West Stormont Woodland Group

West Stormont
Woodland Group

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) SC051682

Join us today to bring Taymount Wood and Five Mile Wood into community ownership

Community Monthly Update April 2021

The Community Consultation has been a great success and we are in the middle of evaluating all the results and comments (which are really inspiring and useful) …… a huge Thank You to everyone who completed the WSWG Community Consultation Survey!
West Stormont Woodland Group

What has WSWG been doing this month?

  • Here is a sneak preview of some of the key outcomes of the community consultation so far, which we will post in full on the website soon and then use to inform the final WSWG Proposal and Business Plan:
    • 367 Surveys completed – representing 769 adults and 131 children
    • More than half of respondents were not members and 100 new members joined WSWG
    • 92% of respondents agree or strongly agree with WSWG’s Ecoforestry proposals for the woods
    • 95% agree or strongly agree that the woods should be managed for climate and biodiversity
    • 95% agree or strongly agree with WSWG’s proposals for Welcome, Access and Accessibility in the woods
    • Walking was the favourite activity of all, with nature walks in next highest demand, followed by environmental education, cycling and foraging. Over 40% of respondents selected the following as activities which appealed to them most: dogwalking, local history, biodiversity surveying and monitoring, children’s events, family events, forest school and bushcraft/outdoor adventure.
    • Overwhelming support for working with local businesses as well as creating jobs and community enterprise.
    • Bothy and Hutting in Taymount Wood were more popular than Wigwams in Five Mile Wood.
    • Only 0.83% of respondents disagreed or strongly disagreed with WSWG’s Vision for the woods.
  • “Give Me Shelter” – Margaret Lear’s latest wonderful blog for WSWG about holly in Five Mile Wood.
  • Seeking advice from Tayside Recorders on how to run a Bioblitz – hopefully in 2022.
  • Beginning WSWG’s transition to a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO).
  • Participation in Blairgowrie Climate Café’s new initiative: Tayside Communities Woodland Carbon Group.
  • Catch-up Zoom with our friends working to bring Dalrulzion Forest at Kirkmichael into community ownership.
  • Giving out the last of our locally gathered acorns for members and others to grow into oak saplings. Good luck to everyone who has joined in this community event. Do let us know when the first oak seedlings peek through!

Word of the Month

Bioblitz: The survey showed that this is a new term to quite a few people. A bioblitz is an event involving members of the community and expert naturalists in finding and identifying as many species as possible in a specific area over a short period of time, usually 24 hours. It’s a way of learning hands-on about our natural environment and we’d love to do this for Taymount and Five Mile Woods next year as part of our ongoing biodiversity monitoring.

What’s coming up next?

  • Working on Community Consultation Report, Business Plan and SCIO Constitution, Registration and new Board.
  • Developing programme of summer activities for everyone in Taymount and Five Mile Woods.

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – November 2023

We are really thrilled to let you know that Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) has approved WSWG’s Revised Wildwood Proposal and Business Plan for Taymount Wood. This is the first big goal achieved in our Community Asset Transfer Process to bring Taymount and Five Mile Woods into community ownership!

Read More »

Community Monthly Update – October 2023

A highlight for the WSWG Project this month has been the timely teaming up of a group of employees from Aviva in Perth with some unexpectedly lovely autumn weather for a day of corporate volunteering. On 2 October, five enthusiastic Aviva colleagues spent the day with WSWG in the middle of Taymount Wood on a range of interesting and very useful tasks, quite a contrast to their usual office based working environment.

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Community Monthly Update – September 2023

Given the distinctly seasonal change in the weather of late, we thought we would bring our Word of the Month up to the top of our September update. Psithurism: (Noun) The sound of wind in the trees and rustling of leaves, from “psithuros”, the Greek word for whispering. Enjoy your woods this autumn!

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Community Monthly Update – August 2023

This month we really want to share with you a wonderful event we had – the joint woodland picnic on 22 July with Tayside Woodland Partnerships (TWP). We pitched our gazebos in a lovely grassy glade in Taymount Wood and set out a delicious picnic spread courtesy of Alison’s Kitchen in Blairgowrie – quiches, sausage rolls and cakes galore – on portable tables kindly lent to us by Stanley Village Hall. More food and home-baking was brought by the picnickers themselves. Despite weather forecasts to the contrary, it was a beautiful day with not a drop of rain or drizzle. After lots of great chat and good food, we heard a little about each of our organisations’ respective projects and then took a walk up the main track to King’s Myre Loch.

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Community Monthly Update – July 2023

First up this month is for us to say a big thank you to a lovely group of young people from Ochil Tower School in Auchterarder who had come on a mini-bus trip to visit Taymount Wood on 21 June … and just did a litter-pick whilst they were there!! What a great example of being good citizens – enjoying the environment and taking care of it together.

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Community Monthly Update – June 2023

We want to start with a big thank you to all WSWG volunteers who helped in the Wildflower and Mining Bee Rescue Mission this spring. Many times more wildflowers have come through along the various stretches of raked verge than would have been the case had they remained swamped by gorse mulch and, as seen in the photo here, mining bees have successfully emerged where the track surfaces were cleared to help them out too. And of course the cleared sections of track make for more comfortable going again for walkers and dogs. Lots more areas still need attention, and we will keep doing what we can when we can, but thank you again to everyone who helped make a difference for nature this spring.

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