April 19, 2012

Oxfordshire Goes Wild

Category: Events, OneOak project

We will be at the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History this Saturday 21st April for Oxfordshire Goes Wild. Staff will be meeting visitors to the OneOak exhibition, that has one week to go before closing, where we will be talking trees and holding a fun quiz. We will be joined by various wildlife organisations and supported by the museum’s amazing educational team.

The event is great for families and offers a chance for children and adults to get close and personal with bugs, flora and fauna around the rest of the museum:- let’s hope the dinosaurs stay asleep!  Why not come along?

Free entry

12 – 4 pm

See the Museum’s What’s On page for further details

 


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Designer-Maker Jody Koomen has shared with us a model of the coffee table that he will be making using wood from the OneOak tree. He is using offcuts from his father Phil Koomen, also a Designer-Maker, so that very little usable wood is wasted. Read more about the Father & Son Designer-Makers

Jody Koomen coffee table model

A model of the coffee table to be made for the OneOak project by Jody Koomen


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April 13, 2012

People power for healthy trees

Category: TreeWatch

Our TreeWatch web platform has received a major update following feedback from partners and volunteers during our 2011 pilot.

We hope that our new strapline captures perfectly the importance of our work in supporting a healthy future for our trees with the help of everyone with an interest in nature and trees …

  “People power for healthy trees“

 

Trees and forests are facing unprecedented threats from an ever increasing number of pest and pathogens. Already in 2012 we have been alerted to the first ever reports in the UK of the serious pest the Asian Longhorn beetle, and the pathogen Chestnut blight, which has killed 3.5 billion chestnuts in the US.

 

TreeWatch homepage

The new homepage of TreeWatch

The new homepage for TreeWatch enables volunteers to read a short summary about our current surveys, and with a single click go to the survey page.  A live map shows the distribution of adopted trees.

We listened to the views of users during our 2011 pilot and have made significant changes to the structure of the website. The major changes are:

- volunteers can report a simple presence/absence record without having to adopt a tree

- everything relating to each survey has been brought together. Report a finding, adopt a tree, read about the survey, or explore the results submitted by other volunteers – all on one page.

- as the number of trees and data has increased on the website, the time taken for the map to load increased. We have introduced some nifty ‘clustering’ icons that group together any data that is located close to other data.

TreeWatch - new look survey page with clustering of data on the map

TreeWatch - new look survey page with clustering of data on the map


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We announced recently that the judging had taken place of entries by Rycotewood students into the OneOak fine furniture competition – read more. We are delighted to announce the two winners. They are Matt Wakeham (18) and Harry Friday (19). We asked Matt and Harry to tell us more about themselves and their entries into the competition. Along with their words below, we include photos of their models.

Matt Wakeham, 18, has just finished a furniture and cabinet making course at Warwickshire College’s School of Arts. He said: “My idea for the OneOak competition is designed around the pure shape of the rough sawn, waney-edged boards that were curving and tapering from one end to the other. My design incorporates the timber’s honest and natural beauty by using all the character and knots where possible. I aim to give the piece a contemporary arts and crafts feel through the construction shown on display – these will be through dovetails. I am very grateful to be part of this unique project and look forward to making the tables and exhibiting them at Art in Action this summer.”

OneOak fine furniture competition winner entry

OneOak fine furniture competition winner entry by Matt Wakeham. Model and concept design.

Harry Friday, 19, spent three years at Moulton College in Northampton studying furniture design and make. “I am now in my first year at Rycotewood which is going very well. I’m designing my own work, which is all new to me but is fulfilling my talent. The piece I designed is a console table, based on the way that the tree grows. The legs give a splitting branches effect, making the piece look like is growing.”

OneOak fine furniture competition winner entry by Harry Friday. Model and concept design.

OneOak fine furniture competition winner entry by Harry Friday. Model and concept design.


We will be following up on Matt and Harry’s progress with their pieces here on this blog and as Matt says, they will be on display at Art in Action from 19-22 July.


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Another milestone was reached last week when the area of woodland mapped on the myForest service passed the 12,000 hectares mark.

We still have plenty of work to do in helping to support Britain’s woodland owners in managing their trees and forests, and in improving links between growers and wood users. There are probably in excess of 90,000 private woodland owners in Britain, owning some 2.2 million ha. View the latest myForest service statistics

We have also created a sandbox account so if you are a forestry student or just want to have go using the mapping and planning tools then please feel free to set up a sandbox account

 

 


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OneOak Art in Action press release

OneOak Art in Action press release

Our first of three major exhibitions during 2012 will be on show at Art in Action from 19-22 July.

This is the first complete exhibition at which every aspect of the OneOak project, including all the many dozens of wood items made from the OneOak tree, will be brought together. They will be on display alongside our many works of art and stories of the science and people involved in the full life story of the OneOak tree.

The Woodwork marquee is being taken over completely by the OneOak project. Sylva’s main stand will be manned by our staff who will be on hand to talk with the public and we will be showing the many films made in the project, selling works of art, and we will be joined by the artists, musicians and makers who will be talking and demonstrating their craft. Also in the marquee will be 12 OneOak demonstrators, including many of Britain’s best designer makers.

Art in Action showcases the best of British art and where, as its name suggests, the artists demonstrate their skills in front of the public. It is held at Waterperry in Oxfordshire (map).


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Sylva shop

We have a number of limited edition prints of the OneOak tree portrait, drawn by internationally-renowned artist Sarah Simblet, still available for sale in our Sylva shop.

The prints, limited to 100 and each signed and numbered by the artist, offer a rare opportunity for the public to own a stunning reproduction of Sarah Simblet’s work.  Typically the artist sells only through her books. To date, we have sold prints of the OneOak tree portrait to buyers in Australia, United States and across Europe.

Thanks to the generosity of the artist, all proceeds go to our charitable work.

Visit the Sylva shop to find out more


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Some OneOak timber has been used in the building of a Trow by traditional shipbuilders in Gloucester. The ship will sail in a flotilla of one thousand ships on the River Thames in June, to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s reign of sixty years.

The Pageant on the River Thames will celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, where one thousand boats will pass from Battersea Bridge to Tower Bridge on Sunday 3 June, led by Her Majesty’s barge.

Boats taking part in the pageant were selected by invitation and by an open submission process. A boat representing each county of the United Kingdom was entered. One of these was for the county of Herefordshire. A ‘Herefordshire Diamond Jubilee Fund’ was established through private sponsorship, which allowed the group to commission a ‘Trow’. The Trow was flat-bottomed barge with a shallow draught, powered by sail, drawn by horses or, more usually by gangs of men known as bow hauliers. In the 18th and 19th Centuries it was a poplar ship design for transporting goods on the Rivers Wye and Severn.  Trows were used to move many different cargoes including coal, wood, cider and wool. Only one complete Trow (a River Severn Trow) remains in existence, which can be seen at the Ironbridge Museum in Shropshire.

Herefordshire Trow

An engraved historical image of a working River Severn Trow and a model Trow at the Nelson Museum in Monmouth

The new trow is being built by T Nielsen & Co; traditional shipbuilders at Gloucester Docks.  Douglas Fir and Oak timber has been donated from several Herefordshire estates, and has now been joined by our OneOak beam.

Following a design created by maritime historian Colin Green, author of ‘Severn Traders’,  the Trow will be 11m (36’) long with a 2.75m (9’) beam.   It will be finished in Spring 2012 in time to be tried and tested and for a crew drawn from the county youth to be trained to take part in the great pageant on the Thames in June. The trow will have 8 oars and will later be fitted with its mast when it no longer needs to pass under low bridges. It is to be named The Hereford Bull in a ceremony in May.

 

Building the Trow at T Nielsen's yard in Gloucester

Building the Trow at T Nielsen's yard in Gloucester. Photos Andrew Wynn.

The piece of OneOak has a prominent place in the Trow, where it provides structural strength and support for the mast.

OneOak beam in the Trow

The freshly fitted OneOak beam in the Trow at T Nielsen's shipyard

 

 

Read more about the Trow project:



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As part of the Chilterns LEADER project a myForest inventory and mapping meeting will be held at  the Pavilion, Newlands Lane, Stoke Row (for the Cricket pitch). The meeting will start with an indoor presentation by Alistair Yeomans of the Sylva Foundation on the myForest woodland inventory toolkit, to help with the gathering of information for producing a management plan.

 

For the second part of the workshop we will be in a small privately owned wood nearby to carry out some woodland assessments and measurements.

 

For further details please contact John Morris at the Chilterns Woodland Project – woodlands@chilternsaonb.org



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Chestnut blight, caused by the fungus Cryphonectria parasitica (C. parasitica), has been confirmed in Britain for the first time by scientists from Forest Research. The blight was found on young trees in two small orchards of European sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa) in Warwickshire and East Sussex.

The fungus infection is usually fatal to European sweet chestnut and its North American relative, Castanea dentata, although it appears to be less virulent in Europe than it is in America. It is believed to have first originated in Eastern Asia before being introduced to North America in the late 19th Century, where it has since devastated billions of trees in the East of the country (see The American Chestnut Foundation). It was first identified in Europe in 1938, in Italy, and has since spread to most parts of southern Europe where sweet chestnut is grown, and to parts of northern Europe.

Identifying chestnut blight

The most obvious symptoms of chestnut blight are wilting and die-back of tree shoots. Young trees with this infection normally die back to the root collar, and might re-sprout before becoming re-infected. Other symptoms, such as stem cankers and the presence of fruiting bodies can also occur.

Read more about the fungus and find out how to report a possible occurence of chestnut blight on the Forestry Commission’s webpage for Chestnut Blight

Read more about our work to combat tree pests and diseases at www.TreeWatch.com

 

 

 


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