season is only a matter of weeks away, so we have been looking at session dates and sizes. Believe it or not the "science" of session planning is quite complex, with member numbers, session numbers, member attendances, transport distances, volume of logs for bays and of course the one we can't control the weather. With the huge increase in fuel prices upon us we are looking at contingency planning for a potential increase in new members. We have made a conscious decision not to run "taster days" or to pro-actively go looking for new members as we expect an increase through word of mouth etc. Any intelligence you may hear on this subject would be most helpful in our planning.
The season will start at the beginning of October and the process for booking will remain largely the same, but will be confirmed by David G.
Kevin Banton - Heartwood Chair
Operations and Safety
Preparation for the resumption of woodfuel events is well underway.
A key step is to demonstrate to ourselves and landowners is that we have all of our ducks in a row from safety and management perspectives. So all of the pertinent risk assessments have to be reviewed, updated where needed and assembled into an evidence package along with machinery and first aid qualification certificates, site method statements and other bits and pieces. That's then sent to the Woodland trust and Leicestershire County Council. For the Woodland Trust, there's then a formal "Precommencement meeting" that's held with the area manager in the woods and we get the green light to go. That's planned for 24th August and most of the prep work is done.
We've all seen the changes that have happened to our daily lives, legislation and official guidance as the pandemic has played out. We're now at the "living with covid" stage as a country, and what that's boiled down to from a Heartwood Woodfuel event point of view is there is now very little to do to manage Covid related hazards.
Of the things included in the guidance, it really boils down to:
- Staying at home if unwell.
- Catching coughs and sneezes / keeping clean hands.
- For first aid, helping the casualty help themselves.
- For casualties who can't help themselves, use PPE and limit personal contact.
It's up to individuals if they wish to do more, by the way. For example, social distancing. It's just no longer an official requirement.
The pages and pages of Covid risk assessment and Safe System of work have been retired because they are no longer needed, and the things we do need to do for Covid are captured in the main Woodfuel Event risk assessment.
Many of the process changes that were introduced because of Covid worked better anyway, so those we're keeping will be written into the Method Statements, which is where we say how we do things.
Graham Bowers - Operations Chair
Website Updates
By the beginning of September the website will have been updated to use a new session booking system. Details of any changes on how you book onto session will be sent out and made available on the website when the update has gone live.
David Gravett - Membership Coordinator
Treefest
The National Forest is excited to present Treefest – a Connected Treescapes research study in collaboration with the University of Derby, UK Treescapes and Go Jauntly.
Treefest aims to explore how the UK's treescapes affect the public and evaluate how the form and function of these woodland and forests benefit society. This in turn will help to safeguard these environments for future generations and the rest of the natural world. We have designed eight walks across the National Forest, which can be found on the Go Jauntly app (free to download). Participants will be asked a few simple questions before and after the walk, and the data will be analysed by the researchers at the University of Derby to see how different treescapes can support wellbeing. The more people that join in this study, the better the data will be so we're really keen to get as many people as possible engaged! You can find out more about the study and how to take part here:
https://www.gojauntly.com/Treefest
https://findingnature.org.uk/2022/08/02/help-discover-the-benefits-of-trees/
As an extra incentive, survey respondents who complete a walk before the end of October will be entered into a free prize draw to win one of twenty £100 vouchers as a thank you for taking part (T&Cs apply).