Friends of Gillfield Wood
Practical Conservation Sessions (free events). These are held monthly all year, either at weekends or midweek, with dates advertised on the website. Members can join the mailing list by contacting the Secretary at fogwsecretary@gmail.com.
Sessions are open to anyone who would like to join in. Everyone needs to provide their own gloves along with suitable clothes and footwear.
Everything we do supplements the work carried out by the Council’s woodlands team, meaning much more can be done to improve the wood for its flora, fauna and visitors alike. Typical activities are coppicing, fencing and walling, tree and undergrowth management, path repair and drain clearance and all sorts of miscellaneous jobs.
They are from 10am for 2 to 3 hours on one Sunday in the month on an agreed date with the Sheffield City Council Ranger. A Ranger attends our work mornings with appropriate tasks (light and heavy) and tools. We meet either at the Baslow Road bus terminus, the Scout Hut on Aldam Road, Totley or at the end of Totley Hall Lane. The work mornings are advertised on posters around Totley, in the local press and nearer the date are emailed out. We recommend you bring along your own refreshments.
If you are interested in helping us carry out such work in Gillfield Wood or have any questions, please contact fogwsecretary@gmail.com
We may also arrange the occasional mid-week Conservation Morning where we will not have the help of a Council Ranger but will concentrate on tasks we can do independently. Here we are likely to meet at the Baslow Road bus terminus at 10.00am. Bring spade/shovel and rake if you have them/one. And gloves and flask. We will probably finish around 11.30 but feel free to come and go to suit.
The next PCMs are scheduled for:
Sunday 12th February 2023. Meet at 10am - meeting place to be confirmed.
Sunday 12th march 2023. Meet at 10am - meeting place to be confirmed.
FOGW works very closely with Sheffield Council Woodlands department. Chris Measures and I recently met with the Woodlands Officer, John Gilpin and our Ranger Nell Dixon. We walked the wood and agreed on a conservation work programme for 2022.
All the conservation work we do supplements the work carried out by the Council's Woodlands Team but our contribution means much more can be done to improve the wood for its flora, fauna and visitors alike. Typical activities are coppicing, fencing and walling, tree and undergrowth management, path re-pair and drain clearance and all sorts of miscellaneous jobs. Over the years we have dug out ponds, rebuilt dry stone walls, created the wildflower meadow at the picnic site, planted trees and hedges and had a hand in improving access for all.
Dates are advertised on this website; in the Totley Independent or people can join our conservation work mailing list by contacting me by email at: fogwsecretary@gmail.com
All are welcome and we hope to see a few new faces joining in this year, with the new variations in days and times.
Keep safe and healthy
Andy Brewster
FOGW Secretary
NATIONAL TREE WEEK
National Tree Week is the UK’s largest tree celebration, inspiring communities across the UK to plant thousands of trees each year. The campaign began in response to the Dutch Elm Disease crisis in the 1960s, which wiped out more than 20 million Elms.
Recently the Friends of Gillfield Wood received from OVO Energy, through the Conservation Volunteers, a generous donation of a variety of trees and shrubs for planting; 200 in total. They arrived just in time for the group to take part in the National Tree Week celebration and carry out the planting of a majority of these 200 whips at the west end of Gillfield Wood on Sunday 24th November last year.
Some of the shrubs such as Blackthorn, Hawthorn, Dogwood and Guelder Rose were added to a hedgerow we have recently created at the edge of the wood around the bus terminus area. Rowan and Crab Apple trees were also planted in the nearby picnic area. In addition Willow trees and Alder trees were planted within the woodland that was created approximately 27 years ago at that end of Gillfield Wood. These latter trees should take well to the damper conditions this area has to offer, but only time will tell.
On the following Saturday, November 30th, a small group of Friends of Gillfield Wood members planted some Silver Birch and Downy Birch whips in another part of the wood to celebrate Tree Charter Day. Hopefully these whips will eventually create a small stand of birches within the wood to go some way towards replacing a good number of old birch trees that have sadly fallen down through rotting with age or have succumbed to high winds.
The call for a Tree Charter was initiated in 2015 by the Woodland Trust in response to the crisis facing our trees and woods in the UK. The Charter for Trees, Woods and People was launched at Lincoln Castle in November 2017, on the 800th Anniversary of the Charter of the Forest in 1217; it sets out the principles for a society in which people and trees stand together.
Trees do so much for us every day, such as improving air quality, storing carbon, conserving water, preserving soil, supporting wildlife and improving our wellbeing; it is therefore vital that we continue to plant trees, especially as we are due to lose so many through diseases. It is understood that we need to plant, throughout the UK, around 30,000 hectares of trees every year for the next thirty years, this is approximately the size of the Isle of Wight in trees every year. Quite mind boggling, but we hope you will be inspired to plant a tree this year, if you can, or perhaps join in the National Tree Week celebration next November.
Chris Measures