The calendars are available at Stanley Store (thank you Stan and Morag) or you can drop us an email at contact@weststormontwoodlandgroup.scot to order yours. We ask for £2 postage per calendar if you wish it posted to you. Once the order is confirmed, payment can then be made through the donate button which can be found at the foot of each page on our website. Thank you if you would like to support the WSWG Project this way. And a huge thanks to Françoise for doing this for us.
What has WSWG been doing this month?
Hot on the heels of the FLS approval of the WSWG Wildwood Project-Taymount Wood at the end of October and with the big fundraising plan our main focus for the next 6-8 months, in mid-November, WSWG submitted its Stage Two funding bid to the Scottish Land Fund (SLF) for £974,000, including £40,000 towards the first two years’ start-up costs. Our application will be considered at their panel meeting in March 2024. All positive thoughts this way much appreciated! A big thank you to Elyn Zhang of SLF and Fiona Taylor of the Community Ownership Support Service (COSS) for their help and advice in this task.
Two WSWG Trustees have attended an excellent six-session, on-line course on Measuring Social Impact run by Just Enterprise and delivered by Social Value Lab. We will have a 1 to 1 session in January to complete the course. Thank you to Emma and Niamh for this very informative and enjoyable skills development training which will be extremely useful to WSWG going forward.
The WSWG AGM was held in Stanley Village Hall on 28 November at which the old Board stood down and the new Board was elected. WSWG founder members, Betty Abbott and Bob Talbot stepped down as trustees and did not stand for re-election. They were each presented with a small gift token to mark the huge contribution they have made to the WSWG project over the past five years. Betty also received a bouquet of flowers to take home for our dearest Mike, who took the very first step in the WSWG journey. (We will update you in the January Community Monthly Update on who is on the new Board, their roles and any co-opted trustees in addition, once this is agreed at the December Board meeting.) Meanwhile here are Mike and Betty leading the way for WSWG
The evening continued with a slide presentation on the Wildwood Project-Taymount Wood and then enjoying lots of great chat over a delicious finger buffet provided by Blairgowrie-based Alison’s Kitchen, with surplus food going the next day to the Skinnergate Shelter for homeless people in Perth who were delighted to receive it. Our cake competition only attracted two entries, but they were both absolutely delicious and their bakers, Frances and David, very worthy prize winners on the night. Some people ordered WSWG Wildflowers and Friends calendars and others went home with a Wizzy-Owl or two, with donations mounting up nicely from this. Thank you to everyone who came along and contributed to a very pleasant evening.
On 6 December, we showed our slide presentation on the Wildwood Project-Taymount Wood to Dunkeld & Birnam Climate Café and enjoyed loads of lovely chat and questions with them over festive drinks and mince pies to celebrate the approval of the WSWG plan to bring Taymount Wood into community ownership. There will be another chance to hear about the Wildwood Project-Taymount Wood on Friday 15th December at the Dunkeld and Birnam Christmas Gathering at the Co-working space, Lagmhor, Dunkeld. PH8 0AD. This event will take place between 11am – 3pm and anyone is welcome to drop in for a cuppa and a mince pie.
If you could do with a few spare minutes of calm in the run-up to Christmas, do have a look at this short but inspirational Food Forest video www.agroforestry.co.uk/about_us/media/ about a site in Devon. This is the sort of thing WSWG proposes for the Food Forest site in the Wildwood Project-Taymount Wood.
Word of the Month
Centaurée et syrphe: This is “black knapweed and hoverfly” in French as seen in Françoise’s beautiful “Wildflowers and Friends” Calendar 2024 to help raise funds for WSWG. The calendar will also give you the opportunity to learn not only the English names but also the French and Latin ones for other featured wildflowers and their insect friends in Taymount Wood. A lovely Christmas present for someone.
What’s coming up next?
A WSWG application to the PKC Green Living Fund for our Wizzy-WARP24 Project as part of the WSWG Wellbeing and Resilience Programme 2024 where we aim to encourage a wide range of groups supporting people living with particular challenges to different events to find out what they can gain from spending time in Taymount and Five Mile Woods. Please look out for our project and vote for us in the Participatory Budgeting community voting phase in February.
Christmas! Have a very happy one and a wonderful Hogmanay too. See you next year.
