West Stormont Woodland Group

West Stormont
Woodland Group

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC051682

Join us today to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into community ownership

Community Monthly Update – January 2024

Unusually, we’re starting this Monthly Update with a “What’s Coming Up Next” item! This message is principally for people in the Stanley and District community but we’d love to suggest all villages in the West Stormont area follow suit with their own aim of becoming a Biodiversity Village.

On Sunday 28 January, from 1.30-3.30pm in Stanley Village Hall, Cath Lloyd of the Tayside Biodiversity Partnership is leading the initial Stanley Biodiversity Village Mapping Session. This is a hugely exciting project for the whole Stanley community to get behind and WSWG is participating too. From bird feeders in your garden to nature recovery in Taymount and Five Mile Woods, we can all do our bit for nature going forward, individually and collectively. We’ve got the big hall for the event, so if you live in the Stanley and District area, do please come along to this free event to learn more about the Biodiversity Villages initiative and help map what you know about our local biodiversity (good and bad) and what you think we could do to protect and enhance nature in the Stanley area. Free refreshments will be provided too. Click here for the poster for this event and please forward to anyone you think might be interested in joining in.

Hopefully this month’s photo focus on biodiversity in the Stanley area in recent years will entice you to come along. And perhaps act as some light relief to the essential other focus in this update …. the major fundraising goal we have ahead in 2024!

What has WSWG been doing this month?

Having a lovely Christmas break. Happy New Year to all WSWG members and supporters and here’s to us successfully raising the funding needed to purchase Taymount Wood in 2024! A big task indeed but totally achievable with the positive support of our local community!

A lovely festive showcase opportunity for the WSWG Project at the Climate Action Hub Christmas Gathering on 15 December at the Co-Working in Dunkeld and Birnam. Thank you to Jess and Lindsey for a really great day. 

Application submitted on 15 December to PKC Green Living Fund to enable WSWG to host diverse community groups and organisations at events with climate action and learning in mind. Please look out for community voting which starts in early February to give our Wizzy-WARP 2024 Project as much support as you can. See link for a closer look. Participatory budgeting (communitychoices.scot)

Pine marten at SWT squirrel feeder in Taymount Wood

Our popular and beautiful WSWG Wildflowers and Friends 2024 calendar has sold really well and we now only have a few left. Support WSWG and brighten your walls by buying one of our calendars for a small donation of £10 (plus £2 postage if required).  Lovely for your own home or workplace, a great New Year’s gift for anyone who slipped your Christmas list or has a birthday soon! Please email us to order yours to help us maximise the proceeds going towards our shared goal of bringing Taymount and Five Mile Woods into community ownership.  Thank you in anticipation of your much needed and valued support here.

12 stunning images in the 2024 WSWG Calendar taken in Taymount Wood in 2023 by Françoise

On 16 December, the old board members took the new board members for a guided walk around Taymount Wood to highlight the key aspects of the Woodland Management Plan for nature recovery and community benefit on the ground, giving a great opportunity for free-flowing discussion around fundraising and other urgent matters for the WSWG project in 2024. It is great to have new ideas and energy coming into the mix at this critical stage.

Swift and bat bricks installed in the new Muir Homes as a planning condition

Your new WSWG board of Trustees now includes: Shonagh Moore, Elspeth Coutts, Peter Hemmings, Nicole Connelly, Murray Gauld, Alan Ross and Hannah Esdaile. Roles and responsibilities are still being worked out between us so we will update you on this through the Meet the Teams page on our website in due course.

Exploratory Teams meeting on 9 January with Nicki Souter Associates to review possible role for professional fundraising as part of WSWG’s 2024 Fundraising Strategy.

Brown long-eared bat rescued locally with a torn wing preventing it fly properly

On 11 January, WSWG participated in an NHS Tayside Teams meeting on Nature Prescribing in Perth and Kinross and will be contributing to the development of a Nature Prescribing Calendar for Perth and Kinross.

On 11 January, we attended a meeting with Tayside Woodland Partnerships in Blairgowrie and with whom we are planning another a joint community picnic in Taymount Wood in May. More details in due course.

16 January saw our final 1 to 1 session to complete our attendance at the Measuring Social Impact course run by Just Enterprise and Social Value Lab. A very valuable learning exercise for us to take forward in practice.

Family of mute swans at Old England

Word of the Month

Rock: A term used in American financial-speak for a million dollars. WSWG needs to raise 2.5 rocks during 2024 to purchase Taymount Wood and run the Wildwood Project for the first two years. Hopefully 1.2 rocks will come from the Scottish Land Fund (fingers crossed) and a further 0.1 is on the table from a very generous anonymous donation. 1.2 more rocks to go! All help welcome.

What’s coming up next?

A major focus on fundraising, fundraising and more fundraising.

On 21 January, weather permitting, WSWG trustees plan to recce the core path from Shielhill in Stanley to Taymount Wood south entrance to assess accessibility issues along its length and see its potential as a biodiversity corridor. If anyone would like to join us, please get in touch.

And of course …. Sunday 28 January 1.30-3.30pm – Tayside Biodiversity Partnership is hosting the initial Stanley Biodiversity Village Mapping Session in Stanley Village Hall. All welcome.

And Finally …

A single swallow reminding us of the summer which lies ahead of us.

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – September 2024

Latest on Stanley Wildwood (Rookery Wood). You may remember that we dedicated our July Monthly Update to making the case for community ownership of Stanley Wildwood, with subsequent mailouts and Facebook posts to encourage our members and supporters to vote in PKC’s recent public consultation for a community-based future for this small but important woodland in Stanley village. We are therefore delighted to tell you that the Council has reported that 65.6% of respondents in the Stanley postcode area were in favour of a community outcome for the woodland. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the consultation. WSWG and Tayside Woodland Partnerships are now in discussion with PKC to explore further the option of bringing the woodland into community ownership and management. We will keep you posted including ways individuals and the wider community can get involved going forward.

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Community Monthly Update – July 2024

Something quite different has cropped up for WSWG and Stanley village recently, so we have decided to make it the sole topic of our update this month and a simple appeal to you at the same time. PKC who currently own the 0.56 acre Stanley Wildwood (the Rookery wood) have decided it is surplus to their needs. They have launched an on-line consultation to find out whether the local community thinks it should be sold to a private neighbouring resident as an extension to their garden ground or sold or leased to a willing community organisation. The area owned by PKC is shown in yellow. It has had a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) since 1987. We believe the best interests of the Wildwood and rookery will be served through community not private ownership. Please support our goal by voting for Option 2 in the PKC consultation, using the link shown.

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Community Monthly Update – June 2024

Our main focus this month has been collaboration with all sorts of people and organisations in our ongoing programme of events in Taymount Wood and outreach activity for the WSWG Project. Each and every event has been a source of real joy at seeing so many people benefitting in so many ways from spending and sharing time in our lovely woodlands on a diverse range of activities. Whilst we cannot claim to have beaten the record set in 2019 for our oldest participant at a WSWG event (she was an amazing 96 years old!), at only 5 weeks old a little treasure beat the record of our youngest attendee to date by a whole 11 weeks! How cool is that? Read on to find out more about these wonderful, moving and uplifting events.

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Community Monthly Update – May 2024

We are really delighted this month to start with the announcement that the winner of the WSWG April Photography Competition in the Children’s category is Dougie from Highland Perthshire. His stunning and clever photograph was taken at the head of Loch Rannoch, looking west, on Saturday 20 April. Such a beautiful, calm scene in our precious Perthshire countryside, but just look at the perfect capture of the beautiful splash effect at its heart. A truly super photo.

Congratulations, Dougie. Thank you very much for taking part in this competition and your well-deserved prize will be making its way to you very soon.

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Community Monthly Update – April 2024

On Sunday 14 April, a lovely bunch of people turned out for a WSWG Guided Climate and Biodiversity Walk in Taymount Wood to celebrate the start of the new Perth & Kinross Climate Action Hub (PKCAH) for which funding has been secured from the Scottish Government.

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Community Monthly Update – March 2024

It is a disappointing thing to have to do, but a surprisingly rewarding thing to have done. We are talking about picking up someone else’s litter. We all know Taymount Wood car park occasionally suffers from fly tipping, but it is regular littering which is more of a chronic problem, clogging the ditches, being strewn around the verges, blown into the brambles and nettles, overgrown by rank grass, buried in the soil, or crushed by vehicles if not removed regularly.

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