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 2022

Our big news of the month is that on 5th April West Stormont Woodland Group was officially registered as a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO). The SCIO number is SC051682. WSWG will shortly be looking for a few more WSWG members to join as Trustees to help guide the group in its environmental, recreational and woodland acquisition aspirations.

The loop in the River Tay from Murthly to Stanley where Five Mile Wood and Taymount Wood are located.

What has WSWG been doing this month?

We are particularly looking for people who live in the Stanley, Kinclaven and Bankfoot area, but approaches from members living in the wider WSWG area would be very welcome too – Murthly, Luncarty, Pitcairngreen, Almondbank, Logiealmond, Dunkeld and Birnam, Caputh and Spittalfield. If you are resident in the local area, passionate about our local environment, and fancy getting involved please get in touch at contact@weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot

Site meetings with Jim Lee of Energy4All and Alex Urquhart-Taylor of Dundee Renewable Energy Society to update the scope, context and likely timeframes for potential Community Energy/Self-sufficiency/EV-charging Projects in the WSWG Project. The global energy story is shifting and WSWG intends to be part of the local response.

Meeting with Jackie Brierton of Growbiz for advice and support in finalising the WSWG Green Enterprise Plan, Funding Strategy and overall Business Plan.

Ongoing work by the Steering Group on the suite of documents feeding into the final costed WSWG Proposal and the Survey Questionnaire for the mainly on-line Community Consultation, the dates for which will be confirmed soon.

A reminder of the range of themes in the WSWG vision

Fly-tipping removed from Taymount Wood car park during the C406 Tackle Litter Group community litter-picking event on 10 April. Many thanks to PKC for removing it and to the host of local residents and other volunteers who cleared litter from the nearby verges.  PKC Visitor Rangers, Nicky and Lewis, also kindly litter-picked the car park at Five Mile Wood before they came along to help in the main event on the C406 road.

The Community page on the WSWG website is an open space for members to tell us how they connect with the woods. This beautiful poem by Julia Fehrenbacher was contributed by WSWG member, Deirdre Joy.

The Cure For It All

Go gently today, don’t hurry
or think about the next thing. Walk
with the quiet trees, can you believe
how brave they are—how kind? Model your life
after theirs. Blow kisses
at yourself in the mirror

especially when
you think you’ve messed up. Forgive
yourself for not meeting your unreasonable
expectations. You are human, not
God—don’t be so arrogant.

Praise fresh air
clean water, good dogs. Spin
something from joy. Open
a window, even if
it’s cold outside. Sit. Close
your eyes. Breathe. Allow

the river
of it all to pulse
through eyelashes
fingertips, bare toes. Breathe in
breathe out. Breathe until

you feel
your bigness, until the sun
rises in your veins. Breathe
until you stop needing
anything
to be different.

Julia Fehrenbacher

See how it looks on our Community page: https://www.weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot/community/poetry-stories/ Please keep sending in your contributions so we can fill the page with amazing evidence of how important Taymount and Five Mile Woods are to us all now and how much more they will be when they are in community ownership.

Aerial photograph of Taymount Wood taken for WSWG in 2019: note the complex make-up of all the woodland compartments and sub compartments.
Aerial photograph of Five Mile Wood taken for WSWG in 2019: note the large “Gap Site” at the northern end caused by creeping windblow but regenerating well.

Word of the Month

SCIO. A Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (SCIO) is a legal structure which has been purpose-built for the voluntary sector in Scotland. It provides limited liability and a separate legal identity to organisations that want to become charities but do not want or need the complex structure of company law. This means that even the smallest charity can access the benefits of incorporation – including limited liability and legal capacity. It is only available to charities with a principal office in Scotland and is regulated by OSCR and subject to the Charities and Trustee Investment Act (Scotland) 2005.

Source: Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

Find out more at: www.scvo.scot/support/setting-up-a-charity/decide-on-structure/scio

What’s coming up next?

  • Community consultation on the final CATS Proposal – a bit delayed but hopefully revised dates to be confirmed soon. Mostly on-line but postal for those not on the internet and hopefully a couple of drop-in events as well.
  • WSWG Community Events Programme to be publicised soon – similarly delayed due to workload behind the scenes! Watch this space for walks, talks, foraging, fun events, more tree tubing. Something for everyone!

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Previous Articles

Community Monthly Update – September 2024

Latest on Stanley Wildwood (Rookery Wood). You may remember that we dedicated our July Monthly Update to making the case for community ownership of Stanley Wildwood, with subsequent mailouts and Facebook posts to encourage our members and supporters to vote in PKC’s recent public consultation for a community-based future for this small but important woodland in Stanley village. We are therefore delighted to tell you that the Council has reported that 65.6% of respondents in the Stanley postcode area were in favour of a community outcome for the woodland. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the consultation. WSWG and Tayside Woodland Partnerships are now in discussion with PKC to explore further the option of bringing the woodland into community ownership and management. We will keep you posted including ways individuals and the wider community can get involved going forward.

Read More »

Community Monthly Update – July 2024

Something quite different has cropped up for WSWG and Stanley village recently, so we have decided to make it the sole topic of our update this month and a simple appeal to you at the same time. PKC who currently own the 0.56 acre Stanley Wildwood (the Rookery wood) have decided it is surplus to their needs. They have launched an on-line consultation to find out whether the local community thinks it should be sold to a private neighbouring resident as an extension to their garden ground or sold or leased to a willing community organisation. The area owned by PKC is shown in yellow. It has had a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) since 1987. We believe the best interests of the Wildwood and rookery will be served through community not private ownership. Please support our goal by voting for Option 2 in the PKC consultation, using the link shown.

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Community Monthly Update – June 2024

Our main focus this month has been collaboration with all sorts of people and organisations in our ongoing programme of events in Taymount Wood and outreach activity for the WSWG Project. Each and every event has been a source of real joy at seeing so many people benefitting in so many ways from spending and sharing time in our lovely woodlands on a diverse range of activities. Whilst we cannot claim to have beaten the record set in 2019 for our oldest participant at a WSWG event (she was an amazing 96 years old!), at only 5 weeks old a little treasure beat the record of our youngest attendee to date by a whole 11 weeks! How cool is that? Read on to find out more about these wonderful, moving and uplifting events.

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Community Monthly Update – May 2024

We are really delighted this month to start with the announcement that the winner of the WSWG April Photography Competition in the Children’s category is Dougie from Highland Perthshire. His stunning and clever photograph was taken at the head of Loch Rannoch, looking west, on Saturday 20 April. Such a beautiful, calm scene in our precious Perthshire countryside, but just look at the perfect capture of the beautiful splash effect at its heart. A truly super photo.

Congratulations, Dougie. Thank you very much for taking part in this competition and your well-deserved prize will be making its way to you very soon.

Read More »

Community Monthly Update – April 2024

On Sunday 14 April, a lovely bunch of people turned out for a WSWG Guided Climate and Biodiversity Walk in Taymount Wood to celebrate the start of the new Perth & Kinross Climate Action Hub (PKCAH) for which funding has been secured from the Scottish Government.

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Community Monthly Update – March 2024

It is a disappointing thing to have to do, but a surprisingly rewarding thing to have done. We are talking about picking up someone else’s litter. We all know Taymount Wood car park occasionally suffers from fly tipping, but it is regular littering which is more of a chronic problem, clogging the ditches, being strewn around the verges, blown into the brambles and nettles, overgrown by rank grass, buried in the soil, or crushed by vehicles if not removed regularly.

Read More »