Gresham’s gang get stuck in

Yesterday at Wood Norton, Felbeck Trust played host to an all day work party for pupils from Gresham’s School. Five enthusiastic young people, accompanied by two supervisors, spent the day doing a variety of jobs, improving the site for visitors, for volunteers undertaking habitat restoration work and for nature.

Students, supervisors and FT volunteers..

They built a boat-ramp, accessed off the car parking area, to make launching our dinghy (kindly donated by Peter Fisher) easier. Although not often used, it is invaluable for tree and pond management and, in the future, will help with water-quality assessments and surveys.

The completed boat-ramp..

Whilst this project was progressing, other students constructed a bench in the volunteer ‘welfare area’ - a nice place to sit and enjoy our morning coffee and doughnuts. The recent clearance of bramble, east of the entrance, will hopefully provide an area of restored grassland. This is still 'work in progress' so again the students helped with removing bramble roots and raking up the debris  - not the most interesting of tasks but they got stuck in!

Recently cleared bramble scrub - grassland restoration in progress

At the end of the session we took the opportunity to go around the site - explaining to the young people the origins, development and future plans for the ‘allotment’. The weather was kind and everyone appeared to have an enjoyable and purposeful day. At least one of the students said they hoped to be back next year!

Trevor Williams 18 June 2024