Recruitment stall at Styal's Wood Fair sunday 19 June 2011

I'm feeling lazy and so I'm going to quote from Sue's email.

A good day on Sunday - and we escaped the rain!!

There were a good number from MNTV who turned up to set up, help on the stall, tidy up or just visit!! We chatted to some potential recruits, including a guy who was interested in the Chester Group and another, the Wolverhampton Group!! Although we asked a few, no-one wanted to leave their names and contact details, so we gave out leaflets and told them how to get in touch with us if they were interested.

It was a lovely friendly atmosphere, and good to have time to chat to new people as well as amongst ourselves (I never knew that T. was a bee keeper with 3 hives!!)

Styal (Woods) 12 June 2011

Seven of our volunteers turned out to Styal and spent the day working in the Northern woods.

Since the National Trust has reacquired the gardens in the valley near the mill, the patterns and history of the wider estate around the mill have been more to the forefront of management minds. There have also been staff changes which may have altered the view from the top.

One thing that has been highlighted is that some areas of the Northern woods between Styal and Norcliffe hall (private) were actually historically managed as garden and would have been highly manicured.

So a current activity is taking back control of these woods from nature, to manage the wood more actively with a view to creating a more varied ground cover and more open structure. This will as a side effect improve the health of the woodland and allow the growth of "better" trees.

So today the task was to transform the woodland from being like the first picture dark and overgrown with lots and lots of holly to the second picture more open and lighter. The weather deteriorated over the day, getting damper with time, we wore ear protection as we were using a chipper to deal with the cut holly - so we spent less time chatting and more time working. As a result we finished a bit early, but pleased with our day in the woods

It is strange how you notice the rain more when you can hear it!

Pie night at the Drum and Monkey - Tues 7 June 2011

There was an excellent turnout of twelve people last Tuesday 7 June, at what has become a regular fixture on the MNTV social calendar, the Pie Night, at the Drum and Monkey in Alderley Edge.

Everyone enjoyed the selection of pies available, but initially there were a handful of disappointed tummies when it transpired that the Steak Puddings had completely sold out... luckily there was a wide menu to choose from, so everybody was suitably fed and watered.

As usual, the conversation during the evening ranged across a varied selection of topics. I think it's fair to say that we had all put the world to rights by the end of the evening! No photos this time I'm afraid - I'll try to remember to bring my camera next time.

Bickerton 5 June 2011

Five volunteers turned up to Bickerton Hill (eventually having been delayed by traffic), met up with the warden and a similar sized group from Chester.

We spent the day replacing "King posts" or "strainer posts" - the larger posts that actually hold the tension in a modern stock fence. These are were dug in by hand, with the holes being back filled with a mixture of ballast and the original soil. Concrete is not normally required and makes replacing posts in the future a real pain. Though one post was placed in concrete as its hole hit bedrock.

Unfortunately we ran out of time so the warden will have to return with another group to reattache the wire.

The day was a little damp and the sun never really appeared but waterproofs where not really needed.

Clumber Park weekend 21-22 May 2011

Six volunteers spent the weekend at Clumber park, arriving on Friday and leaving after early in Sunday afternoon.

The warden left a note that there would be a pub quiz starting at 8 in the estate's social club, so we ate promptly - home made quiches, salads, french bread, before an advance party of four went off by car to enter the quiz. The last two walked over some time later, and watched - the quiz was well under way when they arrived but teams were strictly restricted to 4. Eventually we walked back in the dark leaving the car at the social club and relying on night sight rather than torches. This was a new experience for some of the volunteers - if their torches hadn't gone flat - I doubt if we could have persuaded them to keep them switched off - they were a little surprised when I got a torch out to find the keys!

After quite a late night, we started with breakfast including crispy (burnt?) bacon butties. We were ready on time, and met the Wardens. The task was coppicing willow along the lakeside where live willow matting had been used to control erosion. A secondary task was planting prunings in the gaps to reinforce the bank. Though we left that for Sunday morning as the ground was very hard and we needed a metal bar to make planting holes.

I took a lift back to the base camp in the car left the night before as I had misjudged the depth at the edge of the lake and filled my wellingtons! P was more sensible and borrowed waders.

Dinner took a while to organise as everything was prepared from scratch a home made garlicy cheesy spread starter with salad and toasted french bread, herby bread crumb coated chicken breasts, with carrot, potato and cauliflower followed by strawberries and ice cream.

We played some games and then went to bed a bit earlier than the previous night. We didn't get up as efficiently on the second morning and were running a little late when the wardens arrived. Perhaps the breakfast was too simple - croissants, toast, cereals etc!

We planted the prunings and then did a litter pick around the lake, before packing up, cleaning up the base camp and going home.

25th AGM on Monday 16th May 2011

Summary of AGM from Daniel:

We held our AGM yesterday evening in the Norcliffe Chapel meeting room.
Sixteen members attended plus wardens Shane Bates (High Peak) and Tim
Bowyer (Styal).

Seven people were elected to the committee for the coming year: Daniel
Black, Sue Bonner, Denise Clark, Philippa Greaves, Gordon Irons, Adrian
Potts and Charlie Spiller.

Long service awards were presented by Shane to Hazel Pryor (25 years)
and Adrian Potts (20 years). Well done to both of them.

At the interval we caught up over tea, coffee and homebaked cakes and
biscuits.

After the AGM Shane gave us a very interesting talk about the history of
Kinder Scout since its acquisition by the NT in 1982. Current work is
focused on stabilising the peatbogs by planting heather and cotton grass
and preventing peat runoff by gulley blocking. Watch out for details of
the 30th birthday celebrations next year!

Dunham Massey 15 May 2011

Ten of our volunteers turned out and spent the day working with Doug the "carreership" (trainee) warden cutting and burning Rhododendron Ponticum near the car park. There was some drizzle but we were well sheltered among trees and screened from most of the breeze by the valley we were working in. When people ventured out into the carpark they reported back that it was "far wetter out there" - so we had a good day.

We cut the smaller trunks, and stripped the branches off the larger ones with bow saws, dragged away the debris to the fire and burnt it - the fire was hot and didn't produce much smoke - Doug checked a couple of times to make sure we were not smoking the public on the "moat path" - the main path from the car park to the house.

A number of the "plants" had very large trunks which had to be cut by Doug with a chain saw - once we were well out of the way.

There are three photographs - before during and after. Though the cleared area did extend a little further left out of the frame.