A Look Back

It may be some time since the last update but we've barely paused for breath! 

Despite the cold weather, work continues apace and we've been busy on both the quarry and the reserve. Simon has been overseeing aerial surveying, meeting with geologists, archaeologists and ecologists. He and Jill are now jetting off to Costa Rica to enjoy Christmas in the sun.

Our volunteers have been using locally harvested willow to create refuges for fish (ensuring a food source for waders over winter). We've fixed sluice gates, coppiced trees and expanded our propagation centre. One of our cabins now sports a very fitting 'green roof', which is already sprouting grasses and collecting water for us to use.

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Our next volunteering date is January 2nd, 2018 if you fancy braving in the cold. We'll meet in the quarry car park.

We've welcomed Joe to the team who is to be our project manager, helping sniff out new pots of funding and helping put in place new formats for dreaded risk assessments and training. All being well, he should have some more exciting projects soon! Hopefully Simon should have his hands free for yet more meetings and planning sessions for the future of our beautiful nature reserve. 

We are in the early stages of putting together a Heritage Lottery Fund bid to help us create new reedbeds and expand the wetlands habitats on the reserve and quarry. The establishment of the propagation centre has been a real boon, we are now growing plants at capacity and will be hoping the HLF can help us to expand this exciting resource.

We also enjoyed our Christmas luncheon at the White Bear, Masham. You can spot a few of our volunteers enjoying themselves! 

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We are looking to apply for some Heritage Lottery Funding, which will help plant new reedbeds and pay for volunteer training. We are meeting on January 30th so if you want to join us and feed in to the project then please get in touch.