3 minute read
Reports from the Woodland
The Easter Event
On Saturday 23 March we held our Easter Event in the Woodland. The weather wasn’t on our side with heavy showers on and off throughout the morning and a very cold wind. When it came time to set up, we did consider calling the event off, but after checking the forecast and it looking promising, we decided to go ahead (we are British after all, what’s a little bit of rain?!).
There was a letter trail along the right hand (south) side of the wood, along the path to the reflection area. There were nine letters to find and a word to guess (see above).
There were then tokens with eggs painted on them, and if the children found one of these they won a prize, too.
We also had a couple of stalls, one with games and another with cakes (very generously donated by the WI). The games were a hit with guess the name of the bunnies, guess the number of eggs in the jar and a lucky dip. As always the cakes went down a treat too.
Despite the cold winds and chance of showers, we had a fairly good turn out. There were lots of prizes won and some very pleased children! After all of our costs we made just under £60. Not as much as we’d hoped but given the conditions it was a sum that we were pleased with.
As always a massive thank you to all of our volunteers who helped on the day, and the community for supporting us. We’d also like to give a special mention to Isobel for all her hard work making the beautiful decorations that we had up on the day too.
Annual General Meeting
Thursday 21 March at 7.30pm saw our AGM in the Parish Hall. This was a chance to present the annual report to our members, explain what we’ve been doing in the woodland through the year and discuss future plans. We had a good turn out with 23 people in attendance.
Much of what was discussed was the ongoing TOE funded tree thinning and creation of new wildlife ponds, as well as the coppicing of the blackthorn hedges. We explained our intention to dredge the pond this year with that being the main focus of our fundraising. We’ve been unsuccessful so far in obtaining grant funding and questions were raised relating to the grants that we’ve applied for.
A big topic was flooding over the last few months. The Wretchwick Farm development was brought up and it was mentioned that this could impact water flow in the brook and ditches around the wood.
It was asked why we seem to have lost contact with Bicester Green Gym who have volunteered at the wood in the past. This was due to Covid. We will endeavour to reach out and see if we can bring them back on board.
Finally, Lesley Thompson voiced her vote of thanks for the continued hard work of the FIPW team and volunteers.
The board will follow up on these points and update members at the earliest opportunity.
FIPW Team
