October Work Party | Report
29th October 2017

Over twenty volunteers, mostly FoPB members plus the odd new face gathered at the Reed Path on Sunday morning to carry out two tasks.

After the recent coppicing work carried out by local Tree Surgeon Richard Heyward and his team, a large area of open space has been created in the wetland area which will promote light and new vegetation growth, as well as encourge new wildlife to use the area.

The plan was to build an Otter Holt using the large amount of logs and brushwood which was created by the work and to improve the Reed Path with the chippings that also had been created.

One group, mostly the boys, returned to their childhood wallowing about in ankle deep mud, building dens in the woods, and in no time, guided by enthusiastic member Jan Phillips, who leads our work parties, a five star property had been created for otters which are known to frequent the area.

Not sure which part of their childhood the girls returned to, but by the end of the event they had reduced the huge pile of chippings to nothing, and laid it out along a two hundreed yard stretch of the reed path to discourage weeds and make the path easier to navigate. They also used some of the chippings to create a comfortable area of bedding within the Otter Holt itself.

It was declared 'Our best work party ever' by Jan Phillips, who had organised the whole project, with the support of our ranger, Jenny Heskett, and courtesy of some funding given to us via the Tesco Blue Tokens scheme where we came in first place for our two month collection period. So many thanks also to all those kind souls who put their tokens in our box on their shopping trips.

Refreshments as usual were handled by Chair, Richard Parks, and Photography was mainly done by Treasurer, Mike Freemantle, when he was not up to the tops of his wellies in mud, and sometimes when he was!!.

We would like to thank everyone who came along to help, young and old, new members and old members including what seemed like the entire family of young Reubyn Howes, who had celebrated his fifth birthday the day before and who, as usual, had brought along his trusty digger and trailor to help with the manual stuff.

A great day out was had by all and the weather was perfect.

Pictures here.