Archive for the :: Forest Centre Category

Colourful creatures at the Forest Centre (image Jane Lambourne/Wassledine)

Monday 13 February saw the beginning of the half term holidays.  The weather outside was grey and dreary.  But I was soon immersed in a very colourful and creative kids’ session.

As always, Jane had devised a wonderful variety of activities which allowed the children to use their imaginations to the fullest extent.  And that was exactly what they did!

Over the four sessions, nearly a hundred kids showed their skills and coloured, glued and moulded a huge variety of creatures.  Some were from life, like the red-eyed tree frogs and colourful parrots, which they brought to life using crayons and scrunched-up tissue paper.  Others were truly amazing and marvellous creatures that had been dreamt up in their heads and modelled using coloured plasticine.  They used a variety of other materials to embellish their work and they became so absorbed that it was difficult to bring the sessions to a close.

The other volunteers (Diane, Pam 1 and Pam 2) were stunned with the creations and are looking forward to the next session on Friday – Stripy Faces (very nearly fully booked today – please call 01234 767037 to check availability).  I wonder what Jane has up her sleeve this time …

Jean Sargeant, Volunteer

Nick Webb, Judith Feline and Tony Talbot celebrate 20 years of the Forest

Past, present and future Managing Directors of the Marston Vale Trust joined numerous others, including many past-employees, last Wednesday 14 December, to celebrate twenty years of the creation of the Forest of Marston Vale.

The evening started with  the welcome return of Judith Feline. Judith guided the creation of the Marston Vale Trust and the staff team’s departure from the relative comfort of Beds County Council’s employ. Those were often difficult times through which, in addition, Judith guided the Forest Centre and Millennium Country Park’s construction. For those with memories long enough, John Craven and Bob the Builder might sound a familiar note.

Members of the current Forest Staff Team spoke briefly about their experiences of working for the organisation and formalities concluded with presentations of an inscribed spade to departing Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Talbot; and a carved ash bowl to departing Chair of Trustees, Mrs Fiona Chapman, MBE, DL. Mrs Chapman will stay on as Chairman until the end of March 2012 whilst Nick Webb, new Chief Executive gets himself established.

It was very good to see so many old faces and to enjoy the generally very positive vibe of the evening. Thanks for coming.

Here’s to the next twenty years.

Pink Ladies Night at the Forest Centre

Around 250 people came to the Forest Centre to enjoy a Pink Ladies Night last week, buying  jewellery, food, artwork, clothes and much more from a huge range of stands spread around the Forest Centre’s Lakeside Cafe.

The evening raised £1850 for Breast Cancer Awareness. 

Everyone involved had a great time and especially appreciated the impressive contribution made by Dean and other members of the male Cafe team (pictures too graphic to exhibit here).
Thanks to everyone who came and helped to raise such an impressive total.

If you missed it, you might like to know that there’s a repeat already in the planning stage Wednesday 28 November 2012. To receive regular email updates on this and everything else that’s planned at the Forest Centre and throughout the Forest, fill in your address in the box to the right.

More information about Breast Cancer Awareness

Lifting new solar panels onto the Centre roof (image Don Morris)

As part of the Marston Vale Trust’s commitment to making a real contribution to combating climate change, we are fitting solar panels to the roof of the Forest Centre.  These panels will cover over 400m² of the roof and are expected to generate 40,000kWh of electricity every year.  This will mean that over a quarter of the Forest Centre’s annual electricity usage will be coming from solar energy. 

The solar panels are the latest step that the Trust has taken in creating a more sustainable future.  We already heat the Forest Centre and our hot water with woodchip and have achieved ISO 14001 accreditation for our environmental management system following a whole series of measures, including low energy lighting and increased recycling.

We are always looking for ways to improve the efficiency of how the Forest Centre and all of the Trust’s activities are run and hope to be harvesting wind energy next year after completion of a wind turbine in the Millennium Country Park.

New CEO and MD, Nick Webb

Nick Webb has been appointed the next Chief Executive of Marston Vale Trust and Managing Director of our operating company (Marston Vale Services Ltd). He will be taking up his new appointment on 1 January 2012.

Nick has outstanding experience in both the commercial and charity sectors – he has started up his own company which he grew and ran for ten years before its sale, by which time it was achieving a £2.4m annual turnover.  In 2008 Nick set up a new charity working with young people (Pro-Action Hertfordshire). This now employs nine full-time staff and seven part time staff and has a turnover of just under a £1M.  Nick is particularly excited by our social enterprise approach as a means of creating the Forest of Marston Vale.

 Nick and his wife, together with their three children, live in Redbourn.

Christmas tree at the Forest Centre

We have some beautiful trees here for sale some of which were grown by the Community Tree Trust. These have root balls and we hope you’ll want to make yours survive the Christmas period and even into next spring. If so, follow these few instructions:
– Plant in a large pot as soon as possible, in a potting compost of some type, just as if you were planting outside.
- Bring the tree into your home and decorate as usual
- Water very sparingly – keeping the compost very slightly damp through Christmas and New Year
- In January, remove the tree from its pot, wet the roots with water and wrap the whole of the root ball in a plastic bag
- Return your tree to us at the Forest Centre. We will return it to the CTT who will ensure it gets planted back into the wild.

Your tree shouldn’t die, shouldn’t drop too many needles and will make a beautiful contribution to a new wood in the future.

All Christmas trees cost £35. Enquire at Forest Centre reception. Available until stocks last.

Children making Bird Feeders

Nearly 100 children had great fun at the Forest Centre last week, making bird feeders out of recycled materials. Our feathered friends need a bit of help as we head in to winter, and feeding birds in the garden is a popular way of doing this.

You don’t have to spend a fortune on expensive bird feeders, in fact, you can make one with items you would normally throw in the recycling bin. Milk bottles, yoghurt pots and drinks bottles can all be transformed with minimum effort into feeders which, when filled with seed, can be hung in your garden to feed the birds.

This was great fun but for many, the messy part was best. A mixture of lard and bird seed was put in a bowl. Children rolled up their sleeves and mashed up the fat and seed together. This sticky concoction makes up a bird cake containing lots of important nutrients to help birds through the lean winter months. The bird cake was then pushed and squished into old pine cones collected from local woodland. A short bit of string attached to the top of the pine cone and abracadabra – a brilliant home made fat ball!

The children had great fun and got to take home their hard work and feed the birds in their own garden.

Why not try it for yourself- you could even participate in the RSPB big Garden Birdwatch on the 28^th and 29^th January 2012- all you have to do is watch birds in your own garden or local greenspace for one hour- easy!

Check out the rest of our children’s events on the events section of our website.

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Wedding Fayre at the Forest Centre on Saturday 16 October [images Brian Bayliss

Third successful Fayre

This Fayre will build on the successes of three previous events at the Forest Centre since 2009, since when the Centre Team has attracted additional wedding businesses and found out even more about what you need to ease the process of organising a wedding. 

Making your life easier

Let’s face it, planning the big day can be fraught. A wedding is an occasion that just has to be right and that can be a burden, even for the most organised of us. The Forest Centre’s Wedding Fayre could be the answer for you. By bringing all the services you’ll need into one place on one day, the whole process could become less of a trial and your challenge to get it right, an easier one. 

Ideas in abundance

Throughout the day, you will have the chance to meet and chat to experts – weddings are what they do best. Even if you know what you want, you’re bound to pick up some bright ideas. And if for you the whole thing is a mystery, don’t despair; experts will be on hand to guide you through every stage. There will be planners, designers, printers, ballooners, florists, beauticians, hair stylists, discos, hirers of fancy cars… 

Centre for hire

Of course, if you are in need of a venue for your wedding that offers a beautiful location, superb catering and the best possible service for you and your guests, don’t forget to talk to Forest Centre staff about our wedding packages. And don’t forget that all profits from your wedding are ploughed back into the creation of the Forest of Marston Vale. 

And a little something for the bride to be…

Just to make the day irresistible, we would like to offer every bride to be a glass of bubbly. Don’t miss out. 

For more details contact call 01234 762613

Smiles all round despite the driving rain

As we are in the business of doing things outside in a Country Park we have to accept that sometimes the weather will come around and slap us in the face; or at least that’s what it feels like. This year Saturday at Woodworks! was pretty warm by 3pm, visitor numbers broke all records and although the forecast for Sunday wasn’t completely lovely, it wasn’t awful.

Well it turned out to be pretty bad in reality. The promised showers turned into two hours of driving rain in which all but the really hardened visitor retreated to the Centre’s cafe or one of the show marquee’s.

However, you are a hardy lot. By the time the sun came out at four (requested rather politely by Musa Mboob at a quarter to four), there were still plenty of people around. Still, a great shame for the weather to have put the literal dampers on the day.

If you were there, we all hope you had a great time; if not, make a note for 2012 – 1 & 2 September.

A quick thank you to everyone involved – stall holders, arena acts, musicians (and sound crew), sponsors and staff. Special thanks to all the very many Forest Volunteers without whom Woodworks! could never happen. It seems unfair to mention anyone special here but I’m going to anyway – huge thanks to Michele Read at Fabnights for producing the music, and to Joan Ferguson for her amazing enthusiasm throughout the weekend (and at other times too).

Musa Mboob with his band Xam Xam

Finally – thanks and massive congratulations to Anna Charles for bringing the whole monster together so brilliantly.

See you next year!

Have a look at Facebook for some more pictures.