Our AGM 2024

2 Oct 2024

As the dust settles on our AGM, held at the weekend, Small Woods CEO Simon James reflects on a successful and inspiring day had by all. If you missed it, here’s his recap:

Opening the event, I introduced my progress to date since I was appointed CEO at the end of last year. Highlights included strategic planning and new fundraising initiatives to benefit members, including woodland management grants, insurance packages and succession services.

We had a packed agenda with inspirational and informative content from all of our speakers. The keynote speech by our Patron, Rob Penn, set the scene with thought-provoking, real-life challenges and struggles, plenty of humour, refreshing opinions and a sense that woodland is, for him, at the heart of a happy and fulfilling life.

A great deal of “proper science” – as I coined it on the day – was clearly being done by Future Trees Trust's Dr Jo Clark on utilising forest genetics. She suggested we should all be planting “plus” tree species to improve ash tree adaptability, including six other key species on their progeny trial.

Sylva Foundation's CEO, Dr Gabriel Hemery, treated us to his charity's scientific work – a suite of tools developed through the British Woodlands Survey series. Special interest was given to the myForest platform for England and Scotland, with a plea for help to get Wales on board, including a very useful app suggestion, “Arboreal,” that measures your tree and works in synergy with myForest.

The speaker sessions concluded with Dr Joan Webber, with what should have been full of doom and gloom, showcasing a forester's biggest headache: pests and diseases. But, as ever, Joan managed to instil an element of respect for these unwanted problems, showing that they are really quite clever in their adaptation, and hoping that the more we know about them, the more we can combat them.

Our dedicated audience of members had to earn their venison wrap lunch from Embers café's Adam Purnell, by ratifying the AGM's resolutions for the year. We were joined by our trustees John Blessington, Chris Duncan, Beverly Tyley, Phil Tidey, Aly May, Michael Innes, Ben Howard, and Liz Newton, while apologies were received from Gary Battell. The Board's chair, John Blessington, began with an update, followed by a financial update from treasurer Beverly Tyley. Secretary Chris Duncan then asked for the 2023/2024 accounts to be received and adopted, and these were resolved unanimously. Unanimous consent was also found in favour of the re-election of John Blessington, the election of new board members Ben Howard, Liz Newton and Michael Innes, and finally the reappointment of James, Holyoak and Parker as auditor, including their remuneration delegated to the board.

We rounded off our day with a wide-ranging number of workshops, from Green Working with our resident expert bodger Tom Dillon, to a demonstration of roundhouse erecting by our invaluable volunteers. We were also given the lowdown on Mapscape software for tree management by David Winlo followed by an in-depth look at hybrid oak research with Louise Gathercole, from the Centre for Forest Protection. Finally, we had an impressive session of construction mastery with the Build a Bench demo, creating a functional bench in under two hours!

Here's a snapshot of some of the activities at the Green Wood Centre during the afternoon on Saturday, September 28:

Hands-on fun during the workshops. 

Creating a bench in under two hours.   

Making the cut with green wood crafts.

Learning how to make a roundhouse.

Demonstration on how to erect a roundhouse.