Excellence in Forestry Award Winners - Alvecote Wood

[docsquid]

The RFS have just sent out their newsletter to members, so I can now announce it. Our little woods, Alvecote Wood, have been awarded the Excellence in Forestry award in the Small Woodland category for 2013.

We honestly couldn't believe that we had won as most of the previous winners have been much more commercial than us. We manage the woods for wildlife and for use by community groups. We don't make any money from it.

So we won a cheque, and a plaque and have to go to Manchester on 3rd July to get it. We started as complete amateurs with no clue 6 years ago, bought our little woods, added another 9 acres and planted it up 2 years ago, and now this!

So there we are. An award for SWOG members and former newsletter editor.

[The Barrowers]

Congratulation. An award for hard work and clear thinking maybe

B and T Solar Wood

[Bearwood]

Superb work and a well deserved award given the hard work you folks have put in to your woodland. Congratulations!

[docsquid]

Thank you both - it's all a bit crazy really. We were such beginners. Yes, we both had experience of helping with wildlife projects before, and I had been a keen wildlife photographer since my teens (I'm considerably older than that now). What we did do over the years is get in as much advice as possible from as wide a range of people as possible, and then amalgamate all this into a plan to try and make the woods a lovely place. Of course all the opinions differ, but overall, the input was very helpful, particularly from our Forestry Commission Regional Officer and also the Wildlife Trust (Warwickshire).

I guess we have to live up to this for another 7 years until the regional competition rotates back round to the Midlands and North West again (the RFS award rotates around four quarters of England, then Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so that only one region is covered in any one year, and it comes back to each region every 7 years). But, I'm sure there are SWOG members in other regions who could enter in coming years too.

We hope to have another SWOG meeting in our woods at some point, so folks can come and take a look, and also maybe see if we can set up an RFS Regional Meeting.

[joe public]

Congrats !