Abingdon Green Gym Blog

Due to the ongoing Covid 19 situation and the current Tier 4 restrictions in Oxfordshire, it is with regret that we have made the decision to cancel all our forthcoming sessions until further notice. Stay safe and we hope to see everyone again as soon as circumstances permit.

There was a depleted team this Saturday owing to the limited amount of volunteers permitted to work on the BBOWT site at Dry Sandford Pit. So rather than waste the enthusiasm on turning down our devoted members, one of our leaders Eleanor kindly volunteered to take and surplus to Abingdon Southern town park and do some tidying up. This resulted in seven of us going to dry Sandford. The weather was fine but chilly which is always a good excuse to work up a sweat before refreshment break. The task was basically to continue with the same job we were doing last time; to clear the area of scrub and brambles below the sand bank, containing the cliff face which exposing the strata layer of marine fossils. The area was once a sea bed, millions of years ago. What we lost in numbers, we made up with two scythers, Adrian and Sally - who cut a swath through the scrub, whilst the other five - Graham, Colin, Lesley and myself followed up with cutting down larger bushes and shrubs too big for the scy...

We were quite a small group for this session, compared to the previous two Saturdays. We met in the car park and walked along to the site. It was a beautiful day, though cold, with blue sky and sunshine for once. We were working under the direction of Steph and her assistant, Holly, from Natural England. We split into two groups as there were two main tasks - to transport the reeds cut by the Friday volunteer group to the causeway across the water, to be spread along it, making it stronger and safer to walk on and to do some coppicing in the woods. We cleared the nearest heaps of reeds quite quickly, then had to move on to the heaps in the fen itself. These were trickier to get to as it was hard to see the depth and we were in danger of getting a wellyful of water but we made it and soon got into a rhythm, with Graham and me bag filling, new member Colin dragging the bags and Kevin spreading them along the causeway. Meanwhile the sawing and lopping was going on in the woods and the har...

We returned to Two Pines Fen today to pick up where we left off last week - to continue scything and raking the reeds across this Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), set within Frilford Heath Golf Course. Again, our session was held to take advantage of the current course closure. Led again by Sally, we were 18-strong this time including new member Colin and almost-new member Camilla. We had five scythers among us and the remainder of the group raked and stacked reeds both in piles on the boundaries and within the stream running through the fen to slow the water and encourage it to spill outwards onto the wetland area. There had been plenty of reeds left untouched despite our best efforts last week and these were all cut during the morning on the main site with clearance on an additional small area off to one side. A further large reed bed area will also require attention in the near future, but we did well to achieve what we did today. -Andrew Meeting at the compound. Arriving...

Our new programme for Winter 2020/2021 has just been published. A downloadable pdf version can be found here: https://groups.tcv.org.uk/abingdongreengym/files/2020/11/GGWinter2021.pdf We are currently looking for new session leaders! All necessary training will be provided. Please contact us for further information or speak to a session leader/committee member at any Abingdon Green Gym session. 

Two Pines Fen Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) at Frilford Heath Golf Club was the venue for yesterday's re-scheduled Green Gym session. We work here with Natural England (the government's adviser for the natural environment in England), who are happy for our socially-distanced work parties to go ahead during the current lockdown period. Their operational update regarding activities during the ongoing coronavirus situation can be found here -  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/operational-update-covid-19   Sally took on the leadership duty and instructed the 15-strong group on the jobs to be carried out after we had assembled at the ground-staffs' compound. After completing the signing-in form and the risk assessment, we set off for the fen, a short walk to the end of the nearest fairway. The principle task involved raking up reeds that had already been cut during previous sessions and those that were cut during the morning. These were then stacked in piles by th...

Our remaining programme for November has been cancelled due to the lockdown. However, volunteering is still permitted under the government guidelines and our parent organisation TCV have approved us holding sessions during this time subject to the updated COVID 19 safety guidelines. Therefore as part of a revised schedule, a group of six of us met at the Tesco end of the Ock Valley Walk for a socially-distanced morning of litter picking, path sweeping and sowing of wild flower seeds. Eleanor led the charge, issuing us with our details. It was apparent that there was a large amount of litter to be collected and half of us set off with bags for recyclable and non-recyclable waste. Much of the bounty was made up of discarded drinks cans and bottles, with an alarming number of disposable face masks also lining the path.  As well as litter, the path was covered with fallen leaves which had become quite slippery as a result of the rain. Armed with rakes and spades, we cleared these to t...