Help our campaigns

National Bean Pole Week

Small Woods runs an annual campaign week in April to raise awareness of the humble hazel bean pole. Hazel beanpoles are harvested in winter from hazel coppice woods and sold in spring as plant supports. The hazel can only be coppiced in winter, so please don’t ask for beanpoles in the summer!

We welcome news of events and activities that local coppice workers and woodland initiatives are running during the week.

If you are looking to support our campaign, you can do this either by making a donation to the camapaign, or by finding your local coppice worker on either www.coppice-products.co.uk or www.allotmentforestry.com and buying your bean poles and other local wood products from them.

 Toby Buckland supports National Bean Pole Week.

Women into Woods

 This campaign supports women to enter the woodland and forestry sector.

Woodlands and forestry is a very traditional industry, in which women struggle to find a place, yet they have particular skills that the forestry industry needs to grow and thrive in todays’ markets. By ignoring women, the traditional male forester does the industry and the woodlands no good at all, and they are missing out on a significant source of new skills. By ensuring that Small Woods charity has a good representation of women in all posts, including senior management, the influence has spread to all areas of our work, and women have been helped into a difficult and resistant industry, where they are all making their mark. Small Woods employs equal numbers of men and women senior managers and has encouraged a wider contribution on the Board of Small Woods with new women Board members (but we still need more )

 Small Woods has raised over £500,000 for our woodland apprenticeships since 2008, and this work has been recognised by the Ernest Cook Trust who have recently awarded us an annual bursary towards our work.

We encourage women’s attendance at our ‘week in the woods’ forestry taster events, and do whatever we can to help them to commit to the three year placements. Our apprenticeship officer is also female. Women entering the scheme need a little extra support at the start , but once established, are making a real impact on the industry.

The response from women has been fantastic. We have trained four women to enter the field of woodland management and coppicing, and they are all making a strong contribution in their areas. Ruth Goodfellow, Jenna Higgins, Fahra Collins,  Rosanna Rendell have all been helped to start forestry businesses through our apprenticeships. This is the start of a new type of forester, more aware of the need for sustainability and resilience, more engaged with local communities, more concerned for people and conservation, but still able to wield a chainsaw, manage woodlands and make wood products.

Please help our campaign! Donate now!