Grinning Reapers

...thirteen people went to mow.... 

At the beginning of September a small group of us attended a workshop led by the scything guru Chris Riley (click here to see Chris' website).

The idea had originally come from a meeting with the Friends of the River Frome and Neil from the Avon Invasive Weeds Forum when we were talking about good ways of eradicating the invasive Himalayan Balsam. However, as I am also working on projects on Rodden Meadow and other open spaces in town, I thought that increasing the number of scythers in the town could only be a good thing for our grassland management. 

So here are a few snaps of the workshop. It was a brilliant day, luckily the sun shone and we all learnt a lot as well as developing a few blisters on the way. We hope to run more scything events in 2014. 

Rodden Meadow before we started work

Chris talks us through the techniques

Our tools for the day; beautiful Austrian scythes

Chris talks us through how to look after our scythes

I'm sharpening here while the others are hard at work

And the 'AFTER' shot. Now we just need someone to come and rake up the hay

 If you would like to hear more, or get involved with scything in Frome in the future, please don't hesitate to get in touch on hobbss@frome-tc.gov.uk

Summer madness!

Well, despite my best intentions, its been a while since I last wrote so it is time to get more disciplined with blog entries. And I write this as I prepare to take a week off to go to the Edinburgh Festival but that is another story.....

What has been happening over the past few months? Loads. So I'll put in a couple of highlights:

Rodden Meadow management: I am working with various groups across Frome on plans to promote and celebrate the beautiful meadow that lies like a secret jewel in our midst. I'm picturing a gorgeous wildflower meadow, filled with the sights and sounds of wildlife, whilst people of Frome can enjoy the whole site - interact with the river, have a picnic, lie in the grass and benefit from the serenity. Rodden meadow was identified in the River Strategy as a key part of the river corridor that could be made more of, so we're on the case! Once we've got some of the basic plans in place, we'll be shouting about our ideas (that include a massive 50-a-side footie match (footie boots may work well to help wildflowers grow in the absence of livestock) and volunteer scything fest) and hoping that more people will get on board and take ownership with us.

Victoria Park Strategy
Victoria park and the Mary Baily Playing field (lets just call them Victoria Park for now) are popular and well used places, and we learned a lot more about how people use the park and how they feel it could be improved. We listen to these views and we are going to build on them to start drawing up some grand plans for the whole area to make it a better place to walk, relax, exercise, have fun and hang out. With help kindly donated from some of the team from NVB Architects, we will be drawing up some plans that take into account your ideas so we can start to visualise how we can make the improvements. I'll also be shouting about this once we're ready to start collecting your opinions. 

On a slightly separate note, the Wansdyke Play Association ran a fantastic session in the park on Weds 7th as part of National Play Day. It was very popular and we had lots of families getting involved with the activities as well as playing tennis, cricket and generally enjoying the park. Here is a photo of Wansdyke in action. 




And finally.... 
 

 
Check out this beautiful frog that we found in the FTC garden a few weeks ago with his female friend. Quite unusual markings for a common frog, but a lovely chap nonetheless.  

Over and (ribbet) out...

Wonderful wildlife and free money

We had a fantastic day on Sunday at the FROGS (Frome Recreational and Open Ground Supporters - Click here to see their website) Wildlife Event at Welshmill here in Frome.

It was a brilliant day with loads of people coming along to try out a wide variety of different activities; from planting edible plants, studying minibeasts under microscopes and learning about traditional ways of working wood. There was a Q&A session from an expert panel, and even some delicious cake. Well done FROGS!

Awards for all - access up to £10,000 for projects that help our community!
On an unrelated note, here at FTC we are working with our very own Fundraising advisor Steve who is here to provide information and support to community and voluntary groups with regard to applying for grants and accessing funds. Steve's next event is a FREE workshop on applying for money from the Lottery Awards for All fund. The workshop is on 12th June, 7-9pm at the Round Tower in Frome. Check out this page on our website for more information.

Hello and welcome to my blog.....

... you'll have to excuse me as I'm new to the world of blogging and writing my first post feels like a real leap into the unknown. 

So I thought it best to keep it simple. I work for Frome Town Council as the Community Projects Officer, which means that I "work with Frome communities to deliver and support socially and environmentally sustainable projects" (click here to see what we all do at FTC). In reality this means I juggle a lot of different tasks, from meeting new groups and building partnerships, giving out our FTC community grants and applying for other grants, managing projects and supporting others to manage theirs. I am writing this blog to share more widely the work that I am doing, as well as promoting all the fantastic things that go on in our vibrant town.
 
For example this morning I attended a fantastic meeting between our very own Friends of the River Frome, and the Avon Invasive Weeds Forum representative, Neil Green (check them out here, they have loads of exciting stuff going on). We were discussing the best ways to rid the whole river catchment of the invasive plant Himalayan balsam. Friends of the River Frome already do loads of work on this plant on our river, but we are all thrilled to be able to link up with Neil and his work, and to learn some lessons from other groups who are all tackling the same issues.

Here it is in the picture, isn't it beautiful? Well as pretty as it looks, it causes a lot of problems, particularly on our waterways as it spreads extremely quickly along the banks of rivers and streams. It grows fast and overshadows and out-competes our native plants. What's worse, as Neil told us today, the Himalayan balsam pollen smothers our native plant pollen, effectively blocking their ability to reproduce. It was introduced to this country a few hundred years ago, and we are now battling to keep it under control. Hopefully one day we will be able to eradicate it and claim our countryside back.

If you would like to hear more about the Himalayan balsam project, or want to get involved with some survey or balsam bashing, get in touch or visit the Friends of the River Frome website by clicking on the link here: http://fromeriverfriends.org.uk/index.php