Impio Forest Education Initiative Cluster Group Meeting

20thof November 2012 - 4.00 p.m.

Deeside College, Connah’s Quay

  1. Welcome, Introductions, Apologies

Mary Daniels – Connah’s QuayHigh School

Jill Wellings Davies – Connah’s QuayHigh School

Liz O’Rourke - Independent FSL & Simon o Rourke Tree Carving Ltd

Pippa Gallagher – Plas Derw Trust

Gill Dobson - Independent

Joss Peers – DeesideCollege

Heather Petrie - Wrexham Early Entitlement Team

Rod Waterfield – Bodfari Woodland Skills Centre

Sian Wynn – Flintshire Foundation Phase

Becky Good – Woodland Trust

James Kendall – Groundwork North Wales

John Ellinson – Groundwork North Wales

Carwyn Hughes – Forestry CommissionWales

Apologies

Mai Thomas – IndependentForestSchool Leader and Teacher

Hannah Bach - Independent

Polly Snape – IndependentForestSchool Leader

Becks Fowkes–Campfire and Gwerin y Coed

Bronwen Hughes - Wrexham Early Entitlement Team

  1. Matters arising from the minutes of the last meeting

All action points were completed from the last meeting.

  1. CountyUpdates:

- Denbighshire

At Bodfari Woodland Skills Centre, Rod is eager to develop and expand the use of community groups and they are busy with School Ground Improvements Projects. The Timber Frame building is on hold at the moment as Council Officials are taking the build through the Planning Department. Rod is hoping to finish the building by Mid February. Rod is also hoping to send out 2013 training courses dates soon.

Carwyn has had a few sessions in Denbighshire with Barnardo’s and with Coleg Llysfasi and talked about his seed collection project over in the ConwyCounty.

- Flintshire

Sian and Pauline have just completed some trial sessions on their new site at Ysgol Owen Jones, Northop. They are hoping to get groups out there again in February.

Plas Derw Trust has been busy with various groups coming out and enjoying the work with teenagers. They have a variety of courses running at the sites and Pippa was glad to be back and keeping busy.

Connah’s QuayHigh School run taster sessions for all of Year 7 and has been lucky enough to use Wickford Woods. They are hoping to run a project within the walled garden and are talking with Groundwork North Wales on another project. The school is looking to get involved with a John Muir Project in the future.

Gill Dobson explained to the group that she was interested in setting up and begin delivering sessions looking in particular at willow weaving and creating products using willow.

- Wrexham

Groundwork have run some recent projects with a local support centre and have been busy running sessions with Ysgol Tan y Fron, they have had a year 5/6 group for half a term and then a Year ¾ group afterwards. They were still looking for new funding streams. They still get a lot of interest from various groups who are only now just finding out that they are the old Legacy Centre.

Heather and Bronwen have been busy involving settings with tree planting events in Marford and Gresford; the groups are due to make an appearance on The One Show. They are pleased that more people from Wrexham are going for Forest School Training with Plas Derw Trust. Heather went up to the Pedagogic Conference up in Scotland and is also pleased to have met Clare Warden after reading so much of her work. They are aiming to get a group of teachers to attend a session at ChirkCastle.

The Woodland Trust is running visitor improvement projects including path improvements. Becky also explained that is anyone wanted to use sites to let her know and she would love to see more of the sites being used for educational groups. She stated in particular that Plas Power Woods are looking to being used.

Becks shared the Woodland Trust guidelines on Ash Dieback and the group shared some knowledge of the disease affecting other woodlands around Britain.

Liz explained that she and Simon were also involved with the Gresford Tree planting that would be on BBC1’s The One Show tomorrow evening. A number of other cluster members were involved with the Woodland Trust’s Jubilee Woods Project.

  1. FEI - 1st February Funding Round

Pippa shared a project that Plas Derw Trust were intending on creating to benefit local schools and teenagers. She gave out a copy of the intended project and was looking for FEI funding to fund the project.

Plas Derw Trust was hoping to fund 3 sessions for local secondary schools. James backed the idea andJoss added that activities with the use of tools suited sessions for older children. Mary asked Pippa to add Connah’s QuayHigh School to the list of schools which the project intended to work with.

James added that he also has an idea for the future to provide woodland management skills for groups and encourage them to look after their own sites. However it needs more thought and not looking at February Round for the application.

Carwyn asked the group what they would intend doing if two individuals from the same county would want to go for the same pot of money and how would they decide. The group decided that a vote would be best practice. Liz asked if the partnership fund can be split and by how much? Liz was going to speak to Karen as she had some questions which needed answering.

  1. Treasurer’s Report

£3448.75

  1. AOB

Carwyn gave information regarding various First Aid courses coming up to cluster members.

  1. Date of next meeting

Thursday 17th of January 2013 – 4pm at Groundwork North Wales classroom, Wrexham