No images? Click here Seasons Greetings Hello,Our Big News - 'Trees for Climate' launches for 2020/21We have to start off this newsletter with the launch of our long awaited large scale tree planting programme. Forest of Avon Trust is a key part of the national Trees for Climate programme launched on Sunday 6th December. Planting plans are in full swing for planting season 2020/21 and we are eager to get those trees into the soil soon so they can start thriving. England's Community Forests, including the Forest of Avon, are delivering a national £12.1million Trees for Climate grant programme, creating 500 hectares of new woodland by March 2021. The trees planted will eventually store 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and will also help in making local landscapes more resilient to the impacts of climate change. In the Forest of Avon, the Trust is working with Bath & North East Somerset Council, North Somerset Council and a range of other partners. This season's planting is focused on bringing the many benefits of trees to parks and green spaces, as well as planting high-impact larger trees along urban road corridors. Planting will enhance local biodiversity and amenity, lock up carbon, absorb pollution and start to address the accelerating loss of ash through disease, the area’s most abundant tree. Planting will be delivered in the context of the forthcoming Forest of Avon Plan: West of England tree & Woodland Strategy. We have an outline planting programme for a further 330 hectares by 2025, to be delivered working with all four Unitary Authorities in the West of England, as well as landowners and communities. We await further Government announcements on funding. Find out more on our website and, in our next newsletter, we will share some stories of the individual planting schemes and the benefits locally. Seasons Greetings from all of us at Forest of Avon Trust and here's to looking forward to 2021Whilst we plant trees and care for woodlands, we are, at our heart, a charity focussed on supporting and improving the lives of people across our community. This year, we have seen the enormous community efforts to mitigate the wide ranging impacts the unexpected events have had on us all, including of course the incredible efforts of our NHS. Our thoughts are with all those who have faced difficulty and loss this year and we hope that 2021 brings more joy and relief to those who have had to isolate or who have had a difficult year. We would encourage everyone to reach out and connect with your local nature groups, your local woodlands and wildlife whenever you can, for your wellbeing and all the benefits this can bring. Do get in touch with us if you wish to find out who to connect with near to you. In 2021, we hope to get back out there, into all corners of the Forest of Avon and to meet many new people, make new connections and continue to support you and our trees through the many aspects of our work. We have had many thought provoking conversations in the last few weeks and have been inspired at a range of online conferences and events and hope to follow up many actions in 2021, although a few of our ideas and goals are already developing! As you will see below. We wish everyone a wonderful festive few weeks and we look forward to seeing you in 2021. Best wishes from the team at Forest of Avon Trust We are changing over to Mailchimp NewslettersWe will be moving our Newsletter from Campaign Monitor over to Mailchimp for 2021 because it will allow us to be more effective in our communications. We will automatically transfer everyone on our newsletter mailing list across. You may receive an email to confirm your consent to the subscription. Please do stay with us! If you have any queries then do let us know. Tree and Woodland Projects and PlantingAs mentioned above, Trees for Climate is our larger scale planting focus for 2020/21 planting season and will lead to around 17 hectares of planting. The planting will be a mix of trees, hedgerows and include maintenance as well as improving fencing and public access where relevant. A lot of the preparation has been done across the year so the planting will be happening soon. The Tree and Woodland team have been actively preparing and identifying land for future years of planting and have already brought together a programme of work to be delivered to 2025, to be coordinated alongside the upcoming Forest of Avon Plan: West of England Tree and Woodland Strategy. Anna has also been continuing work on the Greenstreets Bristol, Iconic Landscapes and MoreWoods projects which are going well. See our Projects Page for more details as they are provided. Our Cotswold Wardens, including Bob and Richard, have been helping our Tree and Woodland team at our beautiful Forest of Avon Trust Retreat Woodland near Upton Cheyney. An enormous thank you to the Cotswold Wardens for volunteering to do this work! Above is a pic of the amazing clearance work they recently completed. Health and WellbeingOne of our projects led by Nicola Ramsden, Health and Wellbeing Officer and Rachel Tomlinson, Associate, forms a chapter in the book Wellbeing from Woodland: A critical exploration of links between trees and human health by Alice Goodenough and Sue Waite. There is growing research evidencing the health benefits of being in woodland, such as lowered heart rate, improved mental health and the reasons why this happens including even the effects of the fungal spores in the soils and the air. That fresh woodland smell is doing us good! However, people respond differently to nature and may also benefit from different landscapes and activities and this is a big part of the research being done. The true value and impact of our Health and Wellbeing work has been highlighted this year. The Forest Friday groups take place as part of the Bristol Mental Health, Community Rehabilitation service with Second Step. As soon as we were able, we started off by organising walks for small groups in local parks and green spaces near to participants’ homes. It was a pleasant surprise to find pockets of woodland, wildflower meadows and plenty of birds, even in well-used parks in the city. The group was delighted to be able to resume our woodland groups in the autumn, following rigorous Covid health and safety procedures at every session. Similarly in our Woodland Wellbeing sessions for people with dementia and their carers, we were able to offer nature walks in local places or activity sessions in participants’ gardens, sometimes accompanied by Charlie, a registered Therapy dog. We hope to continue to offer these activities across Bristol in 2021. Activities have included the amazing natures stained glass, toasting marshmallows and crumpets, making foraged blackberry crumble and beautiful charcoal drawings and natural art making. We post regular updates on our social media sites with lovely pictures from the sessions. As a charity, one of our most important roles is to connect people with woodland and green spaces, especially people who, for a range of reasons, find it difficult to experience this independently. We are very grateful that we’ve been able to support people to spend time relaxing in nature, watching wildlife (and finding coping strategies) through these challenging times. This year has shown many of us the enormous benefits of being out in nature local to our homes. We look forward to 2021 and new connections and activities for as many as we can support. Ten Goals for Ten YearsWe celebrated 10 years as a charity in 2019. Our main aims have always been to maximise tree cover across our region and to enable everyone to enjoy woodlands near to them. We wanted to set some goals for the next 10 years so we can push towards ambitious targets and get trees planted as soon as possible to maximise the carbon and biodiversity benefits as they mature. Every year lost with tree planting and establishment makes it harder to make up later on. Here are our 10 Goals for 10 Years If you would like to hear more about how you can support our Goals or have ideas, do get in touch. We have started work on Goal 8, creating an Online Hub for all tree planting and volunteering opportunities in the West of England. We have begun working with Frazer Nash Consultancy in Bristol who are volunteering their valuable time in a Project Management task to scope and report on the various options for creating a hub. We will be working with them on this from January to March and speaking to partners and local groups about the options. Then we will be looking to build the hub. If anyone has any thoughts on the Hub, please do contact Alex at partnerships@forestofavontrust.org or call 07779 787011. Forest of Avon Trust PledgeYou can now sign your organisation up to our Pledge! We wanted to introduce an option that was flexible for all organisations and encouraged team, management and customer engagement and awareness. For a donation of your organisation's choice, display the Pledge proudly in your offices and we will regularly send you new ideas of how to support the Forest of Avon and share your stories of how you are supporting us. Businesses and the CommunityWe really love working with businesses and other organisations, as well as local groups and other charities. First, here are some of the organisations supporting us for the first time from 2020. Welcome and thank you! Yogafurie have started to support us and are wasting no time in getting new trees in the ground! They have planted 52, half directly and half through their customers doing a yoga challenge! They've created their own tree chart in the studio to record progress. The picture above is from our Retreat woodland that they visited recently. Design Print Distribution Group have also been really actively supporting us through awareness raising on social media and dedicating a tree for every customer! They visited our Colliter's Wood earlier in the year. Develop Me are our local 'tech career accelerator' and they are also accelerating our tree planting in the Forest of Avon with a tree dedicated per Graduate from their coding bootcamp! The first graduates to receive their dedication graduated on the 17th December. Congratulations! We are also planting a school orchard thanks to Churchman Thornhill Finch who have celebrated their 5 year anniversary this August and donated to us instead of a celebration event, in light of the lockdown. We will be planting the orchard at Westbury on Trym Church of England Academy in January. They have an orchard that is around 5 years old, so this is like a double 5 year celebration! Each newsletter we wish to highlight and extend a big thank you to a special business. This month, one which has been supporting us since the start of the charity: Green Woods FurnitureA Gloucester Road community business, Green Woods Furniture are doing their bit (and more!) for the Forest of Avon – they are truly 'leafing' the way! There are a range of different businesses who have shown a wholehearted commitment to supporting us and many also pursue their wider green credentials as a company. Green Woods Furniture is one of those businesses that has supported us since we started in 2009. As of now, Green Woods have made a Tree Dedication on behalf of around 1,250 customers! Green Woods whole ethos is around providing furniture that is sustainable and ethical. They source all of their sustainably sourced wood from the UK only and the items of furniture are hand crafted and made to measure. On their website Green Woods say it all very succinctly ‘We're playing an active role in helping to maintain and improve new woodland sites for public access and wildlife, as well as supporting the fantastic work of Forest of Avon Trust.’ We look forward to seeing our partnership grow along with the trees! https://www.greenwoodsfurniture.co.uk/ Find out how you can support us as a business (or individual!) here: Treefest 2020Check out our first Treefest 'tree'! St Mary Redcliffe church create a beautiful exhibition of festive trees showcasing many charities each year. It is a lovely way for charities to tell their story and highlight their causes and we love seeing them all. Here is our online entry - made of pictures from our activity across the year and leaves and branches. Next year we hope to exhibit in the church itself and involve many of our community in the making of the tree and decoration. All the trees are here and you can vote for the best, no pressure which one to choose! Thank you for all your support and we hope to see you in 2021! |