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 – February 2024

First up this month, a big thank you to the Community Payback Team from Westbank in Perth who very kindly made an impromptu stop when passing to remove the worst of some fly tipping they spotted in the Taymount Wood car park in January. A heap of black bin-bags full of spent growing medium and general rubbish had been dumped near the entrance gate a few days earlier. They were unable to clear it all up in one go but are going to come back to complete the task for us. Moreover, they have offered to keep a watching eye on the site in future and clear up what they can. That will be such a help.

What has WSWG been doing this month?

Another bit of very welcome news is that WSWG has been awarded PKC Green Living Funding for our WIzzyWARP24 Project (WARP for Wellbeing And Resilience Project!). Unlike all other parts of P&K, the budget for the Strathtay ward was not exceeded by the total of community bids submitted in the area. As all the Strathtay Green Living Fund applications have been accepted as eligible, they are able to go forward without the public voting phase. That is very helpful for WSWG as it means we can get down to firming up the programme of events the funding will support sooner than expected. See What’s coming up next? below for more information on the WizzyWARP24 Project.

A snapshot of some past WSWG events – lots more to look forward to in 2024

The new Board of Trustees is very much enjoying working together to find out how to use everyone’s skills and interests to best effect as the WSWG Project navigates the final steps towards community ownership. One area being developed by the new trustees is WSWG’s social media presence. New skills on the WSWG board are also being applied to good effect in formalising key WSWG Policies to strengthen our governance and operational framework going forward. The Board’s ecological capacity has also grown in strength and depth.

Lots of fundraising activity is continuing towards purchasing Taymount Wood: funding meetings, appeal letters, Expressions of Interest and funding applications to potential charity, philanthropic and other donors and funders, including the Heritage Lottery Fund and soon, the Community Ownership Fund. A Crowdfunding Campaign is also being developed for launch soon. On 5 February, we had a very constructive meeting with our new funding adviser, Jamie McCaw, who is assessing our Scottish Land Fund application for half the purchase cost and a contribution towards development costs once the woodland is in community ownership.

On 16 January we had our final 1-1 session in the Measuring Social Impact course run by Just Enterprise and Social Value Lab. This course has provided extremely valuable training which will help WSWG in optimising its approach to both fundraising and donor feedback.

We had an excellent meeting on 26 January with Brian Martin of PKC regarding WSWG use of PKC Community Minibuses and MiDAS training for volunteer drivers. WSWG ticks the eligibility boxes and is now to apply for a Section 19 Permit so our registration with PKC can go ahead. We look forward to being able to offer free community transport to groups coming to WizzyWARP24 events in the first instance and then more widely in our WSWG events programme as a more sustainable alternative to car travel, in line with the WSWG Travel Plan for the Wildwood Project – Taymount Wood. Link to Appendix RP9 Travel Plan.

The WSWG Travel Zones around Taymount and Five Mile Woods

Our aim is to establish a WSWG pool of MiDAS-trained volunteer drivers to help out with this. In the first instance, however, if anyone can put us in touch with drivers in the local area who already hold MiDAS certification and who might be willing to do some volunteer minibus driving for WSWG during 2024, that would be great. Please email us about this at contact@weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot .

WSWG is participating in an inspiring initiative being led by NHS Tayside and RSPB to produce a Nature Prescribing Calendar for Perth and Kinross as a resource for enabling health practitioners to include nature-based activities when tailoring prescriptions for people’s recovery and wellbeing. Taymount and Five Mile Woods along with WSWG’s woodland management for nature recovery and community benefit would provide an ideal resource for supporting nature prescribing.

On 27 January, we carried out a recce of the core path between Stanley and Taymount Wood to assess its access and biodiversity value ahead of the Biodiversity Village Mapping event the next day. We would love more people to be able to use that route to get to Taymount Wood. Anyone who knows the route will realise that whilst a lovely walk for many, some sections are currently challenging even for basic walking let alone for less mobile people or cycles, buggies or wheelchairs. This is the sort of improvement project which would help address Active Travel needs locally. In terms of biodiversity along the core path route, it offers considerable value as a habitat corridor between the village and the woodland already, as well as presenting a few lovely opportunities for further enhancement, perhaps as Biodiversity Village projects, where landowners are willing.

On Sunday afternoon 28 January, WSWG participated in the excellent Stanley Biodiversity Village Mapping Session run by Tayside Biodiversity Partnership in Stanley Village Hall. About 35 people came along to this first step in what is going to be a hugely exciting and valuable project for the whole Stanley community. Do keep an eye out for invitations to get involved in future events and activities. WSWG will keep you posted too.

Words of the Month

Collective nouns for wildlife: There are huge numbers of words used to describe groups of wildlife. Here are a few regarding different bird species to whet your appetite to find out more. We’ll do animals another time. Do get back to us with any other names you know for these and other species.

                   

What’s coming up next?

The WSWG Board will be working on improving our social media presence for use in fundraising, promotional networking and also general communications around events and membership issues.

WizzyWARP24 – our PKC Green Living Fund project from April to November this year to bring groups of people living with specific challenges to the woods for wellbeing, woodland activities and learning about climate and biodiversity action in the WSWG Project and what they can do in their own lives. Would you like to help out? If so, please get in touch to let us know.

Our plan for members and wider community is to have a regular monthly walk in Taymount or Five Mile Woods. Sometimes it will just be a group walk and chat, sometimes we will incorporate additional activities, such as a butterfly count, bird watching, tree-tubing of natural regeneration, gorse mulch raking, litter picking, foraging, picnicking or a treasure hunt. We might even walk the core path from Stanley to Taymount Wood one month. We have decided it will be better to vary the times and whether weekdays or weekends so there is something to suit everyone, and will set out the dates for the rest of the year shortly so you can pencil them in your diary well ahead if you’d like to come along.

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – February 2025

This has been another month where behind-the-scenes admin has somewhat outpaced community stories or new milestones to lead on, so we will instead begin with a celebration of two natural highlights of the WSWG year so far. For most of us, the Aurora Borealis used to be a rare sight in Scotland, needing us to travel to the northern isles or northern Scandinavian for more reliable and impressive viewing. But recently, the Northern Lights have been much more active over the UK, both locally and even down to the south coast of England. Here are some shots taken of the skies above Taymount Wood around the turn of the year. Our second natural highlight is that Taymount and Five Mile Wood came through Storm Eowyn’s 90mph winds remarkably unscathed, both a joy and a relief to us all. Forestry and Land Scotland have carried out priority tree clearance to keep forestry tracks open. Thank you to those WSWG members who reported windblown trees across the core paths.

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Community Monthly Update – January 2025

It’s been a deliberately quiet month for WSWG over the Christmas period so instead of a summary of what we’ve done in the past few weeks, our focus this January is on wishing all our members, supporters and wider community a Happy New Year, and then musing, with the help of a few uplifting photos taken this week, on how beautiful our woods are when draped in winter sunlight, frost and mist and what a stroll in nature can do for our spirit and wellbeing at this time of year. So, if you can, make sure you enjoy this treat for real with your own walk in the woods, whatever time of year it happens to be.

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Community Monthly Update – December 2024

At this extraordinarily hectic time of year sometimes it’s rewarding to grab a cup of tea and take time to reflect on just how busy we’ve all been. Treat yourself to 5 minutes off and come down memory lane with WSWG for a photo montage of our Woodland Year. And it has been a busy twelve months for WSWG with lots of events bringing a wider range of people to the woods than in previous years, and even more going on behind the scenes in pursuit of our shared goals for our woods, wildlife and community. You can look back at all our Community Monthly Updates on our website to remind you of all the activities and connections we have enjoyed. We hope you have an amazing Festive Season and look forward to seeing you again in 2025. In the meantime, here are a few WSWG photos from a highly enjoyable 2024.

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Community Monthly Update – November 2024

Our top story this month has to be the fantastic Bush Craft and Woodland Picnic event we had on 2 November in Taymount Wood with Biscuit of Wee Adventures, working in the woodland environment on a “Leave No Trace” basis.

In the morning, nine pre-school to 6 year old children learned how to put up shelters of different shapes and sizes using colourful tarpaulins and strings and ropes.

In the afternoon, thirteen 7 to 12 year olds had their turn, learning about knots and tarpaulins, working out how to tension and guy with ropes and found stakes to angle and raise or lower the tarps. Tree stumps became seats and tables, moss, twigs and leaves became gardens, and so imaginations roamed all day. Frogs, beetles and millipedes were greeted with enthusiastic huddles before being helped out of harm’s way.

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Community Monthly Update – October 2024

Let’s start with a big thank you to PKC for the great job they have done resurfacing the U38 road from Five Mile Wood car park to Stanley past Active Kids. All done within the scheduled closure period and neatly tied in with a recessed tarmac apron at the car park. So much safer and more comfortable for everybody now the potholes and rough edges are no more.

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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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