News Archive                                                                                            Back to WoodLots Home Page

 WoodLots   News   April-May 2005

Click on the links to the right or simply scroll down the page:  

Show Your Support for WoodLots

Wood-fuelled kiln for Surrey sawmill 

Woodland Heritage ‘Plus’ Trees Competition

ConFor: Lobbying Force for British Forestry 

Just Testing! Mistake in last issue of WoodLots

East Sussex WoodSeason 

Hold Your Event at the Woodland Enterprise Centre

Back to Top

Show Your Support

for WoodLots:

To maintain funding for the free WoodLots service we need to demonstrate that WoodLots is working and that woodlands and businesses in the South East are benefiting from the networking opportunities and information supplied by WoodLots.  You can help by letting us know about benefits you have gained. Have you, as a result of information found in WoodLots :

•  made useful business contacts

•  attended an event or received training

•  found employment/a new employee

•  acquired or sold products/equipment

•  improved your business

If you can answer ‘yes’ to any of these questions, or if you have your own supportive stories about WoodLots’ effectiveness, please help by writing a brief letter or email outlining the specific benefits you have gained.

Please email your letters of support to:  jenny@woodnet.org.uk  

Wood-fuelled kiln

for Surrey sawmill

Resourceful engineering has transformed a second-hand shipping container into a kiln at Norbury Park Wood Products run by Surrey Wildlife Trust. A timber-clad 20 foot container, with a boiler house built on the end, uses off cuts from the on-site sawmill to fuel the stove to provide heat. Support from REACH and Clear Skies helped with its construction. As reported in WoodLots 44 (November 2002) Norbury Park Wood Products has been milling timber and selling items made of local green timber from its base near Leatherhead in Surrey for 3 years now. 

“The whole cycle, from managed woodland to finished furniture, takes place here,” says Norbury Park Wood Products manager, Ian Devon. “With our new kiln we’ll be able to produce furniture which lasts a long time and retains its sharpness.  We’re producing a new range of seasoned oak garden furniture, environmentally friendly, local and high quality. Profits go to support the work of the Surrey Wildlife Trust.” All the wood used at Norbury Park comes from the South East. Much of it is harvested from sites managed by the Wildlife Trust. Norbury Park Wood Products will be at the Surrey County Show at the end of May. They offer a milling service and may be interested in small lots of timber from sustainable sources (4 quality butts or more). Tel: 01372 457377,
email: ian.devon@swtcs.co.uk. www.norburywood.org.uk.  

Back to Top

Woodland Heritage
‘Plus’ Trees Competition

WoodLots readers are offered a free copy of the latest 64 page Woodland Heritage Journal.  This packed issue contains details of a competition to locate the best mature examples (‘plus’ trees) of oak, ash, common walnut, sweet chestnut, silver birch, sycamore and wild cherry, with prizes for each species of £250. Also details of Garthwaite Travel Bursaries for Foresters, and forthcoming events. 
To receive your copy of the Woodland Heritage Journal please send an A4 addressed envelope with stamps to the value of 83p to: Woodland Heritage, Arundell House, Haslemere , GU27 1NE 

Back to Top

Lobbying Force 
for British Forestry

The role of the new Confederation of Forestry Industries, ‘ConFor’ was explained by Chris Inglis (FTA Executive Director) at the Forestry & Timber Association (Home Counties Region) annual general meeting held recently at Hampton Estate in Surrey. David Crichton, recently appointed Chief Executive of ConFor, has already been busy establishing a presence in Brussels, Belfast and London.  An All-Party Group has been set up at Westminster and four ‘action groups’ have been created focussing on wood energy, climate change, non-market benefits and construction. ConFor aims to present clear messages to government, lobbying on behalf of the industry to make sure that the significant role British forestry and timber can play in achieving government targets (renewable energy, CO₂ reduction, conservation, new homes) is appropriately understood at government level. 
For more information go to: www.forestryandtimber.org

Back to Top

Just Testing!

Thank you to all of you who kindly pointed out our mistake on the front cover of the last issue. The saw is not a cross-cut saw as stated, but a pit-saw.  Colin Pratt, County Recorder of Butterflies & Moths in Sussex, was able to name the man in the photograph, taken in Plashett Wood, East Sussex in the 1930s, as Mr W Wood.

Back to Top

East Sussex WoodSeason

The programme for 2005 is being developed. Can you offer an event or opportunity relating to East Sussex wood or woodlands
26 September - 12 November? Entry in the programme is free, with 10,000 copies distributed in the South East.  Entries required by end of April 2005. For more information please contact: 

Jenny Martin, Tel: 01273 479173

Email: jenny@woodnet.org.uk  

2004 Wood Season Programme

Back to Top

Hold Your Event at the 
Woodland Enterprise Centre

For small or large meetings, conferences and exhibitions, the Woodland Enterprise Centre offers 150 square metres of exhibition and conference space, including a small meeting room, all within 22 hectares of demonstration woodland at Flimwell, just south of Tunbridge Wells on the East Sussex/Kent border. 
For bookings throughout 2005-06 please contact:  Weald WoodNet, Tel: 01580 879552, Email:  info@woodnet.org.uk 
Back to Top
        

Back to WoodLots Home Page