Planting trees to celebrate community success in special anniversary year
Community Land Week returns this year in an expanded celebration that will run from the 13th to the 29th of October. This will be the fifth Scotland-wide festival of community landowners event, coordinated by Community Land Scotland and the Scottish Government Community Land Team.
As part of the celebrations, Carsphairn Community Woodland are holding a Volunteer Open Day, bringing the community and volunteers together to carry out various woodland tasks, from sowing seed right through to tree planting.
The woodland was purchased for the community in 2021 and has since gone from strength to strength, developing timber product production on site and employing young people as part of the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership Interns Programme.
The Volunteer Open Day will take place on Sunday 22nd October from 11am till 3pm. Throughout the the day there will be woodland walks, sawmill demonstrations and wildlife watching at the hide, as well as soup and refreshments.
David McMillan, Chair of Carsphairn Community Woodland said:
“We have had a busy year engaging two pre-apprentices, the first of whom completed his time in June with great success. Projects completed this year have included a tree nursery/polycrub and a children’s woodland play area. A successful open day and horse logging demonstration day took place and plans have been approved for an extension to our existing building which will greatly benefit all woodland users.
Our Volunteer Open Day is part funded by Community Land Scotland which is greatly appreciated.”
Community Land Scotland was set up in 2010 as a voice for community landowners, to help its members share knowledge and information, to encourage communities to consider landownership and to highlight the benefits of community landownership to Scotland. Around 500 community groups now own 212,000 hectares of land and numerous buildings across Scotland.
This is a special year for Scotland’s community-controlled properties, marking 100 years since the first significant urban buyout, when the then Lord Leverhulme gifted the town of Stornoway to the townspeople, and the annual celebration of community ownership has been extended to a fortnight this year rather than the usual week-long event. Many of the community projects taking part were set up with financial help from the Scottish Land Fund.
Community Land Scotland Development Manager Linsay Chalmers, said:
“This is a special year for Community empowerment and it’s fantastic to have vibrant projects such as Carsphairn Community Woodland participating. Every buyout, large or small, urban and rural, is very important to its community.
A lot of people have worked very hard to make these buyouts successful and we very pleased to celebrate that success across Scotland.”
In 2023, nearly 50 communities across Scotland will participate in Community Land Week across 40 areas of Scotland, with events ranging from guided walks across community-owned land and mushroom cultivation workshops, to pumpkin festivals and ceilidhs.
The full map of Community Land Week events is available here, and other local community celebrations include:
Closeburn, Thornhill - Crazy Camp Out
Midsteeple Quarter, Dumfries - Geli Printing
A’ the Airts, Sanquhar - Community Music Night with Buffet and Bar
Find out more about Carsphairn Community Woodland Volunteer Open Day at https://www.communitylandscotland.org.uk/event/carsphairn-community-woodland. For further information about Carsphairn Community Woodland, contact David McMillan on 07710124255, email: carsphairncw@gmail.com.