Off-grid Eco-friendly Woodland Classroom

What a difference a month makes!

This report is not just a thank you to all of you who have contributed to our Cabin fund, which recently has helped to hire machinery and purchase landscaping materials, but a tribute to the amazing Andover Trees United volunteers who have stepped up to transform the area around The Cabin, reinstating paths and showcasing the beautiful building.

In 2022, when digging the post holes for The Cabin, a Bronze Age ditch was revealed. Painstakingly excavated and recorded over 2 years and a joy to see the handiwork of 'diggers' dating back 5000 years, it was unfortunatelyright where the path needed to be.

At this year's charity AGM on September 14th, everybody present encircled the ditch and, led by archaeologist Chris Elmer, all paid their respects to the people who, millennia ago, had dug out this ditch with nothing more than antlers for their tools to provide the soil for a burial mound atop the hill where our Cabin now stands.

Two days later, our regular Monday volunteers lined the ditch with bark and branches and leaves and wrote messages to the future, which were placed in a jar and hidden in the soil beneath the branches. The following weekend the heavy machinery arrived which was driven by volunteers - some of whom had driven long distances to help - to backfill the ditch and level the area around The Cabin. 

Since then we have seen all weathers from bright sunshine to torrential downpours but, over the intervening month, the area has been raked level, flower banks created and planted with 100s of wildflowers, a wooden boardwalk and tons of stone laid, as well as a raised bed built to showcase the varied wild flowers that grow in our wood. An incredible testament to what can be achieved when we work together. 

With apologies to GlobalGiving for the number of photos that accompany this report, but this story is best told in pictures. 
And, as ever, this comes with heartfelt thanks for your ongoing support as we move ever closer to completing this project.

Links:

• This year's AGM held for the first time in The Cabin

Hello everybody and thankyou for your continued support as we edge closer to completing this project. And what a difference it is making!

Over the past four months, the Cabin has been in regular use,.providing shelter to volunteers on spring's many wet and windswept workdays and now cool shade as June sunshine blazes. For the volunteers whose task it is to look after their fellow volunteers – making teas and coffees, serving cake, washing up - the difficulties of working under canvas are already becoming a distant memory as we get used to having a kitchen with water on tap and shelves and drawers (makeshift though they still are) and rails on which to hang towels and DOORS that keep out the wing and rain. We have to pinch ourselves to check it's all real!  As I write, we are half way through the first week of our annual, community 'Between the Barrows' dig and the wonderful archaeologists who give their time to run this for us have said their stay with us has been transformed.       

The young people for whom we run nature-based activities can rest assured that their sessions will no longer have to be cancelled and our hard-working officers and activity leaders finally have somewhere to organise and store resources and kit and paperwork, as well as a base from which they can work. We have even started to receive requests for private bookings meaning we finally have income potential. 

With regard to the build itself, many of the remaining snags have been completed:

• safe winch systems to operate the external movable walls have been designed and installed
• storage areas have been created, crates and boxes bought, space organised and a filing system created
• the last inside floor has been sanded and sealed
• in the kitchen, curtains have been sewn to conceal the still makeshift under counter areas 
• while outside, landscaping has begun with hard standing areas created and the shower shed (built by The Carpenters' Fellowship' in 2021) moved so that paths around the building can finally be reinstated
• and just yesterday, the solar system was extended to give us three times more capacity - apparently we could now even boil a kettle! (Well, at least in summer!)

The formal presentation by The Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire of our King's Award for Voluntary Service took place on April 19th and we took the opportunity to invite The Lord Lieutenant to unveil a plaque declaring the Cabin OPEN! A link to a news report of this special day can be found below                                                                                             

So... what's left to do? Although there are still many fixtures and fitting to source and instal and all the porch and veranda floors to scrub, sand and seal, the last large job is the landscaping that will restore the area around the building to a green and functional space, reconnecting it to the wood in which it sits. As you can see from the above, your donations have already achieved so much and with your help, we know we can complete these final stages of the project. 
Look out for our 'Landscape Around The Cabin' appeal for July Bonus Day and, from all of us, THANK YOU for helping to transform the way we work.

Links:

• Royal Recognition