Woodfuel Sessions
It’s becoming one of our toughest seasons regarding maintaining the session plan. We’ve had several named storms that have impacted us, snow and a couple of issues with our machinery. Now we are in the final part of the season our focus is on achieving our commitments to both landowners and the National Forest Woodland Management Grant work.
To get the best out of the remainder of the season we are carefully looking at the existing plan to identify sites where we may fall short. If possible, we will adapt the plan and even try to inject further sessions. It is well worth your time keeping an eye on the booking system in case there are changes or additions. There are constraints with this as most of the landowners we work with don’t allow felling in March due to nesting birds.
We will keep everyone informed of any changes and please be flexible if we have to move venues.
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Graham Bowers | Operations Chair
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The Hub Update
It’s been a very quiet period since the flurry of Christmas activity. The weather hasn’t been the best, but we are now planning Hub activity for the rest of 2026.
The Hub team have created an outline plan for the year covering the two sessions per month, plus trying to include more “Time out Tuesdays”.
Our charcoal demand has grown year on year. Fortunately, we have a stock to take us into the start of the BBQ season, but there is lots of charcoal wood to process from this seasons sessions and from experience we know demand ramps up very quickly when the weather improves or we get into school holidays at half term or Easter.
There has been a steady increase in the attendance of Hub sessions with new members joining just to be part of that community. If you want to keep in touch with the Hub team on a more frequent basis there is a TOITW WhatsApp group where activities and sessions are constantly shared and updated. Let us know if you would like to be added to the group.
At the time of writing, we have found out that there is serious work taking place on the track leading to the Hub. You will be aware that there are potholes again and lying water. Contractors have arrived to reduce the hedge on both sides; to increase light and air, the ditches are being dug deeper to disperse water, then the track is being re-laid. It has meant the cancellation of TOITW on the 31st January, but hopefully it will be a longer-term fix for the track.
Back on the subject of Christmas, a few of us are meeting the management team at Rosliston Forestry Centre to go over last year’s successful “build a snowman” event and to look at ideas for their Christmas market this year. We realise this is very early, but whatever we decide to do will take a great deal of planning and preparation. We will come back to everyone, with feedback from the meeting and to see who would like to be involved. There will be all sorts of roles, not just practical help with the public, but engaging, taking money and generally representing the group. More on this next month.
Chris Adams, Kevin Banton, Dave Barker | Hub Team
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Training
There has been a flurry of training activity within the group. We now have plenty of qualified tractor drivers and chipper operators, all thanks to the Lottery funding we received to purchase the chipper and to Robin for organising – not an easy task we know.
There will be further training opportunities, so if you are interested in adding any of the skills we use in the group, including leadership and other internal roles, please drop us a line or have a chat with Robin when you see him
Robin Barber | Training Co-ordinator
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Email Update
Issues out of our control caused emails from the Website, emails such as session booking confirmations, session reminders, session cancellations, etc. to not be delivered. A work around for this issue was implemented.
Further intermittent issues have also been experienced in the last week but only effecting some email providers.
You can check your bookings and more importantly if a session has been updated or cancelled by visiting the Heartwood website and viewing My Bookings from the Members, Events menu.
David Gravett | Membership Co-ordinator
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