Wilder Woods

We have been working hard at Hallr Wood this spring. We have planted lots of trees (especially hazel) and we’ve improved our paths,  rain water collection and tool storage.

Our beautiful earth dragon is now finished thanks to the Tree Pirates and will shortly be planted up with wild flowers.

Our regular groups continue.

Over Easter we ran a woodland playscheme and also hosted a day with Promise mentors and their mentees. We enjoyed the CSOLP 5 year celebrations which was a lovely informal evening of food and camp fire, spent reflecting on all that has been achieved since we started our group. 

Several other groups also ran holiday activities at Hallr Wood.

We look forward to a busy summer, enjoying the benefits of all our hard work! Special thanks to our trusty volunteers who help on Wednesdays.

12 young people with a variety of abilities and additional needs attended Wilderwoods Woodland Adventure day at Drayton Woods on Thursday 16th February. Well supported by Forest school leaders & support carers, the young people spent the whole day in the woods, getting involved in various woodland tasks: making bird feeders, planting trees and helping create a willow screen.
3 young people from Langport came along to buddy up with some of the young people attending.
The day started with an opportunity to take part in an animal stamp trail. This was designed to be followed at the individual pace of different participants, including Katy in a wheelchair. Everyone was very proud of the stamps they had collected.

Pine cones were ‘found’ and collected on the trail and then filled with a bird food mixture. Some loved the different textures involved, others left the sticky bits to others! The filled pine cones were then taken out into the wood and hung on branches for the woodland birds to find.
Meanwhile cooking was getting underway back at the campfire. 17 baked potatoes were buried in the ashes and left to bake as a team set off to plant trees in the wood.
The Woodland Trust has kindly donated a mixture of trees that will eventually bear edible fruit: blackthorn, elder, crab apple & wild rose.
A wonderful tree planting team planted 10 trees, complete with stakes and protective spirals, while others engaged in clearing ivy away from selected trees. One boy just enjoyed sitting on the woodland floor soaking up the peaceful atmosphere. We were lucky to have a sunny and warmish day!

At lunch time young people helped cook and eat: 60 sausages, (plus 6 veggie ones) 15 baked potatoes, a big pan of homemade baked beans and loads toasted bread, all prepared on the campfire.
After lunch we were treated to a wonderful story about the beginning of spring, told by our visiting story teller Amanda. All (but the most hyper-active), listened enthralled, including the boys.
Young people then had the choice of various activities and took part in: peeling sticks and making charcoal around the fire; helping create a beautiful ‘free form’ willow screen in our woodland garden; sawing firewood using the bow saw; using tools to make gypsy flowers, bows and arrows, creating & using a safe target run in the woods;
The older boys were able to go into the wood with the buddies for target practice with only monitoring adult supervision needed. This was a wonderful freedom for both the disabled young people and the buddies involved.
The presence of the Langport buddies worked really well, they took on
mentoring 3 young people, all with varying degrees of Autism. They had to be reminded a few times but they hung on in there, showed care for others and created a brilliant, safe, boys atmosphere. I think those less able really loved it and really felt part of a group.
One very hyperactive autistic girl loved just hanging around the boys when they were using tools. I was very impressed by the maturity of the buddies who were able to accommodate this in a safe, non confrontational way.

The day finished with a review looking at photos of activities and sticking 2 stickers on favourites

Many thanks to Karen, Amanda, Camilla, Kevin, Fiveways School support carers Jane, Mary, John, Emma, Lauren, Alice, and Langport Buddies Matt, Joe and Keiral, for making this day such a success and enabling the group of young people, who normally spend a lot of their time indoors, to ‘Get out in the woods and go wild’!

Also many thanks to the Short Breaks funding team for their continuing support!

Hannah Aitken
Wilderwoods Forest School Leader

Regular visitors will have noticed that we have changed the structure of our website recently. Many thanks to Will who looks after the web site for us and puts up with our limited technological understanding. We would all rather be in the woods…and it shows!

• The events page now shows a list of upcoming events as well as a calendar. Events for both sites can be found here.
• Hallr Wood and Drayton Woods are now separate main pages to make them easier to find.
• Photo galleries for the two woods are now added to their respective pages.
• The gallery software has been updated to help show off all of our lovely photos.

Ten of us gathered together on one of the frostiest mornings of the year to be initiated into the ancient and traditional craft of basketmaking. Armed with gauntlets and old baked bean tins (?) we set about dethorning vicious bramble stems. The sound of a bramble being forced through a hole in a tin has to be heard to be believed! Once subdued we began to see our garden enemies in a whole new light. No longer were they stealthily attempting to slash our skin to shreds or attach themselves inexorably to our clothing. They underwent a total transformation, becoming instead sturdy green and purple frames and handles for our baskets.
Our teachers, Linda and Hannah, dealt patiently with all our queries, soothed us when willow rods snapped and introduced us to the vocabulary of basket making – ‘slyping’, ‘waling’, ‘tips and butts’ ‘upsett’ and ‘randing.’ Once every rib was slyped and in place we were off. We sat around the fire chatting, listening to birdsong (and from time to time the farmer inconsiderately cutting the hedges with something very loud!) totally absorbed by the rhythm of weaving the willow, ivy or bramble seeing each other’s our creations take shape. Everyone put their individual stamp on their basket design – some enviably neat, others of us going for a rather more rustic and airy look! It is hard to describe how relaxing it was just to simply be outside and thinking about absolutely nothing except getting the weaving right, choosing which willow to use next and seeing our work actually begin to look like baskets. The range of colours was amazing – acid green, deep red, olive green, saffron yellow and purply-green. We could hardly bear to tear ourselves away from our creations when it was time for lunch.
By the end of the afternoon we were admiring each other’s handiwork, all of us now the proud owners of our own unique handmade baskets. The sense of achievement from making something yourself from natural materials (which you could actually use!) was truly satisfying. The fact we had spent the day outside was an added bonus. Click on the basket photo in the Drayton Woods Gallery to see all our creations and get a flavour of the day.

Lynda Shaw and Hannah Aitken ran a wonderful hedgerow basket workshop on 20th November. Do look at the Hallr Wood gallery to see the photos. Some stages of the process were soothing, some utterly frustrating!

We all managed to finish our baskets except for Cee who was supposed to be cooking anyway!They will be running willow baskets in January at Drayton.

Two of our regular volunteers have recently gained their third and top John Muir Award. This is a huge achievement requiring sustained commitment and the boys have been working towards it since March.

The photo is of Mark Johnson who has been coming weekly to Hallr Wood. He is an expert on bird identification and can recognize and imitate bird calls. For this award he also helped out at Bath & West Show on our stall there. Here he is showing his award presented to him by Juliet our chair person.

Henry Street gained his Conserver Award some weeks earlier. Henry hopes to go into a career as a bushcraft instructor. Do have a look at the photos of the coracle he built for his Explorer Award which was launched this summer (in the Hallr Wood gallery).

Nearly 100 people of all ages (oldest was 97) called in to watch Charles and Rosalind Buckler at work with their two logging horses on Saturday. The sun shone and children played on the swings and in the dens. The horses Major and Suzy did a great job bringing timber from around the wood ready for planking on Rupert Furneaux’s mobile saw mill ( hopefully visiting us soon). The Woodland Cafe did a brisk trade serving hot soup, teas and delicious cakes, baked and donated by supporters (THANKS to you all). It was a beauitiful way to celebrate the end of the long battle we have fought for permission to continue our woodland activities. In the afternoon we all gathered around the access so that Juliet (Chair of our group) could cut the ribbon. We were also presented with a giant cheque from CHADS (Charlton’s Amateur Dramatic Society) who so generously contributed £500 from the proceeds of their summer producction to enable us to do the work required. There are so many people to thank for the access. S Morris donated the materials – stone for the car area and the concrete for the ramp. Vera Huxter gave money for us to buy new wooden gates, many people donated individually. SSDC gave £500 and Charlton Parish Council gave £40. We have worked flat out to get the access done as quickly as possible. Special thanks go to Tim Loosemore, Marty Fildes, Mike Whittaker, Mike Smyth and of course Martyn Huxter who built the concrete ramp only a week ago. Roger Cox has done a fantastic job with his digger – and will be back soon we hope to finish off by spreading a bit more stone on the edges of the car area. We still have landscaping work to do but hope to complete the planting by holding extra volunteer days through out the winter on Wednesdays. Do get in touch if you would like to know more. Thank you very much to the Forest Education Initiative Partnership Fund for funding for the horse logger. It aptly concluded the Somerset Twig to Table project.

Our family conservation club has sadly now finished. Everyone wanted it to keep going so we hope to be able to start up again in the spring.

We are now focusing on getting our access up and running and have finally received notification from SSDC that we have been authorised to proceed with the work. Our Forestry and Conservation group have been working on landscaping inside the wood – they have designed a path to connect the car area with the green wood working shelter. They have also improved the bridge and started helping Martyn on the shed extension.

Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive and helpful. Hopefully our planning battles will soon be completely over.

Due to the success of the Drayton Family Skills Share sessions funded by Grassroots Grants we are able to continue running these sessions up until Oct half term, Weds 1-3pm
contact Hannah@madasafish.com for more details

CSOLP is now signed up for Local Giving through Somerset Community Foundation. Over the years Somerset Community Foundation has supported our work with children and families in woodlands. They gave us our very first grant in 2007 which helped us get started. They also provided valuable advice about the management of a voluntary run group. Many thanks to Somerset Community Foundation, an organization which empowers communities to help themselves.
http://localgiving.com/charity/csolp-wilderwoods