Summer Newsletter July 2008

 A huge amount has been accomplished in the last 6 months.

 Martyn Huxter has worked tirelessly to install infrastructure at Hallr Wood with the help of a few stalwarts and some of our Awards for All grant.

 We now have; a large flattened area for our fire circle & Norwegian tipi, tool storage shed, large open sided Craft Tent, compost toilet & male urinal, access for larger items & emergencies at Badger Bridge with a wider path. We also have parking in Ray Hick’s field although we still encourage people to park in Charlton Mackrell car park or walk or cycle wherever possible.

We are thrilled to have a grant from Somerset Play Forum for a play scheme and after school club in Drayton.

Please see calendar for further details.

We are thrilled to have successfully obtained an Awards for All grant for our activities.

This will enable us to train volunteers and group members, run sessions for children & buy compost toilets for the wood.

We will also train some group members to oversee the safety of our site.

The Subscriptions and Donations Committee of Westland have generously agreed to support our project.

We are most grateful to them for £250 which we are planning to spend on a shed in which to store our tools and other bits and pieces in our new wood.

The County Council has a fund (Somerset Aggregates Levy Sustainable Fund) for communities affected by quarrying. The Charlton's Playscheme applied for a grant from this fund towards Forest School for local children during the summer holidays. We are delighted that this application has been successful. CSOLP will therefore be offering, through the Charlton's Playscheme:

• two Forest School family sessions
• two Forest School sessions for over 8's
• a Bow Making course
• an outdoor music art session

Dates for these events will be posted in our calendar.

We are thrilled to have been awarded a grant towards our Forest School activities, from the Somerset Community Foundation. This is the first grant we have receieved as a group and it is a huge boost.

As well as helping us with the costs of running sessions, we hope to train more staff, have sweatshirts printed and also purchase a real Indian style tipi for the children to use.

The Forest Education Initiative (FEI) a nationwide campaign that makes connections between the forestry and forest products sectors and Britain's young people, has awarded funds to the Yeovil and Dorset FEI cluster group for two projects.

A grant of £1798 has been awarded by the FEI Partnership fund for a pilot study to be run with local schools in the Somerton and Glastonbury area, to trial a KS2 Living History resource which Deb Millar of the Central Somerset Outdoor Learning Partnership is producing. Resources which can be used for outdoor learning in woodlands are available for many curriculum linked subjects from the FEI website but this will be the first History resource for children.

A further Forest School project is being run at Ashlands First School in Crewkerne.