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
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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
