Chair’s Report – Autumn/Winter 2024

Autumn on the land has been beautiful with the seasonal change of colours and fungi making their presence known with their fruiting bodies once again present to our eyes – the natural world has been busy and so have the FHT human team with so much going on.

This busyness was particularly evident during our recent whole FHT team meeting at Cullerne House where we came together to progress the restructuring of the charity as well as to recognise this time of major change with so much happening – you can get some idea of all the things in the overview of activities document that was shared at that event. The suggested restructuring will include creating a new subgroup with an Education and Community focus where our new Membership Secretary, Carolin Waldmann, will be able to meet with others such as Roy Simpson, Birgit Carow who does our marketing and others to focus on these important charitable purposes of the trust.

We will need a few more enthusiastic people to get involved with a particular need for a new FHT Secretary as Talitha Ross unexpectedly left the area so do not be shy in coming forward – contact me directly if you are interested. Other personnel changes happened at the September AGM where Neil Miekleham became a new trustee (see article elsewhere in the newsletter to find a little more about him), Arun Patel stepped down as a trustee and Membership Secretary and in October Chris Latini, who had been a long term volunteer and staying the Shepherd’s Hut, left. As well as working alongside Kajedo, Chris had been involved in a number of small construction projects with George Paul and I including replacing the rotten bench around the fire up at the Woodland Shelter, completing and installing the chunky bench for the West Whins affordable housing cluster and getting wood we had previously milled and stored for the sarking for the new sanctuary roof. Further FHT work for the sanctuary has been undertaken in this last week with the partially burnt timber from the sanctuary site that we had transported, milled and stored for the FF Gardeners being converted into beautiful benches for the vestibule and outside covered area of the new sanctuary by a skilled team led by Steven Porter. (see article elsewhere) This has been a very creative project involving collaboration with the FF who have allowed us to use the Maintenance Building, Sven Skatun over at Marcassie who offered the use of his large planer thicknesser to initially dress the wood, Kathy Tyler who is an important part of the sanctuary build focus group and the time and skill of the construction team comprised of Steven Porter, Donald MacDonald, Andrew Newman, Hugo Klip and I with occasional appearances by Lester Chilman, George Paul and John Willoner.

By far the most significant project on the land to date has been the completion of the first part of the Dune Restoration Project details of which you can read in another article in this newsletter. This was the culmination of at least a year’s meticulous preparatory work by ecologist Sean Reed and was carefully carried out by contractor Gary McKay’s local business Northern Construction Solutions. There were large machines on the ground doing some incredible work. Before this happened, Sue Clutterbuck carried out a land blessing involving adults and children at the spiral site next to the area that has now been converted back to sand dunes.

The above have overshadowed other happenings such as attendance at the CWA (Community Woodland Association) annual conference which this year was in Inverness and attended by George, Ash and myself, the continued use of the land by children including Fiona’s regular group, WildThings! Led weekly work with a class of Kinloss Primary pupils and fairly regular storytelling events around the fire despite the long standing Fledgling group having disbanded, the end of year bedding down of our bees in the apiary by the bee team and the regular work parties the most recent of which involved clearing wood from areas where the gorse basher had mulched to make future grassland areas up by the wind turbines. The study of our lichens has also continued with an interesting visit from an academic team headed by Dr Nathan Chrismas of the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens. (See article elsewhere)

Two other activities are important to mention and those are the funeral of community member Jane Rashbash which took place last month and the Findhorn Foundation and Duneland Ltd land transfer progress. With Jane, the burial team were in operation and carried out the high quality service that they have been providing for the past couple of year’s. Jane highly regarded the work of the trust and wished to leave a generous amount of money for the FHT to create some accommodation for young people to learn from and engage in the land – we will have to take some time to think about what might be appropriate but a huge thank you to Jane for this generous offer, As for the land transfers, all is taking some time but with Duneland the main thing still to be completed is the drawing up of the plan connected to the transfer which is being altered to include the Diamond Wood – FHT trustees have agreed that the charity would take the Diamond Wood on as a nature park if it was going to be for nature and people and if some way of paying for ongoing maintenance could be worked out. Again watch this space. With the FF, they have agreed in principle to the transfer starting in January after they have had the go ahead with OSCR the Scottish charities governing body that this is all ok by them. The FF have been particularly generous towards FHT by making this a gift, offering to pay their own legal fees and allowing FHT to benefit from the rental income which will come from the Findhorn Wind Park use of the land. A huge thank you to the FF trustees for this offer.