Curry Woods Conservation Trust

The AGM of the trust was very well attended and the trustees appreciated people turning out on a cold January evening to attend it. They were rewarded with hot drinks, sausage rolls and cakes after the talk by Harry Paget -Wilks of the RSPB. A special treat was the home made cider brought along by Cyril Harriss! 
The minutes of the evening are available here:/agm-report-jan-2025
  Harry Paget-Wilkes is site manager of 3 local RSPB reserves. He talked about his work and also about the involvement of the local RSPB groups in the Greater Sedgemoor Landscape recovery Project, which the CWCT is also getting involved in.  More about birds in Peter's latest blog - https://app.site123.com/peter-s-blog/in praise of titmice

Explained on the project website "  The Greater Sedgemoor Landscape Recovery Project Area comprises 4,000 hectares of low-lying floodplain grasslands and a 500 hectare ‘halo’ of surrounding higher ground within the southern half of Somerset’s Levels and Moors. This area is vital for wildlife. Four large floodplain grassland Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) and two woodland SSSIs lie within the area.
The ambitious project focuses on restoring and enhancing the wildlife of the area. It seeks to both mitigate for the effects of climate change, and increase resilience to its impacts, through a transition in land use.  By working collaboratively with landowners, local communities, and environmental organisations, the project aims to create a landscape that is not only rich in biodiversity but also sustainable and beneficial for both nature and people The project is a partnership between the RSPB and Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group South-West (FWAGSW) plus more than 100 landowners and farmers."

It promises to be a really interesting talk!  Please do come along, entry is free though donations to CWCT are of course very welcome and any money collected will go towards the purchase of the land adjacent to the CWCT site which has been offered to us by the Woodland Trust. The WT recently received the land as a bequest from a well known and loved villager but were unfortunately not able to accept it as it is too small and too remote from their other local holdings to make it viable for them. However they were delighted to find us next door and so to offer it to us at a very reasonable cost.

Over the autumn talks about the Trust and the wider environment of the Somerset Hills, Moors and Levels have been given and have seemed well received. We have also forged links with other groups working to increase the tree cover in the ecological network  on the ridge that runs between the Blackdowns in the west and Beer and Aller Woods in the east. There are some exciting plans relating to this - the possibility of a new National Forest in the west and on a rather smaller scale our own interest in some further land around our existing holding in Curry Rivel.  if this is to happen we will need to raise more money for either renting/purchasing the land. The advantage of the Trust owning land is that trees planted on it are then , under the Trust's constitution, safe for perpetuity, whereas a landlord can request the return of land and can then use it for other purposes.  As an English oak tree is known to grow actively for 900 years, be a mature tree for a further 900 and then decline for 900 more it is important to guarantee the safety of our trees!  if on reading this you would like to help the Trust financially, please do get in touch ! 

Sadly we are saying goodbye to a trustee at the AGM. Peter will be saying much more about Alan then but many reading this will know he has been an excellent treasurer and colleague , not to mention sculptor of our wonderful crane, made out of the old iron  gate from the entrance!  This means of course that we are looking for another trustee - if you might be interested please contact me at cwctrust@aol.com, or on this website, leave a means to contact you and I will get back to you.

A walk through our newly planted woodland at this time of year is a pleasure and Peter's blog on lammas growth is very relevant.(https://app.site123.com/peter-s-blog/lammas-growth?w=5671820 ) Earlier this year we were excited to see that ground nesting birds have started to take advantage of the long grass and we appreciated the cooperation of dog walkers in keeping their dogs under control so not to frighten them. Hopefully the same will be true i spring 2025

Now in the mature woodland keen eyes will spot fungi, always thriving after wet weather. Look on the floor among the leaf litter, on tree trunks or on fallen trees, where they thrive.Bracket fungi on woodAscocornyne - also a wood rotting fungus

Lots more species of fungi to see in winter   - if you are walking through the CWCT wood please take some photos and send them to cwctrust@aol.com so we can publish them on the website.

Curry Woods Conservation Trust
currywoodsconservationtrust.com.
The Woods, Curry Rivel, Langport, Somerset TA10 0PW
  Email: cwctrust@aol.com  Website: currywoodsconservationtrust.com

Minutes of the Open Evening and AGM of the CWCT
 held in the Old School Room, Curry Rivel 
on Tuesday January 14th 2025 at 7.30pm
The meeting was attended by 21 people, with all 5 trustees present.
 Welcome by the Chair
 Approval of minutes of the AGM of the Trust held on December 8th 2023 -proposed by Sir Peter Wallis, seconded by Paul Deacon
 Chair’s Report - Peter Goodenough- see appendix    At the end of his report Peter talked about the considerable contribution made by Alan, who is retiring as Treasurer and trustee. He presented Alan with a card and book about Somerset Cricket Club from all the other trustees, past and present and expressed our gratitude for all he has done during his trusteeship..
Treasurer’s report -Alan Cockerell - see appendix 2
Secretary’s report - Sylvia Goodenough - see appendix 3

This concluded the formal AGM. After a brief break Harry Paget-Wilkes gave a very interesting illustrated talk, initially about his role as site manager of three local RSPB reserves and birds to be seen in them and then about the Greater Sedgemoor Landscape Recovery Project. The RSPB is involved in this as West Sedgemoor and Greylake reserves are in the designated recovery region. Part of the former reserve is in Curry Rivel parish and below the Trust site. Harry had hoped that he would be accompanied by a colleague with more direct knowledge of the project but unfortunately she was unwell.

There was some discussion following the talk and this continued over tea, coffee and cake. Cyril Harriss had also brought some of his home made cider which was much appreciated and added to the conviviality. The evening finally broke up at 9.30pm.

Appendix1
Chairman’s report to Annual General Meeting of CWCT.

First of all a warm welcome to the CWCT Annual General meeting. After brief summaries of the past year from myself, as Chair, Alan our Treasurer and Sylvia our secretary,we look forward to what we are sure will be a very interesting and relevant talk by Harry Paget-Wilkes, site manager of three local RSPB reserves ,one of which is partly in Curry Rivel parish.

So to 2024. On 10th February we welcomed the Scouts from the Levels Group for our final planting of the winter.The previous few days had been wet after a period of relatively dry weather but that Saturday was a sunny warmish day.To begin we gave them an explanation about the essential nature of tree planting in today’s Britain and especially on the hills around the Somerset Levels and Moors. They then worked very hard, including planting oaks and small-leaved lime saplings on the difficult steep slope to the north of the site in an area of woodland we have protected from rabbits and deer, and planting a mixture of trees in the 2021 woodland to replace those trees and shrubs that did not survive (about 10% of those planted).
There were some hawthorn bushes in flower already in Feb. but the following spring and summer were characterised by rain. At the end of 2024 I could safely say that  it had been the year of the ant. I have previously mentioned how pleased we were to see the speed at which the yellow meadow ant (Lasius flavus) colonised the field. At 2-4 mm long and living mainly off a sugary solution produced by aphids underground (which are placed there by ants to feed on grass roots) one would be forgiven for assuming no harm could be done by these industrious insects. However, there's the rub, industrious doesn't cut it as a description. They are monumental builders. In this wet summer they took the opportunity to start building their above ground nests inside the 3ft high tree guards we use on the CWCT site. Shouldn’t be a problem, a couple of centimeters of earth wouldn’t harm the trees. Don’t you believe it, they filled the guards with soil and if the trees were not well clear at the top they were killed. Even if the trees were well established they started to put out roots into the soil in the guards and it remains to be seen what will happen now the earth has been removed. So burgeoning biodiversity has its problems, probably because even putting in protective tree guards is an intervention that is not necessary. So soon all guards will be removed and the trees and shrubs free to grow unhindered. That will also possibly stop voles sitting in the bottom of the guards and chewing through the juicy stems. There are many healthy trees and shrubs that grew really fast in the wet summer and overall we are pleased with progress. There are many young oaks kindly planted by jays that are also growing well without intervention
Now turning to our attempts to establish wild flower trial plots, over two years we have seen little success with interventional planting. We have got quite a lot of wild flowers that have appeared spontaneously but only in small patches. Two exceptions - pyramidal orchids and the yellow peril, aka ragwort. Although we stripped out some of the copious ragwort those plants we left had many caterpillars of the cinnabar moth feeding on them. And of course, as luck would have it, the ragwort is the only food plant for said moth. One of the dilemmas of rewilding. Many other insects also use ragwort as a food plant so its biodiversity index is high but in quantity it is unhealthy for farm animals. Wild animals just don’t eat it, farm animals usually eat it in hay.  The answer for us is that we need to establish a wide mix of wildflowers and introducing yellow rattle, a semi-parasitic plant which will reduce grass growth, will be the emphasis in 2025 as this should make getting such a mix established much easier.
Usually in the late summer we cut the meadow grass at the south end of the site but I was unable to complete this task due to wet weather. When there were brief periods of dry enough weather I was cutting and collecting our personal area of meadow and even that did not get completed so not enough time to get to the Trust land.  So lets hope for a dry period before the spring is too far advanced to cut some grass.
During the last two years we have been working with the Woodland Trust. They recently received a 2 acre bequest of land abutting the Trust Land on two sides. They would normally have refused the bequest because they do not have the resource to maintain small areas of isolated woodland all over the country. However, because we were able to assure them that we would be able to build on the legacy and replace dying ash trees with a diverse range of trees and shrubs and then maintain the new woodland in perpetuity they have accepted the bequest and will now sell the land to the Trust at a mutually acceptable value. This is in progress at present and will bring our total holding to between 11 and 12 acres.It is wonderful that we can continue the vision of the ex-owner who started planting the trees 30 years ago and would be ecstatic to know the work will be continued and protected as was intended.
Finally I have to sadly report that our Treasurer and engineering guru Alan Cockerell is standing down after 4 years of hard work from the start of the Trust. As Treasurer he has kept our finances in excellent order and worked with Sylvia to keep the Charity Commission and HMRC happy with us.
I have hugely appreciated Alan’s help with all the practical tasks, we will never forget the crane sculpture he fashioned from an old iron gate and his innovative design for our water collecting structure and mini shed built below it. Not only did he make that contribution to the project but he showed enormous attention to the detail of every aspect of the project and I greatly respected the way he challenged all aspects of our work rigorously so that we were very clear why and how we were doing whatever task was proposed. We could not have had a better Trustee at the start of the project showing 100% commitment and involvement.
I quote an appreciation from Adrian Tate, who was also one of our first trustees. “You have been a key member of the team Alan, whether in planning, attending to important details on the ground, or pitching up at the Reimagining the Levels nursery at Compton Dundon. It’s good to have known you and I have shared an involvement in tree planting at Curry Rivel, before we both moved on to other pastures”.
So in appreciation of Alan’s company and work, which we truly hope he enjoyed, I would like to present him with a small token of the appreciation of all past and present trustees. It.s cricket related as Alan is a a fan of the game .
That ends my report, though before handing over to Alan I will just mention that we are delighted that our newest trustee, Jeremy, is taking over as Treasurer after this meeting. We are also now one trustee short and so on the hunt for someone else who shares our understanding of how important woodland and wildlife are to come forward to join us. If you or anyone you know might be interested please let me know.
 
                              
Appendix 2 Treasurer's report 
Alan talked through the figures:

THE CURRY WOODS CONSERVATION TRUST (CIO)
ACCOUNTS FOR ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 
14TH January 2025
Transactions since last AGM
Current Period
                                                                                                                                        
 General Funds
                                                                                                                                                      £
RECEIPTS                                                                                                                                                                 
                                Curry Rivel Parish Council                                                          500
                                                                                                                               _______
Total Receipts since last AGM                                                                                   £500
 
PAYMENTS
Insurance                                                                                                                      136           
Maintenance costs for site (storage shed).                                                                    53
Fees for website maintenance                                                                                       25
AGM hall hire                                                                                                                 60
                                                                                                                                  ______                                                                                                                            
Total payments since last AGM                                                                                  £274
Cash in bank brought forward                                                                                 £3,165
Cash in bank carried forward                                                                                   £3,391 
                                                                                                                                  =======

Appendix 3 Secretary' report
There have been 4 formal meetings of the trustees in 2024, one of which was held on site and the others at the house called The Woods. Of course trustees meet informally much more frequently, often on the trust land. The formal meeting on site on June 21st was to discuss the results (or lack of them!) on the plots that had been treated and seeded with a wildflower mix at the end of August 2023.  Following a trustee meeting in May it was agreed that the Chairman should contact the Woodland Trust to say that we were, in principle, prepared to incorporate the two acres of  land they inherited, as explained earlier, into the Trust’s holding.  Peter was to request a purchase price and return to the trustees when this was available, as it finally became at the end of the year.
A further informal meeting was also held on site in October when three members of the Reimagining the Levels team came to see our progress on site and also view and pass comment on the trees on the adjacent 2 acres where ash dieback has sadly led to substantial loss as the vast majority of trees originally planted there were oak and ash.
Alan and I put together the annual report to the Charity Commission in April, ready for submission. However yet again the Commission was not ready to receive submissions until September, when it was duly filed. Our report to HMRC caused a few wrinkles as, although nearly all our answers to the large number of questions on forms 600 and 600E are zero, our submissions were rejected twice. No helpful information was supplied and we were all at sea until I managed to get through to speak to a real person at HMRC who explained that not only did we need to submit the two forms but also the same figures in the exact format as submitted to the Charity Commission. When all our zeros were submitted 3 times over HMRC was satisfied. At least I now know what is needed so when Jeremy and I get to sending the information this year we should be ok! At this point I must say how much I have enjoyed working with Alan, who has been a tower of strength and now look forward to working with Jeremy.
  I also maintain the Trust website and am pleased to report that it gets a good number of hits, with Peter’s blogs still being particularly popular. These appear on the website first and then in the Curry Rivel News but they obviously appeal to a wider audience than just those who receive the CRN. If you haven’t looked at the website please do - the address is at the top of the agenda for this meeting.

Thank you