Warley Woods - May

We have a great fund raising opportunity by collecting old ink jet cartridges. Bring them here to the office or golf shop and they can be recycled. Last week we had a bag of old cartridges brought in worth over £60! All the money goes to Trust funds to help with the running of the park. So nag your friends, relatives and neighbours and see how much we can raise for Warley Woods.

Our series of walks and talks continues in on Sunday May 18th with a Springwatch Walk through the Woods. This will be led by RSPB volunteer (and Warley Woods volunteer) Liz Coleman. Booking is recommended as places will be limited. Cost is £2 which includes coffee/tea afterwards. Meet at 11 a.m. at the Trust Office.

There will be a Tree Walk in June led by Chris Shortis who led last year's squirrel walk. Further details will be in next month's e-mail.

Never say that the local children are afraid of hard work! During the hailstorms earlier this month children from Abbey Junior School and St Gregory's School came to the Woods to do a litter pick associated with Sandwell's Big Spring Clean. Despite awful weather the children gathered up bags of litter to help keep the park looking beautiful and in the process got thoroughly soaked. Thanks to you all for your efforts!

Thanks also to the 30 or so Sunday volunteers - including the local Scouts - who cleared loads of litter early in the month. It can seem a thankless task, but it's exciting to see who has the most unusual 'finds'. A bunk bed ladder won the prize this time!

In 2009 we are hoping to have a series of monologues telling the story of the Park through the eyes of the people most closely associated with it - for example, Repton, Chance, Galton. We are looking for local writers and historians who can help us to gather the information and then turn it into a dramatic format. The plan is that this will happen to coincide with the Heritage Open Weekend which takes place annually across the country at the beginning of September. So if you or anyone you know has the historical knowledge or writing skills to help with the project please contact Viv at the office - she will be delighted to hear from you.

There has been lots of publicity for Warley Woods over the last few weeks - including an article in the Express and Star about the mystery of the stolen door handle (taken from the office door in the middle of the afternoon!) This week there was a piece on Central News which was picking up on the History walk done by David Yates earlier this month, and highlighting again how beautiful the Woods are. The cameraman who filmed this piece was 'bowled over' by the park, and was keen to do more filming in the future.

A call to all gardeners. If you have any spare bedding plants or plants suitable for hanging baskets please don't throw them out! We need plants for the beds at the entrance to the car park and to put in hanging baskets around the pavilion as we did last year. Please contact the office to arrange for them to be brought in or collected if you are unable to bring them in yourself.

Finally, some information about opening and closing times. The golf shop is open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. (7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at weekends) and the internal gate by the car park shuts at around 7 p.m. when the shop closes. (This can be earlier if the weather is awful.) It's worth bearing this in mind if you park your car in the car park and go into the Woods otherwise you may have to go the long way round to get back to your car!

Online Donations

We are now able to accept online donations through this link - thank you in advance...

If you would like to receive monthly e-mails from the Trust, keeping you up to date with what's happening, then please e-mail admin@warleywoods.org.uk